Ep. 3: Taste in Space
Does food taste different in space? How do we know? Can we really trust astronauts on this? WHAT MAKES THEM SO SPECIAL? Oh. Right. That. Transcript at https://podcast.unwieldylocutions.com/podcast/ep-3-taste-in-space/
Does food taste different in space? How do we know? Can we really trust astronauts on this? WHAT MAKES THEM SO SPECIAL? Oh. Right. That.
Transcript at https://podcast.unwieldylocutions.com/podcast/ep-3-taste-in-space/
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IF YOU EVER GET TOO STRESSED JUST REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE ON A SPINNING ORB HURTLING THROUGH NOTHINGNESS NEAR A BALL OF FIRE
OH GOD
— NOT A WOLF (@SICKOFWOLVES) March 9, 2017
The carbonated beverage dispenser patent.
Scientific American article on the effects of microgravity and space on human bodies.
Scientific American article on how smell works on taste.
Scientific American article on taste in space.
ALSO, we have, since recording, changed some of our equipment, so hopefully this is the last episode where it sounds like Spencer is talking through a pillow.
TRANSCRIPT
[Theme song: “Drone” by Chastity Belt chorus]
He was just another man, tryin’ to teach me somethin’
He was just another man, tryin’ to teach me somethin’
Spencer: Welcome to Mansplainer, this is Spencer
Patti: And this is Patti, and I have a question, as usual. And I kind of know the answer to this, I think, a little bit, but does food taste different, differently, in space. And I guessing that, the answer is at least to some extent, the answer is yes because tomato juice tastes different on a plane. But why?
Spencer: Huh.
Patti: What?
Spencer: I didn’t think about the tomato juice thing.
Patti : Yeah, that’s why I thought of it and then I wondered if it applies to more foods, and does it get more extreme? The less atmosphere there is?
Spencer: So, I think the plane thing is, like, a couple factors, but those factors are also at play in space, just at really different ratios. So, the short answer to “does food taste different in space?” is yes, probably. Definitely at first, probably, I think and results are inconclusive about whether that change sticks around. When it’s been specifically studied about whether stuff tastes different, although all the research that hasn’t been asking astronauts directly does this taste different is basically, “yeah, it does taste different and stick around as different.”
Patti: I don’t understand any of that. So, what are-
Spencer: (laughing) You couldn’t follow that very clear and compelling statement?
Patti: Yeah, let me try to parse what you just said.
Spencer: Okay.
Patti: So, when you get up into space, initially food tastes a little different than it does at – on earth.
Spencer: Yeah.
Patti: But – how… your taste buds may adapt or you may adapt so that it tastes like it normally tastes while you’re up there?
Spencer: Yeah, and this is where it gets a little hinky. So…
Patti: I really just thought that you were going to lead with the tomato juice thing. I thought you were going to lean into it hard, so that fact that it didn’t even occur to you is kind of amazing.
Spencer: I don’t like tomatoes and I don’t like tomato juice –
Patti: Well, neither do I, but I think it’s really weird that it tastes different on planes and apparently people who don’t like it sometimes like it on airplanes. Apparently, it’s less acidic. This is what they say.
Spencer: Okay, so, it is really not uncommon for astronauts to like foods that they don’t normally like when they are in space.
Patti: Is it because it tastes different? Or are they just desperate?
Spencer: It’s probably a combination of the two. I, I, based on my research –
Patti: It’s weird that I even asked this question because I have some serious issues thinking about space and I’m not really comfortable thinking about it now, I did not think this through…
Spencer: Based on what I have read and seen, looked up, I am inclined to believe that food tastes different and it stays tasting different while you’re in space. So, there are a couple different factors at play. One is, maybe, the most obvious and it’s that in space, like in an airplane, you’re getting a lot of air that’s processed –
Patti: (whispered) Innnnnn spaaaace
Spencer: Fooood innnnn spaaaace, like pigs in space? Is that what you were going for?
Patti: No, I was just being creepy.
Spencer: Oh.
Patti: You ruined it.
Spencer: Okay. Now we found an antidote to creepy is the muppets, good to know.
