Lateral with Tom Scott - 157: A red rubber ball

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

Macy Gilliam, Toby Howell and Neal Freyman from 'Morning Brew' face questions about tortuous things, terrible typefaces and talented tans. LATERAL is a comedy panel game podcast about weird questions with wonderful answers, hosted by Tom Scott. For business enquiries, contestant appearances or question submissions, visit https://lateralcast.com. HOST: Tom Scott. QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe. EDITED BY: Julie Hassett at The Podcast Studios, Dublin. MUSIC: Karl-Ola Kjellholm ('Private Detective'/'Agrumes', courtesy of epidemicsound.com). ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS: GC, Brian, Maren, Karen Zheng, James, Elliot, Nicolas. FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott. © Pad 26 Limited (https://www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Where would you find two arms, above an eye, above a foot, above a throat? The hands to that at the end of the show, my name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral. Today we have three returning players from Morning Brew, who continue, just for transparency's sake, to not sponsor this podcast. They are well known for a business newsletter that is sharp and incisive. And I can attest to that. I printed one out and got a paper cut. Hopefully standing by with antiseptic and a band-aid. First, we have Neil Freeman. Hello. Welcome back to the show. How did you find it on your first outing through lateral? It was like, sorry to use a baseball metaphor, but it was kind of like going into a game without

warming up in the bullpen first as a pitcher. You can use a soccer metaphor anywhere you want. But it took a while to get used to it, but once you were in the middle innings, we were throwing fastballs. I love how you went for a sports metaphor and not a business metaphor, despite everything. I mean, you know what's in my head. 99% of the time is sports, business 1%. Well, also joining us, the other half of Morning Brew's Morning Business Podcast, Toby Howell, welcome back to the show. Thank you so much. I was shocked by our collective ability to go so far in the wrong direction, but then also bring it back in the right direction. Sometimes it loops round. Sometimes you say the silly thing, and it loops around. It's correct.

Exactly. You should give a plug for the podcast. Yeah. If you like listening to our voices on this podcast, go check out our real podcast at Morning Brew Daily. It's on all podcast platforms. And if you like business news, but nothing too serious, give it a listen. And the last member of Morning Brew joining us today, Macy Gilliam, welcome back. Thank you so much. So happy to be back. Last time you were here, you said you were learning magic for a YouTube video on Morning Brew? Yes. I became a magician for a video. I had a real magic show with a hundred paying audience members, and it really put my skills to the test. So everyone should go check out the video and see how it went. Can I ask why? Like, what's the shtick that gets that to like a business YouTube channel? Yeah. So I work at a business news company, but sometimes that's boring. So I thought, how could I make really fun business news content?

and I figured, what if I go try a bunch of jobs for myself and just kind of show you what that's like? I think of it as, you know, when people watch the Olympics and they go, I wish there was one regular person out there running with them to see how good the pros are. I'm the regular person out there and you can see how bad I am and how bad maybe you would be compared to a normal magician or other jobs. Well, I'm sure you'll be above average on the show tonight, as will everyone else. And while I gently wipe my paper-cut blood off my script, let's be positive, and not, oh, negative, as we get pumped for question one. Thank you to James for this question. A guide is leading a group of schoolchildren around the Payne Art Centre in Wisconsin.

The first exhibit she shows them consists of two copies of the same chair placed next to each other. What is the difference between them, and why did she show this first? I'll say that again. A guide is leading a group of school children around the Payne Art Center in Wisconsin. The first exhibit she shows them consists of two copies of the same chair placed next to each other. What is the difference between them and why did she show this first? Toby, you're the only one of us who's lived in Wisconsin. I know.

I feel like from watching previous episodes of Lateral, whenever a place is mentioned, people go like, why is this place important? Like, let's dive into it. And I'm wondering if this is a question where Wisconsin is just a red herring or it's just where it's taking place. So all this is to say, don't rely on me. And let's think about it about the chairs specifically. Did you say Payne Art Center? Is that just someone's name?

That is just someone's name. As it's a group of school children being led around with this question. I'll cut that off there and just say, yes, P-A-I-N-E, Payne Art Center. Oh, Thomas Payne. I know there's like the Milwaukee Museum. of art, which is like this beautiful thing. But I don't think that's the pain art center. Yeah, I'm back on, I'm back on Wisconsin now. I wonder if they're like, you said they're two copies of the same chair. Yes. I wonder if I've seen before at a resale store that does vintage

reselling. They have a fake Louis Vuitton bag and a real Louis Vuitton bag. So you can see the difference in production quality. And you can like learn how to spot a fake and learn why buy buying from like a certified reseller can be helpful. I wonder if it's something like that, if they're like this one was made, maybe like mass produced and this one was like handcrafted or something. Are they identical chairs? Like are they the same visually when you look at them?

