Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 909: Teleporting into Waffle House

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

This episode of Cognitive Dissidence is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. Glory Hill Studios in Chicago and beyond. This is Cognitive Dissence. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way, we bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence. To any topic that makes the news, makes it.

big or makes us mad. It's skeptical. It's political. And there is no welcome at. Today is Thursday. April the 16th. It's the day after tax day. Texas. Hey, welcome back, Tom. Back, baby. We're back, baby. I'm back, baby. So I want to give everybody just a quick update. I'm sure that people, you know, I got a lot of well-wishes and whatnot. So I'm back. Haley had surgery. Went down to MD Anderson in Houston. quick update on Houston. Awesome. Still the worst city in America. Here, I promise that I will talk about my wife and her well-being and things that actually matter. But first, allow me this moment.

Yeah, sure. Go for it, buddy. I've been to Houston now four times. And I have never been to a more insane, chaotic, charmless, horrible wreck of a place. Charmless is such a great, it's such a great way to just. describe it charmless. It is horrified.

I keep thinking maybe I haven't been to the right part of Houston. You haven't been to the real Houston. The real Houston. But here's what I've discovered because I actually talked to people while I was there

because I was there for a long time with nothing to do but sit in a quiet room in the dark. You know, so like I would talk to like nurses and like people out in the hallway, things like that.

So here's what I discovered from real live, honest to God, Houstonians. It's an ugly, shitty, charming city. That's what I know. Nobody likes it. Even the people who live here,

even the people that like Houston, what they will say is they will say, okay, I grant you, it is a sprawling disaster buckle, eyesore at every level that never stops being ugly. But they'll say,

if you know where to look, and a local takes you, there. Sure. Yeah. And you're blindfolded the whole time you're on your way to this, this, there are, there's like a secret garden here and there. That will be beautiful.

There's like diamonds. There's like, there's corn nestled in the shit. Cecil. And they want, Houstonians want you to be charmed by the corn. Oh, dude. But most of them actually acknowledge, no, it's, it's actually, it's, it's really fucking ugly. Yeah.

The, and it is so, and it's massive. and like the driving, so we landed at like 2.30 in the morning just because we had a flight issue. It's the whole thing. But like we landed like 2.30 in the morning and we have to get to our hotel. Our hotel is 4.6 miles away.

I made a mistake. Our hotel is 4.6 miles away from M.D. Anderson, the medical center, but that's about a 35 minute drive away from the airport from Bush where we flew into. It's 2.30 in the morning. I get an Uber, put our stuff in there. There's no one on the,

road, man. And this guy drove, like, his life depended on shaving every second off of that drive. And then when you're driving in Houston, it is a mishmash of, like, left-hand exits off of expressways and, like, crazy off-ramps and over-ramps. And I don't know if there's under-ramps that I didn't see, but there's fucking, I think at some point, the road just immediately, it's the crazy, it's like a snake threw up upon itself and they paved it. There's one road in Chicago called Wacker Drive, Lower Wacker Drive. That's very confusing for even locals. It's confusing. It reminds me of like when you tell someone to take lower racker drive and they're like, you know what?

Actually, forget that. Just stay on Dearborn. Imagine taking lower Wacker Drive, moving it up into the sunlight. And staying on it for 65 minutes straight. It's crazy. And then, like, we get to the hotel, and it's a Marriott Town Place Hotel. We get to the hotel. And the first thing we see is a sign on the door that says all doors lock automatically after 9 p.m.

And I'm like, but the thing with Houston is you can never tell if you're in a bad neighborhood. Because all the neighborhoods look bad. Yeah, all the neighborhoods look like a refinery. Yeah, it's crazy. So, like, you'll have, I'm not even exaggerating, you'll have like a laundromat. with half the letters in the word laundry burned out and a barbed wire fence surround. But next to it will be a gated community of like beautiful homes. So you've never know.

Are they like, am I a good part of town or not? Right, right, right. So you don't know if you're safe or not. Well, clearly this is not a safe neighborhood, right? Because the hotel is like, yeah, we lock the doors. You shouldn't be here. Right. Yeah.

There's an armed guard here from 6 p.m. on. Yeah. We ended up changing hotels to one that was closer to M.D. Anderson because one, that place was. was kind of scary. And two, it turns out 4.6 miles

is a really long way. It's a really long way away. Yeah. Like it was stupid choice of mine. So we changed hotels the next day. But like, it is such a,

it is such a disaster of a place to be. Eight million people, the fourth largest city in America. Yeah, it's huge, dude. And I'm just like, all right, man,

fourth time was not a child. Yeah, man. Yeah. So he was just, see if they don't move the hospital for you next time. Yeah, move it somewhere else.

But Haley is doing, her surgery was a success. So they were able to, the tumor was right where they saw it on the imaging. That's not always the case. That's great to hear. They were able to remove, they feel fairly confident. They were able to remove the entire thing. They never say with any certainty, right? So doctors are never like, you know, but they're with the kind of cautious certainty that they speak.

Sure. Yeah, we were able to get the tumor out. And so they were pleased that the surgeon was pleased. lab results post-surgery all look very encouraging right now. That's great. And really where we're at is like recovery. And recovery is going to be a long road and it's going to take some time. And she feels pretty horrible.

But like I think if everything continues to trend in this direction, she should be able to go to rehab and go to physical therapy and get her life back. And I'm really hoping that this is the thing. That's great to hear. Yeah. What I keep thinking is like five and a half, five years ago, whatever it was, five and a half years ago, it feels like a domino got kicked over. And then all these other dominoes started to go wrong. And I have to hope that this is a domino back in the other direction.