Patti: But is it? Deadly’s pretty creepy.
Spencer: I don’t know – he was pretty funny – all right. He was pretty great at Miss Piggy’s assistant though.
Patti: He’s one of my favorites. I love him, with his feathers.
Spencer: Yeah.
Patti: Go on.
Spencer: It really adds a lot of character, doesn’t it? Okay, so, the air is pretty processed. Which means that because it’s being recycled and filtered, and put back out into the space where people are so they can continue to breath, that will affect the kind of quality of the air and that will affect how you smell and taste because smell is a big part of taste.
Patti: heh.
Spencer: Not how the astronauts smell, oh my gosh.
Patti: But how ‘bout how they taste? Are they salty?
Spencer: I’ve never tasted an astronaut, I couldn’t tell you. Oh my god.
Patti: Go on.
Spencer: Okay, and the other one, which, probably has a bigger effect is that microgravity in space does all kinds of stuff to human bodies.
Patti: microgravity.
Spencer: You’re giving me a look like “you’re such a poindextery…”
Patti: Well, what does – No! What is microgravity?
Spencer: So, in space –
Patti: Itty bitty gravity.
Spencer: Basically, like, on the international space station where most of this has really been conducted it’s not zero G, because it’s still, earth is like right there. The international space station is surprisingly not that far away from the earth. It’s still in space, it’s in orbit, but it’s not like way out there. It’s way, way, way, way, way, way closer to the earth than the moon is. Right?
Patti: Uh huh
Spencer: I’ll stop talking about space in a second, sort of, I promise.
Patti: It’s just out there.
Spencer: So
Patti: Flyin’ around.
Spencer: There is still definitely the effect of the earth’s gravity on astronauts, but the effect it so minor compared to being on the surface of the earth due to the fact that it’s much further away from the center of mass of the earth –
Patti: Right.
Spencer: And the fact that they’re in motion around the earth in orbit –
Patti: (gagging)
Spencer: Means that most of the effects that they might otherwise notice are, uh, mitigated by the fact that their frame of reference, which is the international space station in this case, is moving along with them it’s an effect like there is no gravity on them but still there is a little bit of gravity on them so it’s not technically zero-G but perceptually it kind of is but on their bodies it’s not exactly zero-G its – so microgravity is basically just the official term for what –
Patti: Okay.
Spencer: What they’re experiencing. Okay, so microgravity does all kinds of stuff to human bodies, and you’ve probably heard about bone loss from astronauts because their bones aren’t being stressed by walking and like gravity and so they leech, you know, nutrients into the blood stream which also leads to a lot of kidney stones.
Patti: Ohhhhh
Spencer: It’s real bad –
Patti: In space!
Spencer: Yeah. Kidney stones in space, that can’t be fun.
Patti: Wow, no.
Spencer: That’s gotta be real bad.
Patti: I’ve got to think they don’t pass as easily, right?
Spencer: I try not to think about it too hard, if I’m being honest, because that seems like a real bad time.
Patti: yeah.
Spencer: But that’s also one of the reasons that astronauts exercise a lot in space, because the stress of –
Patti: I just think, I have not seen video of this – there must be some somewhere – can you imagine trying to run on a treadmill in space?
Spencer: They basically have rubber bands attached to their belts and the treadmill.
Patti: That’s ridiculous. Everything about this is ridiculous.
Spencer: But the reason they do that is that the stress of the muscles, pulling on the bones also strengthens the bones.
Patti: Oh god, everything about space is terrible.
Spencer: And with, essentially, the elastic tying them to the treadmill it mimics gravity in a way and it forces them down onto the treadmill so they can run and that does a lot to strengthen the bones, too because of that impact stress.
Patti: Uh huh.
Spencer: Um, and another reason they do that is just because muscle loss is another big part of what happens to bodies in space because they don’t have to hold up “you.” So, they’re not working so they atrophy which is also not great for bodies.
Patti: Okay.