Not anymore. Oh. I wonder if they were like one was used and one was kept in storage or one was like used outside. Or maybe a historical event happened in one of the chairs. It's like the theater seat where Lincoln was shot and there's blood on it and the other one's clean. We're going gruesome. Sorry.

It does feel like the fact that there's school children because like your teacher says, hey, look at these chairs first. So it's to teach them some sort of lesson. And I'm wondering if the lesson is, I don't know, when I think of chairs in school children, they're always like sticking gum on stuff or like. They're not treating it very nicely. So it's like a lesson of like how to treat things properly and how not to treat things. You're getting very close there.

Okay. Whether it's like a famous chair, like one built by Frank Lloyd Wright or something, or if it's a more a mundane thing that illustrates something else. They could have actually used two of anything here. It happens to be chairs. It feels like like this is your brain.

This is your brain on drugs type thing of like this. Oh, maybe it's smoking. That's what it is. it's like this chair was in, it's like a fabric chair that's been in a house that has smoke in it and you can see how like

dark and sooty it is and then the other chair like hasn't been near smoke and it's like pristine and nice. I really like that he started his guess with that's what it is. I keep doing that. It's been a confident guess.

I like that. It shows confidence. It's wrong, but it shows confidence. Okay, but Toby was close with like the gum thing and an example of teaching kids how to behave.

you said what's close. Okay. Yes. I think Macy, putting it as like how to behave is very much the rule here. What do kids do?

What do kids talk out of turn? I wonder if it was literally just like an artifact at a museum that a kid broke and now they have it on display to teach other kids. Like when we say don't touch the stuff,

don't touch the stuff. That's the lesson. You're absolutely right, Macy. That is the lesson that they're trying to teach. That's why. Why they show it first, but that's not quite the difference between the chairs. I wonder if it's like the oils on skin, like, degrading the chair, and it shows that process happening to the chair, rather than it being, like, fully broken?

Yes, you've got kind of all the individual pieces here. What is the guide telling the kids to do here? Don't climb on the sculptures, right? Or don't touch the sculptures? So why are there two chairs? Oh, they are supposed to touch one of them and they're not supposed to touch the other. Yes, absolutely right. One chair is actually displayed in a see-through box. The other chair is put out in the open

and the guide encourages the kids to touch that one chair. And it is in a terrible state. You can tell it's been played on, it's been almost destroyed. And it is the museum guide's way of explaining to children why they have the rule, do not touch.

So none of the kids were smokers then, is what you're telling you. Well, so this is a personal anecdote from the question writer, and this was an exhibit that James saw during school trips as a child. We do not know how old James is. So, you know, if it was the 40s and 50s, honestly, he might have been. You never know. If I were a kid seeing that, I'd be like, oh, everything I'm about to see in this museum has a do not touch version and a touch version.

so if I was going around saying that I couldn't touch anything, I'd be like, well, what the heck was that at the beginning? Macy, it is over to you for the next one. Okay. This question has been sent in by Brian. Brian's mother came home to find a puddle on the floor. She got rid of her crock pot even though there was nothing wrong with it. How did this clear her conscience?

One more time. Brian's mother came home to find a puddle on the floor. She got rid of her crock pot, even though there was nothing wrong with it. How did this clear her conscience? There's a very old lateral thinking puzzle about a puddle on the floor, which is the melted murder weapon that has been used. And I feel like it's not that. I feel like our question writers...

No, there's no... There's no suicide and block of ice. Is it water on the floor? Is it just a liquid on the floor? It's just a liquid on the floor. floor. It's not water. Okay. Okay. So the crock pot, the way it's my crock pot's been used is like you put the lid on. It cooks forever. And then there's like the release valve too that you kind of can like blow steam out of that condensation escapes it. That's like a two and one pressure cooker. Yeah, that might be well crock pot is

technically, I'm thinking of instapot too. But so a crock pot does put it under pressure or does it not? Is it just slow cooking. I think a crock pot is just slow cooking. So there's none of that release of it. A crockpot does plug into a wall. Crocpot smell good. You know, when it's cooking, you put the short rib in there. And I'm wondering if it attracted some sort of wild, because the thing that's standing out to me here is she wants to clear her conscience here. And so I'm wondering if the smells attracted some sort of wildlife or some sort of person who can. came and got a little too curious, and I'm, the liquid to me is like, like urine or something. Like something, something got into the kitchen.

