Optograms and Wife Salves

34m

Optography is the process of viewing or retrieving an optogram, an image on the retina of the eye. A belief that the eye "recorded" the last image seen before death was widespread in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was a frequent plot device in fiction of the time, to the extent that police photographed the victims' eyes in several real-life murder investigations, in case the theory was true. The concept has been repeatedly debunked as a forensic method.

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Transcript

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Hello, and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia, and pretend we're experts, because this is the internet and that's how it works.

Now, I'm Eli Bosnik and I'll be seeing you through this evening, but I'll need an attractive stable of studs for your perusal.

Heath, Noah, and Tom.

All right, you need a stud finder for this wall of glory holes that's very exciting.

I'm sure he meant to spell spuds, Heath.

He's not great at uh fair enough.

Yeah, that is fair.

I've actually often been compared to a Mr.

Potato Head,

unfavorably compared, actually, to a Mr.

Potato Head.

So

because your arms aren't long enough, That's also true.

Now, before we begin tonight, I'd like to take a moment to thank our patrons.

Patrons, without you, how would we know who Randy the Raw Dog went to college with?

And if you're wondering what the fuck I just said, you can stick around till the end of the show.

And with that out of the way, tell us, Noah, what person, place, thing, concept, phenomenon, or event will we be talking about today?

Optograms and wife sales, according to the essay title.

All right, Tom, when the cat's away, the mice will play.

Are you ready to do a two-topic tacular while Cecil isn't here to stop us?

Indeed, and yes.

All right, so tell us, Tom, what are optograms and wife sales?

Oh, I'm not going to just jump into that.

Those who know me only peripherally.

We must sneak up on this subject.

Are you kidding?

Do I want to do a preamble?

Yes, thank you, Eli.

I shall.

I will preamble.

Those who know me only peripherally have often opined that my disdain and suspicion for the modern era we find ourselves in means that I must have some nostalgia for times gone by, a born-in-the-wrong era sort of mentality.

But I want to use this essay to put that ill-conceived notion to rest.

To be very clear, I am not putting this idea out of mind by offering some reluctant embrace of our current era, but instead by assuring you that my scorn, disgust, and dismay at the inanity of the human experience is not limited to our current moment, but rather extends back in time to span every sordid, banal, and utterly disappointing decade, century, and era that we have blundered through.

It's not bigotry if you hate everyone ever.

Good clarification.

Yeah.

What we're saying is that there is no era where Tom would have fit in.

That's it.

That's exactly it.

So today we'll be discussing two topics which are unrelated in any way, except they confirm irrefutably the long-standing pointlessness and stupidity of being human.

Also, I found two interesting topics that weren't individually long enough to hit the word count, but which were nonetheless far too interesting for me to ignore.

Okay, but now I'm picturing Tom as a part of like an immortal AI consciousness in the future being like, not a fan.

Let's begin today's journey with optograms.

Optograms are images, purportedly, stored on the retina of the eye, which during the late 19th and early 20th century was thought to contain a record of the last image seen just before death.

If such a thing as an optogram were real, then it stood to reason.

It would be possible to solve all manner of crimes by examining the eyes of the recently deceased.

Okay, it feels like that could be real and still super dumb, like not useful, even if it's real.

This idea was actually so popular for a while that not only were optograms featured in murder mystery fiction of the time, but they entered briefly into the great pantheon of forensic pseudoscientific voodoo.

Right up there with bite mark analysis, graphology, arson analysis, blood spatter, fingerprints, ballistics.

Actually, most of forensic science is just bad at containing much actual science and evidence.

But optograms were especially terrible.

Yeah, Tom's not saying cops are good at their jobs now.

He's just saying they used to be worse for Clarence.

Well, but worse, it's relative, right?

Because the ones in the past weren't stocked to the clavicles with surplus military equipment, so

better too.

Now, like a lot of nonsense that takes root in popular imagination and becomes, at least briefly, legally, culturally, or popularly true without actually being true, optograms have some sliver of a basis in reality.

Most of the work on optograms and optography, the photographing of these optograms, was done by a German physiologist named Wilhelm Kuhn.

Kuhn was inspired by the discovery of a photosensitive pigment in the retina, which under ideal circumstances could in fact act as a sort of biological photographic negative.

And if the eye could hold that negative, well, we have optograms.

And if we have optograms, we can take pictures of those using optography.

And if we can do that, then we can catch murderers.

So, if this worked, it would be awesome.

And the incentives to prove that this were real were very high.

Yeah, assuming every murderer made sure to face the victim holding a picture of his ID and that dick's newspaper.