Spencer: But, so, specifically for taste, because gravity is no longer a real factor in the distribution of where your body is, right? Like, essentially, you don’t have gravity pulling down on your muscles or your bones you also don’t have it pulling down on your blood, your cervical spinal fluid, on the mucus in your membranes, on all kinds of fluids in your body.
Patti: Ew.
Spencer: And what that does is since stuff is no longer pulling down on your, like, the stuff in your head just kinda puffs you up.
Patti: (gasp)
Spencer: So it’s like having a really bad sinus inflation.
Patti: Yeah! That has to be terrible.
Spencer: It’s not great from what I hear, it’s kind of like that feeling that you have when you blow your nose really hard and nothing comes out because it’s just inflammation and it’s that all the time. But also for your ears and eyes and other stuff.
Patti: Again, space is terrible, why do people go there?
Spencer: Apparently it’s pretty common for people to just look real puffy because they are real puffy.
Patti: That’s not great, I’m already puffy.
Spencer: Essentially, your heart pumps everything everywhere, and because it doesn’t have to pump against gravity anymore it’s shooting all that blood in your head and it’s not having to deal with gravity at all.
Patti: Okay, so how does this effect taste? We’re beatin’ around the bush.
Spencer: So, yeah, there’s – because of the puffiness there’s no real change to smell food. That’s actually two things – one, because you’re really puffy it’s hard to smell the food.
Patti: Oh my god, that’s terrible. Did I ever tell you, okay, so when I worked at Borders a person, who shall remain nameless, hit another friend of mine with, well, he didn’t really hit him. Okay, so our friend was hanging onto the front of his minivan that he was driving and he slammed on the brakes and he fell off and hit the ground and he was unconscious for a little while, but he regained consciousness –
Spencer: Okay, I heard the first part, I didn’t hear about the unconscious part before.
Patti: Well, he lost his sense of smell. The only thing he could smell was B.O. and something else but we’re not going to talk about that.
Spencer: OHHHH Ugggh
Patti: yeah, so he couldn’t really taste anything either. I don’t think he actually ever got his sense of smell back, at least, we haven’t talked in a number of years, but yeah. That’s pretty rough. Not a life I wanna live. Ooo, if you had to lose one of your senses what would you choose?
Spencer: Mmm, I wanna be kind of an asshole and say something like proprioception except no I super do not want to lose that –
Patti: No, like one of your five senses.
Spencer: I really do not want to lose my sense of proprioception –
Patti: I don’t even know what that is.
Spencer: It’s how you can tell where your body is when you’re not looking at it.
Patti: What?
Spencer: Like, if I know where my hand is if I’m not looking at it. It’s the stuff that helps you eat and stand and walk and move around.
Patti: I think because I already get motion sick that would really fuck me up.
Spencer: Oh, yeah, you’d be screwed.
Patti: But no, I mean like taste, sight, hearing, smell, touch – if you had to lose one.
Spencer: I guess I’d go for… I love food.
Patti: I know, I think I would go hearing, which is weird –
Spencer: I’d say hearing or smell and I’m leaning hear-
Patti: Ooo, no smell would really mess with your ability to eat and taste food and enjoy it.
Spencer: yeah, so I’m leaning hearing because it’s been on my list for like twn years to learn ASL anyway, so…
Patti: Like, I wish that I could say sight, I really admire people who, I mean, I have poor eyesight but to be blind would be really challenging and goodness, I don’t know.
Spencer: I would hate not being able to know what I am drawing, if I were still trying to draw…
Patti: Oh, yeah, I didn’t think about that and the fact that you’re an artist. Gosh, we’re pretty lucky.
Spencer: Yeah, it’s all a bummer.
Patti: Yeah, we’re very lucky. But, hey, that’s one of the reasons that we do transcripts is so that people who can’t hear can still enjoy our podcast if they want to.
Spencer: Or if you’re hard of hearing or if we mumble something, or if, like me, sometimes I just want to control F something and find a quote that I know as in an episode of something and without transcripts it’s impossible to find that kind of stuff.
Patti: Right, right. Okay, so.
Spencer: Okay, so, their nasal passages are all clogged up so it’s hard to smell and the way food is packaged in space for consumption means that you don’t just get a plate of something that you can smell because it would all float away, right? Because there’s nothing to hold it there.