We kick this one over. And then the other dominoes in the good, the virtuous cycle can start, you know. And I am hopeful that that is not insane. This is the Shawshank Redemption, crawl through a river issue. shit to get out to escape. Yeah. So, you know, it's going to be a river of shit. It's not going to be great.

No. But hopefully at the end of that is, you know, the rain coming down and you got your soap and you scrub yourself clean and you and you wander off to Cancun or wherever that. That's why I've been doing everything naked since. Yeah. No, that's the key. And actually, I use a sock to tie everything to my leg as I crawl through. It's great to your back. It's great to talk to you.

This is the first time we've actually spoke in a like a. almost a month. We've been texting, obviously, but you've been so busy. We haven't had an opportunity. So it's great to see you and great to talk to you. Thanks, man. Yeah, it's weird.

It's very weird not to talk to you every week, man. It feels wrong. It feels strange. It feels wrong. Yeah, it feels strange. Well, let's do a funny show, Cecil. This story comes from our friends over at AOL.com, reminding us that AOL still exists.

Every story starts with a bier. That's a modem joke for all you young kids. kids, we used to have to call the internet back in the day. Oh, my God. So this is reminding us that you've got chocolate. Hershey switching back to classic Reese's recipe after backlash. The backlash, in this case, in part from the grandson of Mr. Rees's or whatever. Like what I got to read a good.

So what it struck me. me is a couple of things, is how insane the corporate response from Reese's is about why they stopped using as much chocolate and peanut butter. They changed the recipe to use. They changed the recipe and I'm going to be honest. Have you had Reese's in the past couple years? Have you had a Reese's? I'm sure I have, but I don't recall. So I normally, we normally buy a bunch of candy for kids at Halloween. They never come. And then we have all this candy. Right. And then we take it and we put it in the freezer. Right. And so yesterday night. And, You know, like a good investigative journalist like I am, I decided to go into the refrigerator

in the freezer and open it up and pull out a couple of these Recy cups because I was like, I'm doing a story on Recy's. Let's take a look and I'll taste it. They don't taste the same. The chocolate is sweeter. It doesn't have the same sort of flavor. And I think the person, look, maybe the person's right. Maybe the person's wrong.

Maybe it's just all in my head. I don't know, but they definitely taste different than they used to. Well, I mean, Rees is acknowledging after some. arm twisting and beatings over the head. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They are acknowledging that they changed their recipe. And, like, I got to just read, like, their statement because, like, it's so insane. Like, they changed over.

They, it sounds like they reduced the amount of chocolate and the amount of peanut butter and introduced more bat droppings or whatever. Like, I don't know. Like, but it says, Hershey said that in 2027, it will shift those products to their classic milk chocolate and dark chocolate recipe. It will also be making changes, other changes to a sweets portfolio. Blah, blah, blah. No one cares about that.

Hershey's is committed to making products consumers love. And that means continually reviewing our recipes to meet evolving tastes and preferences. Pro. And it's like, you changed it. The Recy Cup was perfect. Like, what were you doing? What they really meant was, Hershey's is committed to trying to shore up its margins as Coco has gotten more expensive.

we didn't think you'd notice. We're not using cocoa butter anymore. We have a refinery in Houston. And what we're doing is. Yeah. It's so nasty. It doesn't taste the same. It genuinely, and it doesn't taste good either.

And that's the thing is, you know, a Recy Cup 10 years ago was seriously, you'd buy it. And you'd be like, this is fucking awesome. This is absolutely money. And you'd buy one now. And I'm like, eh, not so great. In fact, I found an alternative one, you know, like, sometimes you go to like these stores that are, they try to be a little too health foody where there's like all kinds of different health food. But I found one.

They had sunflower seed butter in dark chocolate. Oh, I've had this. It's in a white wrapper. That's fucking outstanding. It is. And it's dark chocolate, like good dark chocolate with like good, salty, uh, that sunflower butter in there. And I was like, fucking feed this to me all day.

This is amazing. Sunflower butter is a revelation. It's so fucking good. That shit is so good. It's so good. Yeah, it's outstanding. Genuinely outstanding. But I was like, but you know, you try Reese's.

And the thing is, like, a lot of people don't like American chocolate anyway, right? People don't like Hershey's chocolate. I will say the only positive about Hershey's chocolate is their temper. Like the snap on it is great. It's an excellent snap. The rest of the bar is trash. Like it tastes, it's got that vomit enzyme in it that's in a lot of different foods, but it's got that sort of back of the throat sort of feel to it.

that gets that almost like an acidic sort of flavor to it. It doesn't taste good. I think the sweetness is off. I think that, you know, the chocolate tastes cheap. It's not good chocolate, period. It's just not good, man. It's not good. It hasn't been good for years.

Like, my brain does something where it takes like, it's like, this is not good chocolate. It's like gas station chocolate, right? It's cheap chocolate. Like I, like, my brain is like, is it good chocolate? No, like the good chocolate is the stuff that's like over here in the expensive corner, right? And that's like, I'll go there. Like, all right, that's the, but like this stuff is like, yeah, I'm eating this in the car, you know, with a soda. Like, you know what I mean?

Like, I am not expect. Like, my expectations, I guess are low. Your expectation should be low, should be low. But even still, even still as far as chocolate, like cheap chocolate goes, still not as good as some of the other chocolates that I've had that are, you know, candy bar type chocolates. It's not great. But Reese's had always sort of stood out, right? It always had been the thing that I've been like, no, man, that's a pretty money piece no matter what.

And even still nowadays, I'm like, oh, it's not very good. It's not very good anymore. From this article, the thing I found most disappointing is I guess most of the changes were in their sort of like, like seasonal shaped ones. Like they're, you know, like Christmas trees or the Easter trees. I like those the best. Those are my favorite Rhes because they have a higher, like the ratio is a little different. more heavily peanut butter. So that's what I'm into.