A bear. A bear. A bear. Because feeding bears is bad. Or bear in kitchen is bad. So I'm wondering. Yeah, that's true. Bear in kitchen, bears having a great time, but you don't want to domesticate them.

Could it have been her pet that peed on the floor? That's kind of the lines of where I was thinking, too. it's like the smell attracted You guys are right That it has something to do with the smell You're definitely on the right track with that I am wondering why you think the smell Would cause them to pee

Yeah No not cause them to pee They it is The puddle is Yeah That's how she understood That the animal was in there Other than all the other disruption

That's what I was That's what I was thinking Actually what you said Tom You're on the wrong track with urine Good. Excellent. Happy about that. Well, Crockpots give off heat, so it could cause something to melt. I mean, I don't know if it's a murder weapon like Tom was thinking about, but it could hypothetically cause ice to melt, something to melt.

What other liquids would end up in a kitchen, though? I mean, lots of... It's not necessarily a kitchen. We just saw that she got home. She's in a kitchen. I mean, when you boil, when you cook something poorly in a crock pot, it can boil over a little bit and cause a mess. That feels a little too obvious, though. No, the crock pot didn't leak. So smell, she did say it was smell related and conscience.

Clear your, it's, she feels bad about it. And so. So what's she cooking that is sending out a smell? it's oh it's not pet related because i keep thinking like slobbering dog like was so she's the dog is just sitting there waiting and like the drool is just puddling on the floor because that's exactly it that's exactly it the crock pot had been cooking all day and the dog smelled it and it like wanted it but then there was no one home to even give it a piece of food or whatever and so she decided that it was cruel to the dog and she got rid of the crook pot

That is so much saliva if you think about a puddle of saliva. A puddle that's still there by the time she gets home from work. Oh my gosh. I assume from the names in the question, the question writer, that this is like personal anecdote here. This is a personal anecdote. This is Brian's, it was sent in by Brian, and this is something that happened to Brian's mom. Check out the big stars, big series, and blockbuster movies. Streaming on Paramount Plus.

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with its delicious combination of big, crunchy, salty peanuts covered in creamy caramel and chewy fudge with a chocolatey coating. Swing by a gas station and get an O'Henry today. Oh hungry, oh Henry! Thank you to Elliot for sending in this question, created by two members of Represent U.S. in 2019, the font Ugly Jerry has been called the world's most revolting font. What is the real-life inspiration for the letters? I'll say that one more time.

Created by two members of Represent U.S. in 2019, the font Ugly Jerry has been called the world's most revolting font. What is the real-life inspiration for the letters? I thought the world's most revolting font was Comic Sans. There you go, Neil. Nailed it. Nailed the font joke. You haven't seen comic Helvetica. There is a comic Helvetica.

There is a comic serif. Like, people have been riffing on this for a while. That's awesome. Really? Okay, do we know what that group is that they're a part of? Represent U.S. I've never heard of that group. Maybe should we just play it simple and start talking about revolting things?

Because that seems like a decent way to start. It probably isn't visual if I had a guess, because that's like two. I don't know, too basic. But there's no other way to experience a font. I haven't tasted one. Well, yeah, no. I actually don't think that's a bad line of thinking, though. It's like this gives off the taste of rotten milk or something.

Or smell, yeah. Yeah. Or smells really bad. There's synesthesia. Oh, gosh, I don't know if I can pronounce it. Cinesia. Cinesia, when you can, like, hear colors or, like, taste fonts. So maybe it was a...

That feels too lateral. I was thinking, sorry, again, not to shut you guys down. I wonder if it's like, if it's related to like, is it named after a person, Jerry? And it's like a person's face like morphed into the shape of letters. And so it's like this horrifying thing to look at that's like a person's face all morphed around. I mean, one of the few clues we have to go off is the name of the fun. And so I'm thinking Jerry, like famous Jerry's, Jerry Seinfeld, Jerry. Garcia, um, Jerry, the dad from Rick and Morty.