Patti: Pouches.
Spencer: yeah! It’s a lot of pouches.
Patti: Freeze dried, too.
Spencer: Which means –
Patti: God, how much water must they have to drink?
Spencer: Probably a lot, gotta be careful of those kidney stones.
Patti: And they pee into weird little vacuums in their suits, right?
Spencer: Not in their suits, when they’re-
Patti: But the space toilet is a vacuum.
Spencer: Yeah, kinda.
Patti: Oh, I would be the worst astrona- Oh, but they’ve got the diapers, nevermind. Okay, go on. (Pause) No, I was just thinking, you know how when you’re on a plane there’s that really long period of time when you cannot move about the cabin? It’s gotta be longer on a space ship.
Spencer: Yes.
Patti: I always have to pee before that light goes off, I have been yelled at by more than one flight attendant. I was just thinking I would be a really bad astronaut, but then I remembered that they have the diapers and it doesn’t really matter.
Spencer: Not for, like 166 days up in space!
Patti: Well, no, but during takeoff and landing you could wet yourself. I mean, not that I want to do that –
Spencer: It’s nice to have the option.
Patti: You gotta do what you gotta do, if it’s that or wet my suit. Oh my god, do you think – do they do space laundry?
Spencer: Yeah.
Patti: What’s wild. What are we doing?
Spencer: Okay –
Patti: How do we still have problems if we’re doing space laundry?
Spencer: Here’s what’s amazing about space laundry, they don’t have to do it that much, they can keep wearing the same clothes without having all that nastiness for the most part because, again, gravity isn’t a factor on their clothes and it’s not rubbing on their bodies as much. It’s floating loose so they don’t stink them up.
Patti: I’m sorry, but if I was in space the panic sweat would be really bad.
Spencer: Yeah, I mean, they probably screen you for that.
Patti: I’m sorry, you stress sweat too much, it smells rull bad. …Oh, that would be my friend’s personal hell. It would be the only thing he could smell while he was in space – everyone’s stress sweat.
Spencer: Oh, Oh no…
Patti: yeah, it’s not great.
Spencer: Oh no, okay…
Patti: Okay, go on.
Spencer: Part of the reason that food in space is served in pouches is to keep it sustainable and to keep it contained so that it doesn’t get everywhere and wreck everything and kill everyone. Sunita Williams accidentally spilled a little wasabi in 2007 and it took several days to clean up. Like, days, for a little wasabi.
Patti: Real wasabi or the shady wasabi we get here in the united states?
Spencer: I really don’t know it wasn’t covered.
Patti: If anyone knows how I can get real wasabi I would be down with that.
Spencer: I would hope it’s real wasabi, I mean she is an astronaut I hope she has a little pull.
Patti: Oh, god, I don’t want to become an astronaut to have access to real wasabi, it is not worth it.
Spencer: I was gonna say, if that’s that bar to clear –
Patti: I’ll take a hard pass.
Spencer: Because of the swelling in the nasal passages and because the food is in pouches for the most part they don’t really have a chance to smell it. Like at all. Because it’s not out of the pouch for the aromas to come off the food to get into their noses so much and then on top of that they have the inflammation and the swelling there so what does get in is basically ignored by their bodies.
Patti: What resources did you use for this?
Spencer: I used a few. There are different papers out there, there’s some stuff on reputable science magazines, I spent a lot of time on scientific American –
Patti: Okay, all right then. I just wondered how much of this you were making up.
Spencer: Only most of it. I used scientific American for most of it and they’re a super reputable science magazine.
Patti: Okay, I was just checking.
Spencer: They can’t really smell their food and smell is a huge part of taste. The consensus varies on how much a part of taste it is, but the number that is batted around a lot is that 90% of taste is actually smell.
Patti: Wow.
Spencer: And that’s not
Patti: I’m just imagining that if I was an astronaut I would be like huffing my food before it was in my mouth. (huff huff huff) trying to smell it.