That's money, bro. That's great. That's great. You get one of those big fucking eggs. It's got a tiny little layer of coffee. I just like, no, this is like 17 teaspoons of peanut butter.

That's what I want, man. And let's call it what it is too. It's a weird candy peanut butter. Because can you imagine eating that like on a peanut butter and jelly or something? Totally different. It would be insane. It would be insane. It's not like you're Skippy or what have you.

It's so sweet. It's so sweet. It's its own perfect thing. This is, there's another story where Hershey's denied that they made the change after Recy's grandson claims that they did. Now, here's a question for you. If he was an illegitimate child, would he be a Reesie's side pieces? Is that, is that? Rees' side pieces.

Can we say, like, is there any reason to actually eat Reese's pieces? I don't, you know, I always think that I'd like them, but they're just so sweet and not good. I think, I think like if I'm going to choose a hard candy with a chocolate or some kind of center, it's going to be a peanut M&M all day. Do you know what I bought? Yes, peanut Eminem is a great, like that is a great, like if I'm eating a little little piece chocolates like that, yeah. I bought, guys, so funny, because I almost never buy a candy bar. I mean, like, maybe once a year I'll buy a candy bar. I bought a caramelo

And I don't even know why I just was walking past it I saw a caramelolo I grabbed a caramelo That was the sweetest thing I've ever eaten in my life So sweet I've eaten pure sugar

That was not that sweet I don't even know how They condensed a level of like sweetness Oh I had I mean I ate the whole thing But it was gross I mean I ate the fucking thing

But here's the last piece I just want to say A couple years ago And I don't remember what was the vehicle. So it was either like a bar of some kind. I vaguely remember maybe it was a pieces of some kind. I'm not sure what the vehicle was. But it was a donut flavored one. I saw there was a donut flavored candy of some kind. And it was like, I don't think it was a bar. I think it was like a Reese's type pieces. Right. So there'd be like a thing. And inside is like,

it's got like a donut flavor of some kind. I don't remember what it was. Someone can remind me what it was. but there was like four or five different flavors and this one was a donut flavor and it was brand new, whatever, I tried it. What they wound up doing was condensing only the greasiest parts of the donut town so it tasted like just bad oil

and you're just like, that's not, you tricked me, you fuckers. You fucking lied. Like it didn't have the good, but it was just the fucking nasty like leavens of the donut. That wasn't, it was awful. I was like, you motherfuckers.

I was so mad. It was terrible. And I can't remember what it was. But now if I see donut flavored anything, I'm just like, unless it's a donut flavored fucking donut, go fuck yourself. No, and that's why you only get Danish flavor. God, a Danish one would be awful.

Danish own. You kidding me? Okay, I found this very upsetting. This story comes from K-O-A-2. Action news. It's so upsetting, dude. It keeps getting worse. Jury awards 14 million.

to woman who ate ice cream with nails and metal fragment in it. Christ. It's butter pecan ice cream. So it Howard has like particulate in it, right? So it's got the pecans in it. They had a bite of it. Then they handed it to their child. Their child takes a lick and there's like a fucking nail in it.

And then the person's like, oh, I just tasted something. I thought it might have, when I bit into it, I thought maybe it was like a piece of shell or a piece of like pecan or something. I better go to the doctor. They go to the doctor and they fucking swallowed a nail.

Okay. And when you go to the doctor you swallow nails. The actual the thing that they give you the prescription is for a hammer. You have to swallow the whole hammer then. It's a whole thing.

It's a whole thing. Or crow bar. You can get away with a crowbar too. You start with a magnet first. Yeah. They try to. They get a magnet. They get a magnet.

They get a. one of those people who throw the fishing, they do the manned fishing, they just shell fishing or whatever, pulling it out. Oh my god. They pull out an old iPad out of here or whatever. This person got like real fucked up. This person got really fucked up by it. Yeah.

Absolutely. Look, look, I don't want a victim blame. I don't, but I am going to a little bit. I don't understand how you eat a whole nail. When you eat ice cream, if there's a pecan, aren't you biting the pecan? Didn't you? I'm not being shitty. These are actual questions.

I don't know. I don't understand. I'm not going to talk about how other people. I do chew ice cream, though. I don't understand. Yeah. I eat. Look, I get excited too.

I get excited. There's ice cream. I'm excited. I'm going to tell you quick ice cream story in a second. I'm excited when I eat ice cream. But there's no part of the ice cream eating process where I think I could eat a nail. I don't think that's a thing I could do. Yeah, it's fine, though.

Maybe I could. I think I probably could. I'm not going to shame anybody. I think I've been around ice cream that I've eaten so fast. It might as well have been glass. What I found really upsetting too is like, this was Brewsters, which they opened one near me, and it is my favorite ice cream I've ever had.

Oh, is it? It's the best ice cream I've ever had anywhere. No kidding. I fucking love it. It's every flavor I've had has been the best version of that flavor I've ever. You have to check it out. I'll have to check it out. I'll bring a metal detector.

Bring a way out. I was going to say. It's like, take your, look, here's the other thing. You got to walk into the airport with it. They're patting down your fucking cone. They're like, what is this? I'm scrimmed cone in here. What do you got?

What do you take it on the plane? I'm not saying that this person was not legitimately harmed. It sounds like they were legitimately harmed. No, and it does sound like it fucked them up pretty bad. It's not an uplifting story. It's not any sense of the event works. And I don't. I don't mean to demean anybody's medical experience for sure,

but I would eat a nail for $14 million right now. I would eat a fucking nail on a live stream for $14 million. I would do it right now. Even if they were like, Tom, there's a 15% chance you don't survive. I'm like, this is still a win-win. Yeah. This is still a win-win.

