Seeking Derangements - Preview SD 454 - Eat Them Over The Table

Episode Date: November 12, 2025

Ben here, today Jacques, Hesse and I discuss my harrowing experience flying during the government shutdown, Bryan Johnson's 5mg mushroom trip, and read through some select choices from The Ethicist. Plus a lot of crazy shit talk on this one...

Welcome to work, Diva. Welcome to work, Diva. You were almost, you were almost on time. Are you recording a local track? Right. Why don't you wait that up, Diva? Just get your local track recording. Well, I'm not going to, I'm not going to.

I did. Hello, everyone's welcome. to seeking derangements. This is a Patreon episode. So if you like what you hear, go subscribe to our Patreon for bonus episodes. Today we're going to talk about Brian Johnson's heroic dose of mushrooms,

which she live tweeted the experience of. I have made it back. Yes, I flew during the government shutdown and I will live to tell my story on this podcast. It's a hazardous area as well. Oh, yeah, girl. We flew through a fucking, blizzard. I do have like a fever now which

I thought you went over Kuwait or something which I think Kuwait's actually really chill which I did get probably from flying but talking about that and then I also have a selection of ethicist articles for you guys today and there's some really psychotic ones in there but yes I'm back home I'm back

in beautiful Des Moines Iowa yeah don't fly right now I mean I should probably I know I just got off a plane but like I would encourage everyone not to fly right now because it is like random as hell. I don't think you're going to die, but like, it does just suck. Everyone is ready to be pissed off. The gay flight attendants have never been gayer and bitchier and fed up, which I get.

I totally get. Yeah. But I was stuck on the tarmac for three hours yesterday after having six delays. And I was like, there's no way my flight, my LaGuardia to Des Moines direct flight that's leaving at 9 p.m. There's no way we're not getting cut because it has to be one of the least important flights in the country right now, but it didn't get cut. It just got like crazy delayed. And that when the pilot announced that we'd be on the

tarmac for three hours, I was, first of all, surrounded by Midwestern women. Portly, hen-shaped poodle haircut. Rotund. You know the type. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some of my least favorite women. men and i was like okay i'm gonna fully die so you hate most women i love most women um i love most women but joe from little women she just always something about her right i agree but i was like i'm fully gonna die i shouldn't be so negative in my last moment so i was like really trying to be zen ben which when i don't have many options like when i'm like stuck on a plane I am just like, there's nothing I can do about this. Aviation is a modern miracle.

I have, I should be grateful for everything I have in my life. And I'll just accept my circumstances. And I was fully there. But the least Zen people on Earth are the big gold women of the Midwest when they have the slightest inconvenience. They all started huffing and puffing. It sounded like I was surrounded by dying. Wait, wait, wait. Hold on.

It was insane. Pause for a second. You told me that I was the most difficult person. on earth. That's not fair for you to suddenly give it to the Midwest women. Oh, I don't know if I've ever actually told you. They are more difficult. Well, I mean, I don't know.

I wouldn't want to be next to you on a flight kind of ever in my life. So there's maybe. Oh, my God. Listeners, if you could help me find out Ben's flight schedule and so I could be sat next to him on every upcoming flight throughout the holidays, I think this would be a good friendship goal for us. But you can't even get in your own flights. All right.

Well, Jack, just do you know, I am flying to Uganda next week on a one-way ticket. I'll send you my details. Yeah, I'm going to... I'm going to... I'm going to observe some of their new homophobia laws. I would love to have... I would hate it if I had a partner come along with me just to ruin the flight. Shut the hell.

And maybe get stranded in Uganda. The idea of like both of us going to Uganda and only you coming back and you being like, hey, listeners, so. I'm not going. Yeah. Shock has been lost in the plane. Just to be clear with you, I was joking. I'm not going to you. Ben gets on the plane and then gets on a plane out the second he gets there.

Bye, Joe. Bye. But, yeah, no, it was it was a pretty. miserable flight um and i did struggle my job is relocating me to uganda is just so funny the idea of me being moved to uganda for seeking yeah i did struggle to maintain my zen posture surrounded by these women one of whom i'm pretty sure was wearing a diaper um because it started smelling like shit halfway through the flight right next to me and she had was it like a rough flight or was it just like i mean it was rough in that it like took a long time but

There was no turbulence. Did you shower before the flight? I showered that morning, yeah. Oh, okay. It could have been you. No, it was definitely her because she stood up and I got a heavy waft to the face. And she had the kind of puffy adult diaper butt, which I then felt really bad for her. Honestly, I was like, damn, this, I would.

Yeah. This sucks with this woman. Well, me and Hesse were talking about. it and you do when you get upset or protrude you do have a certain odor that you start to release I'm not I'm refusing this premise I'm not gonna join you on this one back

why you're ever since Hess's hair started growing long she just doesn't even want to have fun she doesn't want to bully me with you for no reason it's just not fun anymore it's just like we used to bully I'm a dumb joke for sure

don't ever first of all my jokes are incredibly intelligent so but I was trying to find a way to blame Pete Buttigieg for it I mean I know it's like the government shut down you said Pete Buttigieg what did you say again

Pete Buttigieg I think I just said fuck Pete Buttigieg retire yeah I didn't get it I don't understand why he girl I barely get it I mean he's the Secretary of Transportation oh or he was he was yeah he was he's like he literally isn't even the secretary of

but I know it's his fault I know it's it is actually insane to me though because like I've mentioned this before on the show but like I I understand we live in like an incredibly neoliberalized economy and all public goods and all like government services are like just meant to be chopped up and privatized and degraded into like absolute and complete dysfunction I understand that's like the standard operating procedure of our economy but I really always thought I was like they can't do that to air travel because that will result in like just mass mass

like revolts well people will be mad but like just the amount of money that the efficiency of the air travel industry relies on and like this is the worst time that press people off to the holidays planes like can't just like fall out of the sky

otherwise it is just fully like third world developing nation like if we don't have yeah like the veneer of like the of our system functioning is kind of a lot of it is predicated on having um like safe air travel i think so because it's like it's it's you know an exceedingly modern thing that's supposed to be safe and efficient and it's just not and i do think in like the next five to 10 years it's going to become um extreme like back when they first invented air travel and it was like World War II

and they were like started using it and they were like unfortunately we have to fly a plane across the Atlantic so we have to factor in a 30% chance that we're all going to die before we get there I literally I think it's going to become that not because the technology is worse

but because the operators are worse and because no one's being paid and like the system finds a way to like function on the dysfunction of it and guess what if you have enough money you're all just going to fly private the private it is a great time to invest in the private airline space y'all if any of our if any seekers out there are looking for a prime

investment yeah yeah yeah in the private air travel right now bear let me tell you what they're really invest in right now buses greyhound flicks that's what you need to start investing in people the planes they're not working they're not working right now and they're not going to get better I think we need to invest in trains personally I know of course I'm I mean it's like it's such a hack point now but it's like whenever I see the bullet train maps in China I'm like this is really the century of American

humiliation that we can't do anything in this fucking country anymore it's embarrassing it is so humiliating really really is humiliating but like there are parts on the Amtrak track line where the train is going like

five miles an hour for an hour and a half no it's because it's because like 30 crackheads killed themselves on their railways there's so many people who died from opioids just like piled up in Pennsylvania let me just tell y'all

how the amount of times that they have to stop the AM track they're like sorry we've got another body on the tracks we're going to have to be another 30 to minutes to an hour to remove this body from the tracks no literally dude um Um, but yeah, I made it back in when peas, um, are you gonna travel?