Doesn't make any sense.

Just a bunch of cops being like, hey, have you guys noticed that like a bunch of ambulance workers did murders this week?

It's crazy.

Well, you could just be staring at a clock, then you'd know time and death, right?

Now, what then were the ideal conditions?

Well, in Kuhn's rabbit experiments, the optogram was fairly simply obtained.

First, he would cover the head of the rabbit test subject for several minutes to allow the rhodopsin, the photosensitive stuff, to accumulate.

Oh, but wait, I forgot to tell you that he also used albino rabbits because albino rabbits have particularly light-sensitive eyes and they produce more of this stuff.

Sure.

Okay.

Yeah.

So then the albino rabbit's head is uncovered for three minutes while the rabbit's head is fixed in place to make sure that it is looking uninterrupted at the same spot.

Then the rabbit is swiftly decapitated.

Its eyes are cut open.

And then the backs of the eyes are plopped into an alum solution to fix the rhodopsin in place and secure the image.

And the result was astonishing.

The eye was found to contain a distinct image of the barred windows the rabbit had been looking at before it was killed.

I gotta be honest, so far it's better than what I expected when you were like, German guy goes out to find albino rabbits.

Yeah.

All right, so far, if an albino person were asleep in a dark room, and they were awakened suddenly to a bright room, and they were frozen in fear, and they stared fixedly and continuously at their murderer for several minutes before being killed.

As albinos are wont to do.

Yes, thank you.

And if that corpse were then immediately discovered, and then the eyes scooped out and sliced and dunked in alum, and then, so long as the murderer, and this is important, was a two-dimensional shape like a bark window,

well, then the forensic possibilities were endless.

Looks like we've got another human-shaped murderer, boys.

Clearly, the rabbit, the albino rabbit here was proof of concept, and a human trial was now very obviously warranted.

Okay, but if you're an old-timey albino human in Germany, you know there's no good reason to be talking to a scientist.

Do not talk to scientists.

They're up to no good for your people.

They're not.

In 1880, Kuhn got his test subject.

It was in the form of convicted murderer Erhard Gustav Reif, who was executed by guillotine.

And after the execution, they scooped out the eyes and they doordashed them over to Kuhn at his laboratory at the university nearby.

Kuhn immediately set to work dissecting the eyes in a darkened room lit only with filtered window light to best preserve the optograms.

And 10 minutes later, an excited Kuhn was happily showing his colleagues the eerie image of a guillotine blade he had drawn based on his examination of the retina.

Only problem being that the guy that they executed was blindfolded at the time of his beheading and he also would have been facing toward the ground and not following up with the blade.

There was a padr

okay well I think we found a killer not how they think.

It's the guy who saw the inside of a blindfolding a scooped out eyeball and immediately drew a guillotine.

Right?

Right.

And also, what is this scientific protocol?

I feel like they should have had Reife pick a card before they killed them or something, right?

Look at that.

Of course, the fact that optograms are literally non-existent nothings had no impact whatsoever on their entrance into the world of criminology.

Police investigators pretty much immediately began considering using optography as a tool for their investigations.

They said about taking ultra-weird close-ups of corpse eyeballs, which is not only based on literally one guy with one failed experiment, but even granting all of that, still isn't even how you would go about getting an optogram.

But still the cops just burning up their Kodak moments, pointing their cameras at dead eyeballs for a while.

And now they mostly kill dogs.

What Tom is saying is bring back optograms, people.

They need hobbies.

Everyone seems to have been killed by a weirdly distorted camera again this week, Captain.

Despite the total lack of any reason to even think about optograms or optography as being even evidence adjacent, in 1928, optographic images were used as evidence in the murder trial of Fritz Engerstein.

Yeah.

Did they not know about the blindfold on the guillotine guy?

Like, was that a secret for a while?

I don't even.

I don't.

It's 1928, Germany.

I don't know why I'm asking questions.

Silly question, actually.

So this was nearly 50 years after Kuhn's own lab partner said of optography as a forensic tool that it is, quote, utterly idle to look for the picture of a man's face or of the surroundings on the retina of a person who was met with a sudden death, even in the most favorable circumstances.

End quote.

That is Kuhn's lab partner.

A professor at the University of Cologne nonetheless photographed the eyes of two of Fritz's supposed victims, which again, that's not even how the process that doesn't work works.

Right.

Okay, that's not, that's just a picture of eyes.

And then he claimed that they yielded images of Fritz's face and the axe used in the murders.