Regardless of them have survived, do I still get the money? Right. Look, if I die, I'm like, I had ice cream. For me, it sucks. You got a legacy. I don't. I don't, for me, it sucks. I wouldn't do that.

That's not a trade I would make. I wouldn't do the 15%. I'd be like, nah, that's too much. What's your percentage where you'd be like? What, 14 million bucks? My percentage of dying? Yeah. That's not enough.

That's not enough. Really? So like a 1% chance? You're not like, I'll roll those nice. Really? You could, if it's below 1% maybe, maybe. But if it's 1%, now that's too much. Absolutely not.

Absolutely not a chance. think about it. I wouldn't even think. I'd be like, that nail, I'd be like, I'd. No way. Not for, not for 14 million. Now you up that money. Sure.

Now we're talking. But like in this economy? No, forget it. Come on. That's like three days where the groceries now. There's a chocolate ice cream store in a city that's between the two of us. It's called Geneva. And I went there with my wife and they have a special ice cream that you have to ask

for at the counter because they just, they don't have it out. They just make it for their people behind the scenes. And they will go in back and get it for you. It's Jamoka, but with Oreos, it's called Jamorio. And it is fucking outstanding. That sounds so good. Straight up so good, but they don't ever have it out.

You have to ask, it's like, what are those like, I know a guy who knows a guy who you let me behind your velvet rope? Is there a secret knock or something you got to do? And the only reason I know is because I asked for the Jamoka when I went in. And the guy's like, oh, do you want to try? Try Jamorio and I was like, I don't see it here. He's like, no, it's in the back. We only make it for people here.

And I was like, well, yeah, I'll take it. And then when I went in this last time, I asked for it again. And they're like, yeah, I got to go in back and get it. It's fucking outstanding, though. Genuinely outstanding could be some of the best ice cream, but I got to try this other place that you said. I'm going to try that out. So I noticed when I was shopping the other day on Instacart that Hagenda's has single

serving ice creams that are like shaped like a pint of ice cream. So we've talked about this before. But they're little guys. Yeah, I'd never seen them before. before, but I have a problem where, like, if I get ice cream, I eat the whole pint, right? Yeah, the pint is a pint, yeah. 1,500 calories worth of ice cream goes down and I'm like, that was awesome. I'm so happy. In a minute, no problem. I'm very happy to have done that. So I was like, you know what,

maybe this is a more rational way for me to have ice cream without eating almost 2,000 calories of fucking ice cream. So it's like a quarter of one of those things, right? Well, Cecil, I ordered several of them, like Hagenau's just like chocolate and coffee ice cream. These things show up, and it is one of those times where you're reminded how small one serving of something is, bro. Is it a spruce? It's insane. I take this thing out of the bag. I thought I was being punked on fucking TV.

That's amazing. It's 220 calories of ice cream is a fucking sniffter of ice cream. It is an absurdity of ice cream. It's what the same? It's what the Samolier spits out. It's like that. It's like that much. It's such a small amount of ice cream that like if I have a pint of ice cream that I've,

that I've gotten from the grocery store, all I'm thinking about all day is when am I going to eat that ice cream? When's my free moment? Yes. All day long. I'm at work. I'm doing stuff. I don't care about any of the things I'm doing anymore.

There's a part of my brain that is now exclusively dedicated. It is dedicated. You're thinking about that ice cream. Absolutely. Yeah. It has a tether. Right. And an etheric tether.

It's all I care about. Absolutely. And then when I get that ice cream, it is the joy of my life until it is gone. Everything else fades into the background until the ice cream is gone. Sure. That's how ice cream works. Yeah. No, that sounds rational.

You sound rational. Yeah. It's such a small amount of ice cream. It doesn't even feel like a treat. And so I don't even think about them and I forget to eat them. because I don't, it doesn't feel indulgent and like, yeah, gluttonous at all.

It just feels like, yeah, I could have like three bites of ice cream and did cry. It's just like, it's just like if you were just having four play tonight. You know, what you could do is sabotage yourself, take out half of the ice cream out of the big pint,

and then put a bunch of nails. And let's put the rest back down. It's also the case I discovered, by the way, that like an ice cream pint of Hagenaws has changed. They've done that shrinkflation. It's now 14 ounces. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw that.

I went, I went and bought one and I picked it up and I was like, this motherfucker's like half the size. What are you doing to me? It's not they fucked us. They fucked us, Cecil. This fucking guy. I need to go over there and shake him down a little. Yeah, like, no, I want my other two fucking ounces.

ice cream. I want you to throw in one of those single servings too. It's so bad, Cecil, that I thought to myself, like, should I just eat like four of those single serving? But I can't, like, my brain. I love it. My brain is such a stupid piece of shit that, like, if I had a pint of ice cream, I would eat it. But I cannot go get four of those single servings and eat it.

I don't know why. It's the same thing. First off, they're half as much. one of those is half as much as a pint, I guarantee. I know. It's, it's, yeah, I'm spending more money to be less happy. Yeah, you're spending so much on the package. I know. I'm creating

more waste. I'm dying to see what they look like now. I'm going to go find one and see if I can find me. This is on camera. Do you want me to grab one? On camera? Yeah, go ahead. I'm going to grab one. It's funny. Are you ready? I'm ready. Show to me. Shut. This is a legitimate, this is

what one serving of Agenda's ice cream is. There we go. Get the fuck out of here. This is 220 calories ice cream, bro. That makes me hate eating ice cream, though, because you're just like, that's 200 and 20 calories.