Spencer: And that’s part of the thing, so a lot of the smell comes in before it goes into your mouth
Patti: Yeah, unless it’s like a cracker.
Spencer: There’s also an effect of the aromas coming back up through your nasal passages, up through back behind your throat and that’s also affected because of the inflammation.
Patti: Right… god… Space is a good diet, basically. Because when I have a cold and I can’t smell anything I won’t eat anything.
Spencer: Yeah, and even outside of how much a factor smell is in the actual tasting that registers in your brain, like under FMRI or whatever, smell is part of conditioning for tasting because when we’re here on earth we smell food before we taste it almost all the time and if you don’t smell it before you taste it, if it has to be in your mouth before you get that back through the back of your sinuses thing that really effects your perception regardless of what lights up in your brain directly from your nerves.
Patti: That’s interesting, so when you think about all snack foods, like all packaged snack foods, you can’t really smell them.
Spencer: Until you crack ‘em open and then –
Patti: Kind of, but I’m thinking about, like, salty crunchy snack foods. You can’t really smell a cheez-it.
Spencer: Okay, but that brings up a point, right? It’s really salty and salt is one of five flavors that, again, pretty much consensus is that you can taste five different things with your tongue –
Patti: Yeah. I’d say the other thing about that is that the smell of sugar actually makes me feel sick sometimes. Someone brought in doughnuts to work last week and set them on a table behind me and I had to get up and move them because the smell – it was so strong. They have such a distinct odor.
Spencer: So, with sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and savory or umami – the degree of your pretention around that determines, I guess, which one of those you choose – and there is maybe a little argument that you can taste fat on your tongue, but that one’s, again, pretty contested –
Patti: Uhhhh
Spencer: So, not being able to smell before eating shifts the primary perception of the taste from your nose to your mouth and that screws with how people taste in space, which is the reason that hot sauce is a huge commodity in space.
Patti: I love hot sauce… Cholula, what uuuuuppppp.
Spencer: I really like the habanero, just the habanero hot sauce.
Patti: yeah, but you really only eat it on your burritos, I will put Cholula on almost anything.
Spencer: All right, you do. I put it on my breakfasts.
Patti: Yeah.
Spencer: So, about hot sauce, I think you’ll like this, because this is probably you, after you got over your crippling fear of space.
Patti: HAHA, never gonna happen.
Spencer: In 2002, when the space shuttle Atlantis made a trip to the international space station astronaut Peggy Whitson jokingly, allegedly jokingly, threatened to not let the Atlantis crew dock unless they had brought hot sauce and salsa.
Patti: Huh.
Spencer: Luckily for them, they did and she let them aboard.
Patti: Nice.
Spencer: But that’s how big a deal it is that astronauts will straight up tell you that you’re not coming in unless you brought hot sauce.
Patti: See also a peanut butter cup.
Spencer: There are a couple of ways that we know about the physical effects of this stuff on astronauts and the swelling and how their brain shape changes in space because of the fluid distribution and –
Patti: Nope, no thanks. No, mm-mm.
Spencer: We know all this –
Patti: Oh, my god, do their organs shift around in their bodies? I bet they do, I bet they –
Spencer: They do –
Patti: They float up. Oh, my god, do they collapse your lungs a little bit by smushin’ up on ‘em, like pushin’ ‘em –
Spencer: No, you still have, like your diaphragm is still really strong.
Patti: Okay. Ugh. Horrible. Everything about space is terrible.
Spencer: We test the crap out of astronauts.
Patti: Yeah, I know.
Spencer: So, we’ve done –
Patti: It doesn’t stop horrible things from happening.
Spencer: Kidney stones, in space.
Patti: Space.
Spencer: We’ve don MRIs and CAT Scans, and all kinds of stuff to image their brains and the head before and after flight. And, we’ve done it for, I say we like I was personally involved, but the physicians for NASA have done it for short duration flights and long duration flights. The long duration flights are around six months or longer, and the short duration flights are a couple of weeks.