Jerry Springer, Jerry the dad from Rick and Morty. None of them are extremely revolting. And I don't think any of them would fit this, because Jerry is spelt with a G, not a J. Okay, that helps. Oh, is it gerrymandering? I wonder if it's a font that's made out of jerrymandered district borders, and that's why it's so revolting is that it's not revolting to look at Toby was right with synesthesia all the Please be right.

Maybe Macy just came from a protest. Macy is absolutely right. Ugly Jerry is a font made by anti-corruption organization represent U.S., made up of gerrymandered political district maps. Could someone explain gerrymandering for the folks who don't know it? Gerimandering is the process of redrawing political districts to like draw around an area that would all vote. one way, and it, like, draws these really squiggly little lines that looked like salamanders originally. And it came from the word salamander combined with this guy, Jerry, who was the first one that did it. Yes, absolutely right. That's basically all the notes I have here.

Absolutely right, Macy, this is a gerrymandering font. Macy, that was incredible. I had no idea. Did you not know that about gerrymandering? No, I did not, no. But in Florida, I'm sure there's plenty of political gerrymandering that happens. I'm from Florida. But what would happen was high school football gerrymandering where, like, there'd be a really big recruit that wanted to go to this public school. So they'd literally redraw, like, public districts to recruit people. Wow. That's like Florida public school gerrymandering amongst other, I'm sure, other political gerrymandering.

Toby, whenever you're ready, you've got a question for us. All right. This question has been sent in by Marin. Anne is an actor in a big budget theatrical production. It is extremely important that she holds a red rubber ball at certain times as it could potentially save her life. How? One more time, Anne is an actor in a big budget theatrical production.

It is extremely important that she holds a rubber ball, a red rubber ball at certain times, as it could potentially save her life, how? A big budget production to me seems like it could possibly have animals. Scary animals. Animals, I was thinking stunts. Stunts too. So maybe it's like if she doesn't feel safe to do the stunt,

she like holds up the ball as like a signal to do something else. There is a technology in like big budget theater stuff where the spotlights will automatically follow the actors on stage. they just have a little tracker or something on them. I have no idea how it works, but it's just incredibly precise follow spots. So he's like, is she throwing it to someone to move the spotlight or something like that?

As far as I know, the material and color of the ball are just a normal ball. So no photon tracking capabilities within this red rubber ball. I like that conceptually, though. I was thinking something like, yeah, stunt performance, acrobatics, cirque disoley, I'm ready for my dismount, I'm ready to come on your little swingy thing, and if not, I'm going to hold up the ball and you just keep swinging. Oh, yeah, it's a big budget theatrical rather than definitely a play. True. Yeah, so I was thinking more circusy acrobatts, cirque disillet, something like that.

I don't know the intricacies of how those like handoffs are done. but potentially the ball is a signal to someone else to be like, don't come near me at this point. I remember seeing footage a long time ago of someone who was, it's a bleak thing for a demonstration for a TV show, they were being waterboarded. This was back in the Bush administration, for obvious reasons.

And what they did was they gave essentially a ball or something allowed to drop as an emerging, this is the stop signal. You will not be able to talk or think or anything. For this to continue, you have to hold this. And your instinct is to drop it. So obviously it's not going to be like that, but is it like if she lets go of this,

it is a signal that something is very wrong. That is true. What we're looking for is what she was doing and what she might need to signal. But Tom, that is 80% of the way. there. So it's a safety thing, but what sort of stuff do you do in a theatrical production where you couldn't just use your words? I mean, I guess it's maybe they're far away on the stage or like the waterboarding thing. Maybe it's, uh, she's unable to speak at that point

or they're unable to hear her for some reason if they're far away or if it is a signal to an animal. There's only a finite number of ways to be killed. in a, in a theater, which is like a fake prop gun, a prop sword. If you're in a big, you know, knife fight or something, it's West Side Story. Falling from a stunt. Falling from a high position. Being shot in the back of the head if you're the president. Maybe I missed a couple.

Stage fright, you can die from that. I know in Wicked, in performances of that, they have the concept of a no-fly show where if things don't work, if anything's out of place, if some of the safety systems fire or anything like that, the person behind the scenes will call that it's a no-fly show at the end of Act one when she's meant to rise up into the sky defying gravity. And there's just an alternate plan for that moment where everyone goes, okay, that lift's not working, I guess we're just going to like kind of pretend she's flying here, we've got an alternate plan. And the audience gets a bit confused because she's very much not defying gravity. And one of the, like, is it a

signal or something like that. You should look up the videos of it. It's so funny. She just stands at floor height and everyone else lays on the ground. Oh. Huh. It's hilarious. Tom, you are as close as you could possibly be in this where you're right.