That's like an hour on a bike. Are you kidding? I know. You've got to work so hard. You can't get rid of this. There's no way you can outrun the tiniest punch ice cream. All right, so this story comes from Wavbbb.

Nine live local. 24-year-old, two-time cancer survivor, life-threatening illness after eating friends homemade dinner. Okay. Homemade dinner makes it sound like it was something that was like, I made him a gumbo. They came over and, oops, you know, like the shrimp were bad or whatever. Tom, what did they eat?

Dude, they had homemade fermented swordfish. Who puts nails in swordfish? That's ridiculous. This, look, I had, I immediately stopped whatever, everything I was doing and Googled. fermented swordfish. Oh, God, that's so disgusting. And let me tell you that the only thing I could find was this story or a version of this story. Fermented swordfish isn't a thing.

Fermented herring is a thing. It is a pretty well known to be awful and horrifying and pungent, like so bad that it's like, there are whole like articles and threads dedicated to, holy shit, do we think this is actually food? There's like a couple of different foods from the Nordic countries that are like fish-based foods. A couple of them in like cans that are supposed to be so bad that if you smell it, like you'll literally start to vomit. It smells that bad. This is one of these. Yeah.

And then in Iceland, they do like this drying process of this stuff. And I remember when I was there, people were like, are you going to try it? And I was like, should I? And they're like, no, it tastes like fucking urine. Like, why would you eat that? Is it liquor? locals are like, don't fucking eat that shit. That shit is foul as fuck, dude.

Don't eat that. Like, what are you doing? That's like, that's like fucking apocalypse food from when we couldn't find food. That's what it was. That's why it exists. It's apocalypse food, man. Nobody should do this. And you shouldn't put your fucking friends through this.

You'd never be that polite with your friends. No. I'm sorry. Never be that polite. No, no. Look, the lady said it tasted horrible. Yeah, she's even like, it fucking tasted like shit. And as I'm like, well, yeah, of course.

First of all, your friend made this up. Like, this is not a thing. Yeah. Like, again, fermented herring appears to be a thing. But just because you can ferment one thing doesn't mean you should just ferment anything. That's not how things work. This is how you end up with fucking botulism, which is what she ended up with was fucking botulism. And the ER people are like, yeah, man, we don't know what's wrong with you.

And they're like, oh, wait a minute. Hold on me blow his dust off this book. because I don't find out what's wrong with you because nobody gets botulism anymore. Yeah, the ER was like, we're going to send you home. And she's like, I don't think you should send me home. Yeah, I don't think I literally can't drink things.

She's like, the muscles in my chest are being parol. This was also like a little bit of an indictment of like the ER system, right? Because the ER, she's like got botulism. I get not knowing what it is. But like, she is having real distress. Like, are the muscles in her chest are becoming. being paralyzed. And the first

I was like, yeah, we're not sure. You should probably go home. It'll be good. She went to another like hospital or whatever, and they're like,

yeah, you've got fucking botulism toxin poisoning. Yeah, man. That shit don't fuck around. Like, it's fine to poke holes in your face and shove it in there.

But anywhere else, don't do that. Don't touch no botulism. I actually looked this up out of, I was watching some murder show or something the other day. And I was like, you know what?

I wonder, like, what is the most toxic? Like, what is the most poisonous thing? What is the most, it is botulism toxic. Yeah. It is the most poisonous thing. Like, it's just bad. You shouldn't. And you shouldn't create that.

Hey, what are we having for dinner at your dinner party? Oh, we're having fermented fish. Yeah. And to prove how fucking hard it is to get botulism and we don't even know about it anymore, it shows you really got to work. You got a fucking work, man. to make something so fucking toxic. I've never, as near as I can tell,

I don't know that I've ever fed anybody that has gotten sick like that. I have certainly never gotten anybody sick that I'm aware of. And thankfully, I'm glad that I haven't ever gotten sick at anybody else's house. But God, how bad would you feel if somebody actually got sick, sick off food you made? Oh.

Would you feel terrible? I got myself sick off of food I made once. I gave myself food poisoning making a turkey. And I don't know how, because I'm generally like a very cautious in the kitchen, like hand washing and sanitation. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. The only thing I can think, because I was the only person that got sick, so I, nobody else

got sick that ate. But I definitely had food poisoning. I mean, there was no question that that's what happened. So the only thing I could think is that maybe, like, I had a drink near me and like something that's something splashed in or something. And I didn't notice it somehow. Yeah, yeah. It's the only thing that.

Or you didn't wash your hands as well as you thought. Right. That's a possibility. You know what I mean? Where you just didn't wash your hands. you put them underwater and you rubbed them with soap and maybe you just miss like the back or something like that that happens you're supposed to be real thorough so just you know you miss it sometimes that happens that's the only thing i can think now what i'm cooking chicken or or poultry

of any kind like i wear gloves and i actually put down i have like a big industrial role of cling wrap i cling wrap my whole work surface and then i bleach everything and i don't eat or drink anything while i'm working yeah smart i was like that that happens to me one time you do it one time and then you're just like, nope, we're going to treat this like a fucking, like it's an alien autopsy. Biohazer, bro. Speaking of alien autopsy. This story, this story comes from USA Today. Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders says Arkansas restaurant told her to leave.

Aw. Poor Sarah Huckabee Sanders having exactly the day she deserves. I'll tell you this, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. maybe you can't get served at the red hen in wherever you were and then you couldn't get served again at this croissant place, this little place that served quasson. The croisserie or whatever, yeah. But I think there might be an ice cream place you can go to.