Patti: So – here’s the thing. This is two parts of my more trigger things, right? Claustrophobia, small spaces where people can touch me, thinking about breathing the same air that they are breathing and at the same time just limitless expanse. Is there an end to space? Do we know? There isn’t, is there? You could just fly out there forever, drifting, a little exploded space carcass.
Spencer: Well, if you died and were floating in space yes. There is an edge to the known universe and it’s about 14 and a half billion light years and that’s – there’s a lot –
Patti: What happens after that?
Spencer: So, there’s a lot of disagreement –
Patti: We’re all going to die.
Spencer: Yes, eventually.
Patti: Everything’s terrible, okay, go on.
Spencer: There’s a lot of disagreement about what’s after that and – oh my gosh, are you okay?
Patti: Noooo…
Spencer: If it makes you feel better, there’s a thing called the heat death of the universe –
Patti: Nooooo!
Spencer: An eventually all particles will completely decay in a couple trillion years the last proton –
Patti: Oh, we’re not makin’ it a couple trillion years. Nuclear winter is upon us.
Spencer: All existence will be erased, so no one will remember.
Patti: Great. I mean, that’s fine for me, I worry about our cats.
Spencer: So, I made a mistake, and –
Patti: I’m sorry, could you say that again?
Spencer: I asked a friend of ours to give her medical opinion for support of all of this. And I should have known better, so I said, hey, JJ this is what I’m researching, would you mind lending your medical opinion to this? And I should have known better because her response was yeah, sure let me do a bunch of research first, I seem to remember something about ion channels changing in space and let me get back to you. I really did not mean for you to do that much work, I am so sorry, JJ. I just thought, you know, you’re an incipient physician, I’ll ask whether you think this is plausible or if they have covered anything like this in medical school and I really should have known better – she’s been my friend for almost 20 years, I should have known better. I didn’t, but –
Patti: So, what did JJ say?
Spencer: JJ said that, essentially the changes in the brain are really well known when it comes to optical changes and eyesight and processing of eyesight and that smell and taste are much less researched because they are less impactful on astronauts.
Patti: Interesting.
Spencer: Like, you have to be able to see what you’re doing in space, in order to do it, like if you’re on an extra vehicular thing you need to see what you’re working on.
Patti: Right. Surely hanger is an issue.
Spencer: Well, they are eating they’re just not enjoying it.
Patti: You’d be a really bad astronaut.
Spencer: Yeah. I like food way too much.
Patti: I’m a woman, I’m used to not enjoying food I eat. Our society is terrible.
Spencer: It’s not great. She also followed up with basically support for everything I already told you about swelling and things. I will quote here because I’m not even going to try to paraphrase. “Which makes sense because we do describe some fluid shift as gravity dependent vs. independent edema so third spaced not in the vascular or intracellular space fluids can move under influence of gravity as well as congestion reducing smell which reduces taste. I wanted to share something I almost forgot about, because I found it really exciting and it occurs to me that I have no idea if you will. Space is a big deal, food packaging in space has been dealt with a lot. While researching this stuff I came across a patent that someone had filed for how to contain and distribute, deliver carbonated beverages –premixed carbonated beverages for astronauts.
Patti: So, not in a can?
Spencer: Right! You can’t just pop a can because it will go all over and destroy the electronics, right? Again – that’s why you can’t just put a plate of rice out it will get all over everything. That’s why having pencils in space is a bad idea because the graphite will get into the electronics and mess them all up.
Patti: Huh.
Spencer: That’s why there was all that research into the space pen. Yeah, because they needed to develop a pen that worked well in space, and essentially someone spent a lot of time figuring out how astronauts could have soda. That person is a hero. I don’t know if it worked, I didn’t see any follow up on the patent but yeah, I thought that was cool.
Patti: Okay, so this is a long conversation to say “Meh, maybe.”
Spencer: It was a long conversation to say, “Eeeh, probably.” Give me some credit.
Patti: So what’s your favorite space movie?
Spencer: Ohhh, ooo… That’s a good question. What’s your favorite space movie?
Patti: Space Camp.
Spencer: Oh, I knew that was coming.
Patti: Uh, yeah, I do believe that was when I first fell in love with Tate Donovan, let me check though.