It is a signal and your right flight is involved. And so I guess just connect the last little connective tissue there. I wonder if it's to signal when she's like hooked her harness. It has to do with the harness. But so why does it need to be in her hand, versus any other place? She's holding it when she gets in the harness, but then what are they looking at that ball for? Because if she drops it, it's going to make a really loud thud. It's something you can't, no, that doesn't, because there's going to be all sorts of stuff going off.

That first, that first part of your sentence was on the right track. If she drops it. She drops it. She drops it when. Is it, is the ball supposed to go up with her when she does the lift? It is, if this harness, presumably, is very intense and safe and maybe a little constricting. Oh, oh, I have worn a harness like that. When I did, I did a video where I got harnessed under a helicopter.

And in certain type of harnesses, you've got about five minutes before you start having serious pain and you might pass out. It is the, first of all, baller sentence, Tom, to say, I've been in the hardest under that how we got there. Second of all, it warns the crew that she's fainted when in a flying harness. If she loses, you know, ability to control her hand, it will fall out of her hand. And if you see that ball dropping, that means that she has fainted while in the flying harness. What show is it? She says, I work in theater in Germany, and this is common practice for us. Our next question comes from Nicholas. Thank you very much. Outside the French city of Bordeaux, there is a small cylindrical stone with the Swiss flag painted on it. What is it for, and why is it nowhere near Switzerland? I'll say that again. Outside the French city of Bordeaux, there is a small cylindrical stone with the Swiss flag painted on it. What is it for, and why is it nowhere near Switzerland?

Oh, what do we know Switzerland for? Federer. Watches. That is the first time that a sports reference has been used as what do we know Switch or what do we know country for? That's amazing. I could have gotten chocolate, but Federer sounded better. Sylindrical and stone. Stone seemed to like monument or signify something. Here lies. Right.

Or like a marker of where something happened or... cylindrical I wonder if it's like I wonder if the stone was like excavated you know when they like excavate stone with like a cylinder drill and then it pulls up like a cylinder piece of stone I wonder if it's like Swiss stone for something Pangaea clearly this town this place has some sort of relationship with Switzerland so far away do you like Bordeaux I associate with the I guess just all of France I associate with a lot of the same stuff is Switzerland. Wine. Wine. Wine, cheese, whatever. So is the cylinder a bottle of wine?

Is there anything with like longitude or latitude? Because I know like Greenwich Standard Time, right, is... Oh. That's measured from a point in... It is. Does it have to do with time or like longitude and latitude? Longitude and latitude is pretty close. That's the point that all Swiss watches are set to.

I was right with watches the whole time. Are you right, Macy? Because there's cesium. Were you reacting to me, Tom? No way. I'm reacting to both of you. Because I know that the universal, I don't know why it's in France, but like I know that the closest atomic time is like cesium atoms like twitching or something or

reacting in a way and that's like the closest thing to one precise second. So I'm wondering if it is like this is the time standard that all Swiss watches are are set to, essentially. Now, between the two of you, you've basically got it, but it's not time. And you sort of said it earlier, Toby. The longitude and latitude, is it more geographical than time, I guess?

Yes, it is. Okay. So what could this marker near Bordeaux be? That would be geographically related to Switzerland. It is zero-zero. Yes, it is, Neil. Spot on. Zero, zero.

Yeah, it's zero degrees longitude and zero degrees latitude, because it's Greenwich Mean Time going up and down and then from up then the other way. So it's also zero. It's not Greenwich Mean Time. So you're right that it's zero zero. Zero, zero for what? Longitude and latitude, is it zero for just launching latitude?

No, it can be because that's the equator. That's why I was like, it's not that. The longitude. may, no. Does it go back to watches or no? Well, zero and related to Switzerland. I think you've basically got it. It is the zero zero for Switzerland,

for their grid and mapping system. So in the same way that France has a zero point in Notre Dame, I think there's one in the US for Washington, D.C. That is where all the distances are calculated from where all the coordinates and grids are marked from. That's the first part of the question. question. What's it for? Why is it nowhere near Switzerland? Great question. That's such a good question. I wish someone knew the answer. Why would you put your zero point for your country,

which loads of countries have? Why would you put it outside your country? Is Switzerland like too mountainous to get a good measure from it that like how do you calculate the distance? Are you including the the vertical climb? Or I wonder if maybe it was marked so long. long ago that like the land used to be under one country, kingdom, whatever. The great conquerors of Switzerland. They used to spread across all over Europe. Well, maybe it was the great conquerors of France. When you're using latitude and longitude, what's one of the annoying things about it?