You know what, Sarah? Also, someone I know is making fermented swordfish. I will make you my finest nail-studded fermented swordfish. It's delicious. It's actually, I used to wear that on my lapel when I used to go clubbing back in the day. It was a nail studded fermented swordfish. That's what they used to wear in industrial clubs back in the day. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I love what these people are awful and they're like, wait a minute, I'm not welcome here. And it's like, no, you're awful. Oh, hey, you know what you did? Ruin America. So we're good. You could just stay outside.

Yeah. I would have loved it if they just threw fucking croissants out of the whole time. They just fucking pelted her with quassons. She's catching them. She's trying to catch him as they go by. Just fucking pelt her with a fucking like a panof-chocolat right in the fucking eye. Just boom. The problem is you know she'd catch him like a Labrador.

You know it. You know she'd snatch him out of the air like a fucking hungry Labrador. If there's a choice, quassan panacholat. I'm going pana-chocat 100% of the time. I don't remember the last time. I had a pan of chocolate. So I don't know. If they're made well,

oh, so fucking good, dude. But a croissant is so good. But imagine a croissant with dark chocolate in it. Well, then yeah, fucking, you had me at hello. It's like so fucking good, dude. You had me at hello.

Really outstanding. I love that of all the sort of pastries that like are, you know, grab and go pastries. And I will crumb the fuck out of anything when it comes to that. Because they just, like the moment you bite it,

it just disintegrate. into a million pieces. It's like cunk and then bodoosh. It's like one of those slow motion movies where somebody's walking through and you just see all the fragments all around them.

And then they're like bullet time spin around the person. Like that's what happens every time I eat one of those. Anytime there's like a laminated dough product. First of all, my answer is yes. Yeah.

Fucking A bro. It is yes. Like I could be at the funeral of my firstborn. And if somebody's like, do you want a croissant? I'd be like, yeah, I do. It would make me feel a little.

Like, I'll take it. But also, like, every one of those doughs, it does. It explodes. Oh. Do you ever drive in the car and eat a croissant? You got to buy a new car. Yeah, I know. At that point, you're just like, like, you buy the croissant and then that comes with detailing.

Like, it's like, that's what it comes with. It is like, you eat a croissant in the car. It's the exact same thing in terms of, like, dispersing stuff as, like, smoking 10 cigarettes. They should do that. They should do that at detailing places. like you come in and then like you kind of fuck your car up a little bit. They give you like a free thing to fuck your car. Like here's a croissant and we're going to give you a bag of ruffles.

Like I'm trying to think of other stuff that like gets all over the place. But that's what they should do is be like, yeah, we're going to give you that and then we'll vacuum the shit out of it. The other thing that gets all over, like when I'm driving and eating, when I was just thankfully I don't have to do this anymore as much. But I used to eat in the car quite a bit. If I'd go through a drive-thru, I'd always have to get no lettuce. because they give you those little lettuce shreds. The shreds, man. Go everywhere.

Those then live in between your seat and the console forever. And they just desiccate up into little crispy browns. Yeah. I had to stop like when I was younger. We used to like once in a while we'd think you can eat Taco Bell and drive. And you can't. Like you just can't. Like you bite one of those shells and it's the same thing.

It's like a push and just around your whole. Your car is filled with corn dust afterwards. It's just like, it's impossible. Yeah, it's nasty. It cannot be done. done. And there's no reason to go to Taco Bell and get a soft shell taco. No, I mean, I used to really love their double deckers, but they don't make them anymore. They don't make them. I haven't been to Taco Bell and forever. They're not on the menu. I guess maybe you

could be like, hey, buddy, can you make me a couple? Here's an extra dollar for you. I don't think I'm going to order a double decker. I feel like Urban Dictionary would tell me not to do that. I don't know why, but I just have this like spiky sense that's tingling right now. I feel lucky living where I do because I have like four or five amazing good like Mexican restaurants nearby that are like fast food type restaurants that are just so great. That's fucking amazing, dude. It's like, like there's no reason to go to Taco Bell if you have those. No, absolutely. Taco Bell is a place you go because it's, it's 1.30 in the morning and they're open. Yeah. That's why you go. That you're 100%. They shouldn't even have daytime hours. Yeah. Yeah. Man. Tommy living in the weirdest. It's so bitchy. Can you just

read this article? It's fast. A million percent. It's so. It's so. bitchy and amazing. Oh, I love Jezebel. It's so good. All right. As Cecil mentioned, this is on Jezabel. Sorry, what did you say RFK Jr. did to a dead raccoon's penis? Jesus Christ, dude. Subheadline. The only thing the guy in charge at our country's health and well-being loves more than spreading measles is mutilating dead animals. It's impossible to imagine a world without Robert F. Kennedy Jr. not just for launching the U.S. back to 1905, where everyone died of measles, but because everyone, but because every third headline about him is the most twisted jumble of fever dream reporting. Sure, fuck it is, man.

Over the weekend, the New York Post published an excerpt from its investigative reporter Isabel Vincent's upcoming book, RFK Jr., The Fall and Rise, which is coming out April 14th. Great title, by the way. Great title. What a great. Oh, so good. The angle being that Vincent got access to three of his secret journals in 2013. and has since been digging through the 1,200 pages of RFK's life and his deepest thoughts.

Among these journal entries, he apparently wrote about chopping off a raccoon's penis. Okay. Yeah, we're not really sure what to say either. The excerpt reads, quote, it would foreshadow Bobby's later life, such as when he scooped up a roadkill bear on a New York State Highway in 2014, dumping it in Central Park when he realized he needed to catch a plane. you know you got to do that though because because like you got to leave your knife in the garbage

or whatever if you go through he comes in to like wave the wand and he's like oh hold on I got a bear I got a bear let me put it out of a minute let me get rid of the bear the claws are more than two and a half inches it's not street legal they wave the wand on his back and he's got a whale carcass back every time it's like a brand new animal it's like Bobby Kennedy the arc. It's just like every new animal. They wave it on a fucking pigeon flies by to go find land. I thought this would be whale come here. I didn't realize it was. No, whale come. Sorry, we can't do that. I can't, you can't bear it. That's for sure. That's amazing, dude. It's so funny that he's like, no, I got to catch a plane.