Spencer: I’m inclined to say Space Balls –
Patti: Wow.
Spencer: But… hmm If you count the fact that their design is for space lasers Real Genius.
Patti: It was Tate Donovan, I was correct. Also, Joaquin Phoenix, but it was before he was Joaquin, he was Leaf. Because River Phoenix had a brother named Leaf and three sisters – Summer, Liberty, and Rainbow. I knew a lot about River Phoenix –
Spencer: Uh, off the top of your head right now.
Patti: Uh, I read an article when I was roughly eight years old and it stuck with me. Along with the fact that Kirk Cameron doesn’t like chocolate and is afraid of spiders and that was when my crush ended. Because someone has to be the spider killer in the relationship and it wasn’t going to be me.
Spencer: Does Real Genius count?
Patti: No, why would that count? Lasers?
Spencer: Well, the design was for a laser to be fired from space. The fact that it only got –
Patti: E.T. would count. What about Alien?
Spencer: Oh, come on, alien? This I me.
Patti: Oh, yeah, you don’t like horror – oooo, Event Horizon.
Spencer: NO, because I’m mad about the ending! Hell is real – that’s garbage, you were so close! That’s so garbage. See the thing is, my problem is that I’m a nerd from a family of nerds so we watched a lot of space stuff and it’s hard to choose.
Patti: When I was in the fifth grade a girl in my class got to go to Space Camp and I had never been so jealous in my life. Now that I’m older and I’m scared of space I just kind of wonder if it would have triggered my very first panic attack. Everything spinning further and further apart every day.
Spencer: That’s our episode. Thank you to Chastity Belt for the use of their song Drone as our theme music. Thank you to incipient Dr. JJ for helping with research –
Patti: Incipient, does that mean what you think it means?
Spencer: It does!
Patti: Okay.
Spencer: I looked it up earlier just to be super sure and to be sure it didn’t have any weird connotations because that’s what I was worried about, but she will very soon be a practicing doctor.
Patti: I’m laughing not because of JJ, but because we are in the room where we, well it’s what we call Kelli’s room, it’s a guest room and it’s where we wrap Christmas gifts and Spencer has glitter in his mustache. Disco-stache, disco-stache…
Spencer: Oh no.
Patti: Bye Guys!
[Theme song: “Drone” by Chastity Belt chorus]
He was just another man, tryin’ to teach me somethin’
He was just another man, tryin’ to teach me somethin’
He was just another man, tryin’ to teach me somethin’
He was just another man, tryin’ to teach me somethin’
Patti: Sometimes, you just make stuff up.
Spencer: I was right, I was 100% right about that.
Patti: Do you want to tell everyone what you’re talking about?
Spencer: Oh, do you want to tell the story, you’re so mad about it?
Patti: No, you should tell it.
Spencer: Okay, so we were in Hawaii with our friend Kelli and we were walking along the beach. There was a surfing competition because it was Hawaii in the summer, on the beach so of course there was. Hawaii based episodes of TV shows did not lie.
Patti: That’s true.
Spencer: And –
Patti: There was no humunga kowabunga from down undah, though. Go on.
Spencer: And, I think – was it you or was it Kelli?
Patti: It was Kelli.
Spencer: Asked how surfers stay on the board when it’s all wet, how they keep their feet planted.
Patti: I don’t think that was the question. I think the question was what does the wax do.
Spencer: Was that it?
Patti: Yeah.
Spencer: Why do surfers wax their boards, and I said it’s to repel water, it’s hydro phobic so their feet can get a grip on the board –
Patti: Ladies and gentlemen he said this with all confidence and he was PULLING IT OUT OF HIS BUTT.
Spencer: Well, okay, what I said was that the wax is hydrophobic and the reason they wax their boards is so that when they stand up their feet can get a grip and move around. And then I waited approximately a second and a half and said “That sounded legit, right? I just made that up.” And then they get very mad and then I looked it up on my phone and I was 100% right.
Patti: Luck. Anyway, back to astronauts.
Spencer: Yes.
Patti: No.
Spencer: I forgot where I left off.