You have to go negative. Yes, you do. So what does this solve? So it solves for, there's no, it just makes, it goes from zero to 360 for both of them and you don't ever have to use negative 180 to positive 180. Absolutely right. Switzerland, their official coordinate system is called LV-95. They put the zero point outside Switzerland

so that the numbers are always positive. It's just, it's not degrees, it's just meters. Every coordinate on the Swiss grid system, it is always six digits, and it's marked so that those two sets of numbers are always going to be different. You can't confuse one point with the other. It will always be six numbers for east-west, six numbers for north-south in metres.

And if you want that for every point in Switzerland, you put your zero point near Bordeaux. At the Nissan All In Clear Out, there's nothing more chill than financing an award-winning Nissan for just 0%. Enjoy the soothing relaxation of zero stress, zero worries, zero indecision. Hurry in, because once they're gone, there will be zero left. During the Nissan all-in clear-out, get zero percent financing plus up to $500 bonus on some of our best-selling models. You have zero reasons to wait. Conditions apply. See your local Nissan dealer today.

Neil, whenever you're ready, your question, please. All right, let's do it. It's been sent in by G.C. Alyssa had been trying to get a job for a while. Finally, she had a breakthrough when she made use of a tanning salon. what was unusual about her visits there? Alyssa had been trying to get a job for a while. Finally, she had a breakthrough

when she made use of a tanning salon. What was unusual about her visits there? The first thing I thought of is, you know, when you lay outside and you, like, write a symbol on with sunscreen or something, and, like, the sun burns everything except for, like, a message in your chest. Or it's a prank that you pull on your friends,

where you, like, draw something on their back when they're at the beach. So I'm wondering if she just really showed brand loyalty by, like, tanning the logo of the company into herself. Like, she'd go to the tanning slot and put the logo on her. I don't know why. She did not do that, Toby, but... But someone should.

But I'm never sleeping on the beach with you around. Right. Do not. Do not. Okay. I wonder, I'm trying to think of other things. Sorry, is it spray tan? Or, like, tanning bed, do we know?

Do you go to a tanning salon for spray tan? Yes. Yes. If you want a good spray tan. Oh. I think it doesn't quite matter the method. Because I was thinking with, like, a tanning spray tan, you could, like, spray something else that you couldn't tan something else another way. Like, you couldn't spray your clothes brown or something in a tanning bed.

That's, I don't know. Oh, yeah. It could be a spray booth. It could be a UV bed, couldn't it? Yeah, but Neil is saying it doesn't matter for this question which one it is. Let's go with more spray tan than tanning bed. Okay. It feels like she didn't get a tan or something there.

That's what, like, what else could you do there that would be, like, abnormal about your visit? I feel like the main abnormal thing you could do would be to not get a tan. Or to tan something else. And it got her a job. Maybe she had, like, a really bad sock tan, and she was a foot model. And so she just put her feet in so that that, there wasn't that bad, like, sock tan. Neil, did I nail it?

You did not nail it. You're warmer. Okay. She's trying to eliminate tan lines. It feels too basic. I wonder if she was trying to be a lifeguard and she wanted to show that, like, she's outside swimming all the time.

That's why she's so tan now. What job could tanning make... Wait, no. It was what was unusual about her visits there, right? it's not how did it's not as simple as tanning got her a job there was something unusual about her visits there her unusual visits to the tanning salon did get her this particular job she had a watch strap tan that is is disqualifying for her job as a historical reenactor um oh i like that that's solvable with a bracelet that's that's solvable in ways that

do not involve extremely precise straight tanning. Like, you're not going to be able to color match with that. Her unusual visits there, like she went so many times. She went at odd hours. I wonder if she was, like, becoming a sales person, and she was trying to sell to a particular type of client. Like, I would probably stereotype the front desk girls at a tanning salon. Maybe you were trying to learn about, like, that demographic of probably, like, young women. Like, if she wasn't tanning, if she was, like, if she wasn't going to tan, she was going to, like, learn about those people or something.