I mean, he's so fucking busy that he's got to take a bear. That he has currently with him a roadkill bear, Tom. And then he's like, well, I got to jettison the bear somewhere. Let me put it in fucking. There's so many questions that anybody should have. Why is it happening? And then why are you so important? I get it, dude.

I get it if like your job isn't consequential. Right. And it could be any job. I'm not going to make fun of it. I'm not going to job shame here. But it could be, imagine any job that's not consequential, right? That's just like any job. But this guy is the fucking agent secretary and he's like, he's discarding random bears.

But Cecil, hold on a minute. Because I got to back us up. Okay. More than discarding a random bear. Yeah. He has a random bear. And he was on his way to somewhere. And he's like, yeah.

So like, okay, it's too. You don't have a surprise flight. Nobody has a surprise flight. No, no. Right? So you know you've got to catch a plane. Yeah, but he has an unplanned bear. That's probably. Was he just like, well, I can't pass up a free bear.

I mean, what do you think I am? Oh, God. Then he's driving. He's like, yeah, I guess. Dude, this is, I can't believe this is reality. Like, I can't. I can't. I can't do it.

You can't convince me. Like all of us fucking died sometime. We all died altogether. And now we're all just experiencing this unreality together. It's too stupid for work. It is so fucking stupid, man. Constantly dumber than the last thing. And so, like, I'm right there with you.

I'm like, no. It can't be real. It cannot. And it can't be real that, like, here's the other thing that I refuse to accept, that all of these things are true. and people are still like, I'm cool with that. I'm fine. That guy should be in charge of me and my health and well-being.

Oh, it's so good. What? I wouldn't let that guy work at Brewsters to scoot my ice cream. It's stuffed raccoon dicks in it. I'm sorry. I veered off course with the bear, but I just couldn't anymore. Go ahead. No, it's fine.

In his diary, he writes about cutting off the penis of a road-killed raccoon in 2001, while his kids waited patiently in the car so that he could examine it later. Unfortunately, No one asked a follow-up question. Not a single person. Everyone was just like, let's just let that hang in the air.

Unfortunately, this whole next paragraph is nothing but questions that I refuse to look up. Unfortunately, it's not made clear what exactly Kennedy did, with the fur bandit's penis. But Google says raccoon penis bones are also known as Mountain Man toothpicks.

So do with that what you will. What I decided to do with that was nothing. I refused to know about this. You know, I decided later on today, I'm going to walk into the ocean. That's what I decided. I'm never coming back. I'm going to continue on right into the ocean.

I'm not even near an ocean and I'm going to walk into one. Cecil. Cecil, this is my new policy. And I'm not even kidding. I'll tell you a quick workstores. I had an issue with somebody at my work, and I said to him, here's what you are not allowed to do anymore. You are not allowed to even hear rumors.

So if somebody starts telling you a rumor, you have to stop them and say, I can't listen to that anymore. I'm done hearing that. And if they continue, you hang up the phone or you walk away. That is how we're going to handle the rumor mill. We're just literally going to refuse it. Yeah. That is now how I'm going to behave.

Like I'm going to read about, hey, this is a mountain man toothpick. I'm like, nope. What did you learn about that? I didn't learn anything. The world is full of rabbit holes, my guy. And I've gone down too many of them at the age of 48 to go down the next one. You fooled me like a thousand times, man. I don't want to learn shit anymore.

Tom is running now on a seven second delay. Like they used to have to bleep out swear words back in the day. Tom is running on a seven second delay where, be like, that never happened. I'm done. Look, my whole life, it has been like a thing where people will be like,

you kind of seem to know a little bit about everything. Not anymore, man. Not anymore. I don't want to know anything about anything. I don't need to know about Mountain Men's toothpicks. I literally don't. Nope.

I refuse to learn anymore. That's it. I'm done learning. Everything I learn is dumb. This story appeared in the New York Times. Sure did, Tom. The actual New York Times, no one at the Waffle House remembers FEMA official who says he teleported in. Do you make the Star Trek sound when you do that thing?

Because then you would notice. Like I feel like the person who's cooking up your slathered, battered, bothered, bothered eggs or whatever. It's slathered, flipped, fucked, fucked. What is there like, they have like a whole thing. Yeah. Slathered, smothered, covered, jothered, jothered, jubbed, jubed, whatever. Just coat, come coated. I don't know.

Nut maxed. Nub maxed. I have my potatoes nut maxed, please. We went to a waffle house. We did. We did. We were North Carolina. A couple times.

We went a couple times. Not great, but not the worst. I mean, like, I think like, I think like as far as late night establishments go, because it's not a place. Like, look, if you go there, during the day you get what you deserve. Shame on you, right? Like, there's probably plenty of other places that are more hygienic, like, probably smell better and get better food and faster or whatever that are better than Waffle House. But at a certain point at night, those options start to really,

really get smaller. Right. And Waffle House was a perfectly acceptable 1230 in the morning thing. Not a thing I would go to it at 8 o'clock at night. I would, I would, I would, just. avoid it, but I would definitely go there at 1230. If the goal, and sometimes it is, right, if the goal is to line your stomach with grease as a protective measure, right? Sometimes that's work you just need done. Yeah. It will do, it will, I will say, it will do that.