Fritz was convicted and executed, and the successful use of the optograms that weren't optograms were praised as definitive scientific confirmation of the theory of optograms.

Okay, I'm just picturing a serial killer in this optogram era who wants to leave clues for the cops, you know, as like a calling card.

He's using his axe like a selfie stick, trying to get a picture of himself into it.

Wait, this doesn't make sense.

We're facing the wrong.

I got to get it into his eyes with my fuck.

Okay.

Behind him?

Couldn't they even, couldn't they check the executioner of that guy to see if the optogram is correct?

The thinking was clearly not high on their list of priorities.

All right.

Well, while we wonder why Fritz was willing to sit there for 20 minutes saying cheese with an axe in his hand, we've got some thinking to do.

So we'll take a quick break for a little apropos of nothing.

Wilhelm,

welcome to paradise.

Wilhelm, hey man, how's it going?

Oh, wow.

Whiskerer is my old

test rabbit.

Wait, do rabbits go to heaven?

Yeah.

Yeah, we sure do.

Sure do.

Yeah, been up here for a minute.

Of course.

Of course, yeah.

Hey, um, no hard feelings, I hope.

Oh, because you cut off my head for an optogram?

No,

of course not.

Oh, good.

Good.

Because the science was quite promising.

Was it, man?

Was it?

I feel like it wasn't.

But the bars?

It was the bars.

Yeah, no, the bars.

Promising.

You were pretty excited about those.

Okay, no, I was.

I'm really sorry, though.

Really sorry.

You know what?

Water under the bridge.

Great.

You want to see the blowjob fountain?

Yeah, that sounds amazing.

Is it a fountain that gives you a blowjob or a fountain of blowjobs?

Oh, you'll see.

All right, big time.

Let's do it.

You could have tried multiple shapes.

I said I'm sorry.

No, you did.

You did, right?

Blowjob Fountain.

Nice.

And then the podcast would probably be like, and the murdering murderer snuck up on the house, ready for murderer.

Nope, too scary.

Change the music.

Again, dad rock.

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Much better.

That's much.

Hey, guys.

What are you doing?

Yeah, is Eli trying to grassroots American Idol campaign again?

Because, dude, we told you it's not a real U.S.

election.

It's real to me, Heath.

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Okay, so why are you doing that?

That's because mine haven't come yet and no other headphones even come close.

Oh, yeah?

What's so great about him?

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Hey, can I share Eli while I wait for him to show up?

That depends.

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Oh, I'm a white guy from the suburbs in his 40s, is how I feel.

Nice.

Dad Rock!

So, what do this animal

and this animal

and this animal

have in common?

They all live on an organic valley farm.

Organic valley dairy comes from small organic family farms that protect the land and the plants and animals that live on it from toxic pesticides, which leads to a thriving ecosystem and delicious, nutritious milk and cheese.

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And we're back.

When we left off, we were...

We were talking about something else.

So this way of introducing the part of the show doesn't work.

But now we're going to talk about wife sales.

How about it, Tom?

All right.

Well, let's depart from those optograms and discuss a new stupidity the practice of wife selling in england the practice of wife sales was common enough in the 17th century that john locke yes that john lock wrote in a letter to a french scientist buddy of his quote among other things i've ordered you a beautiful girl to be your wife If you don't like her, after you've experimented with her for a while, you can sell her.

And I think at a better price than a man received for his wife last week in London, where he sold her for four sous a pound.

I think yours will bring five or six per pound because she's beautiful, young, and very tender and will fetch a good price in her condition.

Okay.

Well, that explains a lot about our political and economic systems coming from John Williams.

All right, but Jesus, if wives are valued by the pound, I'm destitute.

Yeah,

yeah.

The practice of wife selling as a custom really took off in the 18th century and continued up until the 20th century, with the last recorded instance in 1913 having occurred when a man sold his wife to a work buddy for a pound.

And all of this sounds just horrible, and I'm definitely not defending it or the idea of selling people as property.

Don't say but.

Cool.

Cool.

But

the actual custom in practice was far less necessary.

Switch to however or something.

Homestammer.

Maybe the rest of the show is some silence, huh?

It's like a meditation podcast now, huh?

I'll ring a singing bowl at the end.

What makes it interesting is that the actual custom and practice was much less nefarious.

It was more of a way for couples to disentangle during a time when dumbass religious nonsense made it impossible for people to separate, even though they still absolutely found ways to separate.

So you'll apologize for wife sales, but you won't even watch the polyamory TikToks I sent you.

This is what I'm hearing, Tom.

For the last time, Eli, they're not TikToks if the link is to pornhub.