The clientele? The clientele or, like, I was thinking of, like, the girls who worked at the front desk. I knew a bunch of girls who did it, so I'm thinking of them. In going to the tanning salon, she was trying to prove that she had experience in this particular field, which is more male dominated than. many other industries. So maybe she is only tanning specific parts of her body in order to generate fake tan lines. So it looks like she's been doing something?

Correct. But what's the job? Like working outdoors, your landscaping or something like that. It's specific tan lines to denote you're good at something that you've... Well, I know in, in, And bodybuilding, too, you, this doesn't feel right, though, but you do spray tan your whole body.

It, like, makes your muscles look better. But I heard tan lines in that, you don't have tan lines in that respect. What jobs do you do outside? Like a coach? We'll go back to sports. She could be, like, some sort of coach. She'd have that cool, like, sunglasses tan line. In this particular job, only one part of her body is outside.

the rest is protected from the sun. Oh my gosh. Is she a trucker and her arm is always out the window in the sun? Oh. Yes. Yes. She wanted to show that she was a truck driver, so she got one arm tan because just dangling the arm out of the window. Wow.

Yeah. That's awesome. I had no idea that was a thing. I've been wanting to do a video on long haul trucking, and I was like looking into like the culture. and that's part of it. I might take a page out of her book when I eventually do that video. This is a real story, apparently.

It says personal anecdote, friend of an ex-colleague. Wow. That's awesome. The lengths people go, yep. Which means we just have the question I asked at the start of the show. Thank you to Karen Zhang for sending this in. Where would you find two arms

above an eye, above a foot, above a throat? Good luck on this one, folks. This is not easy. But we're good. We're good at this. My first thought was a Picasso painting. That is technically true, I feel. So some museum, the Met, I don't know.

Arms, foot, throat. Those were the three. Arms eye, foot, throat. Sinking like a shoe. There's like a lot of personifications of shoes, like tongue and... Oh, yeah. Arm, eye. That's it.

Throat on the bottom, it feels like someone's, like, stepping on someone's neck, but that feels violent. But like, throat under foot feels like, how else does that get there? Arms was plural. I was singular. Yeah, the rest are single, I think. Yeah, it's not a living thing. I wonder if it's like a piece of machinery that has just names like that. Like, my sewing machine has, and there's an arm of it. There is. There's an eye of the needle. Wait, there's a sewing foot. And is the bobbin thread the throat? Yes, it is. Absolutely right. This is a Sowing machine. Oh, let's go.

I think it's fair to say we would not have gotten it without you, Macy. Macy sews so much, actually. She makes her own clothes. I'm quilting right now. That's my new thing. You were tailor made. So take us through it, Macy. The arms?

So the arm is like the top part of the sewing machine that's like, it goes across. Yep, you've got the needle arm and the take-up arm. The eye. The eye is the eye of the needle. Yes. The foot? The foot is the, it's a presser foot. It holds your fabric down against the machine. And the throat? The throat was actually a guess by me. I'm not up on my sewing machine terms that much, I guess. It's the throat plate. It's the metal plate below the foot, which has a

hole in it for the needle to pass through. Oh. And two arms above an eye, above a foot, above a throat is a sewing machine. Congratulations, players. Another successful episode, I think, for everyone there. Where can people find you? What are you up to? We'll start with Macy. You can find me on Morning Brew's YouTube channel, as well as my own YouTube channel, Macy A. Gilliam. I make a lot of random videos about trying different jobs at Morning Brew. And then on my personal content, I do things like making a sweater from start to finish, starting with Shearing a Sheep. Stuff like that. Toby.

I host a morning podcast, morning business news podcast every single weekday. I co-hosts it with Neal here. So if you're looking for a 25-minute rundown in the most of the most. important business news stories of the day, tune in at 7 a.m. Eastern. And Neil. I'll shout out something else Morning Brew does, which is do this newsletter that comes to your inbox every single morning. 4.4 million people are signed up to this thing. It's a really, really good digest of similar topics to the podcast. But if you're just a reader instead of a listener, then definitely check it out. It'll come to your inbox every single morning at 6 a.m. Eastern. And if you want to

know more about this show, you can do that at lateralcast.com. Where you can also send in your own ideas for questions. Our episodes are in full video every week on Spotify, and we are at Lateralcast, basically everywhere. Thank you very much to Neil Frayman. Thank you so much. This is a blast. Toby Howell. We had a great time. Macy kind of carried us there. And Macy Gilliam. Thank you so much, Tom. It was great to be here. I've been Tom Scott, and that's been Lateral.