If the other goal is to drink really bad coffee, which sometimes that's what you need to, they will do that. If you have any other goals, it will not accomplish them. It will not. I will say that the Waffle House we were in, the one that I remember was in Hickory, North Carolina for ReasonCon,

back in like 2017. And I don't remember anybody teleporting and they're out. Everybody went through very conventional means. Yeah, it was pretty conventional to come in. Although I have seen, I've seen some fights that happen in Waffle House where I do think somebody has superpowers in there,

but definitely not just a normal sitting around type thing. I've seen that one video where the cook like catches a chair in mid-air. You don't catch that chair unless you're blade. Like blade can catch the chair. The rest of the people don't catch chairs. We catch chairs with our face. That's how we catch chairs. Normal people just don't catch a chair when it's thrown at you.

That's a guy who's like had a lot of chairs thrown at them. Yeah. You know, because he's been at the Waffle House a lot. Maybe you're right. Maybe there's a practice. practice makes perfect moment. I can't be sure, but I'm leaning towards

superpowers on that one. But the rest of it, it's like this guy. Again, like we got a guy who's cutting penises off the hood of coats. You've got a guy

who had an extra bear with him. He's just like, no, I got an extra bear. I can't make it through security at the airport. And then you have this guy

who's like, yeah, I'm in charge of a lot of really important stuff. Like if something gets broke by the weather in the United States, I am the guy

who's like, yeah, you get money for that. I also teleport places like Nightcrawler from X-Men. What the sweet fuck, Tom. This is a really important person.

This isn't just like a fucking random dude who you're having a conversation with at Waffle House at 2 in the morning who's really fucking high. Who's like, yeah, man, I like teleport all over the place. Like, dude, if Joe Rogan's next to you, yeah, he can be the teleport guy. Yeah. But this guy's too

important for that. Why are we doing? this. There's a massive hurricane, right? It's a massive hurricane. People are like sleeping in the fucking like Astrodome or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Right. And like Greg Phillips is our guy. He's point. Like he's the decision maker. He's the one. And he's like, hey, I'll be right there. And he just waits. And then he closes his eyes and then he wiggles his nose like bewitched. It'll happen any minute. It'll happen. And like, he defends himself by being like, well, look, I didn't call it teleport. Yeah, let's not get crazy. I called it being transported by Jesus.

I called it transubstantiation. He literally thinks Jesus picked him up. Yeah. And like in his sweet Jesus hand or whatever and made him invisible and then moved him to the Waffle House. I know we're. What? I know we're having a good time. But how stupid is that in comparison to the regular Jesus myth?

Right? Like in comparisons, like the regular Jesus myth. The Jesus was like around a long time ago. And then he got killed. And then he walked on water in the opposite order or whatever. And then he like cursed a bunch of pigs. And like all the other crazy shit. Right. That Jesus did he fucking broke a loaf of bread.

He made a whole bunch of loaves of bread. And then like Jesus set a bunch of stuff. And then he fucking like flew into heaven after he died or whatever. And everybody saw it. And then from that point on, Jesus has been the one who's, you know, you pray to him and it fixes everything, et cetera, et cetera. How stupid is being able to fly versus I can like fix things just by wishing? Like, I mean, like, how different are these things? They're not different.

And it's like, yeah, well, guess what? Guess what you did when you got a fucking Christian nationalist group of people to write your fucking your project book? Your fucking your work project book for you. You get a bunch of Christian nationalists, man. That's what you get. Crazy people. Yeah, man, this is, this is both, this is perfectly in keeping with a magical worldview. It's just that like now we're saying it out loud and letting people with a magical worldview

come out of the fucking woodwork and talk about their magics. They're all doing it, right? Like, like, fucking Tucker Carlson is talking openly about like the time you got attacked by demons and shit. Like, these guys are like, they're not uncomfortable anymore with the insanity. of all of this. There was kind of a time where like you would say this to the other religious nuts, right?

You'd say this to the other religious cooks. But if you wanted to be taken seriously, you didn't say insane shit out loud because the New York Times would report on it. And then everybody would be like, well, you should be, you can't sit with us. You can't sit

with us. We would ming girls out of the fucking lunch table of serious people. But now now nothing matters anymore. Now you can cut dicks off of fucking raccoons and strap them to your fucking teeth to pick your eyeballs or whatever

and you're FEMA or you're the fucking head of HHS or you know like you can you can be Ben Carson right who was the head of HUD of housing and urban development who's like yeah I think the pyramids were granaries and everybody's like that's not

a true what? And stupidity is no longer disqualifying. Yeah, man. Weird shit and magical beliefs and like, like the beliefs and like, there's how Congress people are like, yeah, there's like lots of aliens and shit just walking around. Fucking Matt Gates has said crazy shit about it. And nobody is, Jewish space lasers doesn't get you kicked out.

Nothing matters anymore. Doesn't matter. You can say whatever insane show like, why not, man? Why not? Yeah. Jesus took me. Jesus built my hot rod. Why is Jesus?

Listen to my minute. Why is Jesus taking here to Waffle House? Well, he'll take the wheel. Why not to the Waffle House? Why do anything, Cecil? What's Jesus's style of potatoes? What's Jesus' style of potatoes? Are they holy potatoes?

Like, what are Jesus' style of potatoes? I need to know because they're either slapped or smothered or fucked or whatever those things are. I want to know what Jesus' style is. All right, that's going to wrap it up for our goofy show this week. We're going to be back on Monday with a full show, but we'll leave you like we always do with the skeptics crepe. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-babelon bullshit.

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conspiracy, double-speak, stigmata, nonsense. Expose your signs. Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed the show,

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