Okay.

Okay.

That was like the scariest, I'm not a doctor, but.

It was, I'm not into selling people as property, but

hear me out.

I hate the rest of this essay.

I got terrible news for you.

Noted.

In the 18th century in England, marriages themselves were unregistered.

And it wasn't required that a marriage ceremony take place, or if there was one, that it be attended by any clergy.

So to be married, all it really took was for both parties to be of legal age and for them to agree that they had, in fact, married.

That was it.

But separating after a marriage was declared or established was significantly more complicated.

If there were adultery or life-threatening cruelty, it was technically possible to sue the ecclesiastical courts for a separation, but this wasn't a divorce, and so remarriage wasn't possible, and the burden of proof was out of reach for just about everyone.

Another option people had was to petition for a private act of parliament, which was obviously not a thing for the typical grime-covered and unbathed citizens.

Another option was for the unhappy couple to negotiate a private separation and to then have a deed of separation drawn up.

But again, this was complicated and expensive.

And so, a lot of people accomplished their separations by simply deserting one another or by the husband forcing his wife out of the house and living with someone new, a sort of divorce by force.

Now, culturally, this was something of a Ron Co moment.

There had to be a better way.

Jesus Christ.

Enter the wife set.

Okay, it feels like we're about to get a timeshare presentation.

I would like to just leave with my golf club.

Men will really do anything but talk about their feelings.

Is what we're saying, everybody.

Now, wife selling, while not rooted in any legal formality, arose as an alternative to all the other bad alternatives that I had just mentioned.

And since marriages themselves were not formally registered, it worked just fine as a custom to dissolve the bonds of an informal matrimony.

According to the laws respecting women as they regard their natural rights, a book which must be troublesome to read, when, quote, a husband and wife find themselves heartily tired of each other and agree to part, if the man has a mind to authenticate the intended separation by making it a matter of public notoriety, then a wife sale was a perfectly valid option.

You've heard of the reverse mortgage.

You've heard of human trafficking.

Well, you're not going to believe this one simple trick.

Well, yeah, yes, to be clear, this was really just a shortcut to divorce is irreconcilable to the, I bought you a wife, seller, if you don't like her shit from Locke's letter.

So at best, it was also a shortcut to divorce.

True.

In addition to being sex slave trafficking.

Optimism.

Half full.

For the most part.

Clubs, please.

For the most part, this was an option that women seemed perfectly satisfied with as well.

I don't believe you.

Although there are some records of wives being unhappy with the wife sale in the 19th century, wife sales in the 18th century heyday were as popular with women as with men.

And in fact, women were often the ones insisting upon the sale.

A wife sold in 1830 was quite adamant that her soon-to-be ex not back out of the sale.

Quote, the husband turned shy and tried to get out of the business, but Maddie made him stick to it.

She flipped her apron in her man's face and said, Let be your rogue.

I will be sold.

I want a change.

Read ye old difficult slot and be going with ye.

That change was frequently not to a a complete unknown.

Very often, the wife in question was actually being sold to her lover.

In this situation, the wife's sale relieved the husband of his marital duties and financial responsibilities while also relieving the wife's lover of the threat of illegal action being taken by the husband for banging his wife.

And as far as selling people goes, pretty much a dream scenario for everyone involved.

Okay, I feel like a lot of fights happened, though.

They're just sitting at Appleby's that night after the sale.

Really long silence.

A lot of haggling, Henry.

A lot of haggling

today.

Guys, Cecil's gone for one day, and we're doing a.

I bet some sex slaves are into it essay, though.

The actual public custom of the wife sale at auction was usually announced in advance through an ad in a newspaper.

The wife would be led to auction by a halter around her neck.

Yeah,

sometimes led with a a rope, sometimes a ribbon.

Aw.

Oh, good.

They went with ribbons sometimes.

That's nicer.

Nicer.

Which woman do you think insisted on a ribbon?

Because that's definitely a woman's idea.

And got it granted.

I'm impressed, honestly.

Now, often, as I mentioned before, the buyer was already very familiar with their goods.

But even absent a lover, a purchaser was almost always previously arranged.

And the buying of the wife functions socially like a sort of simultaneous divorce and remarriage.

Very often the children from the dissolved union were included in the deal.

Ooh, it's true.

He's got a stepkid to beat him at Mario Karts.

Blue shells are bullshit.

They are bullshit.

Stop pissing away your superhorns.

I didn't get one.

Records from the 18th century record a bullet.

Don't count.

Those aren't the only ways to get to thwart a blue shell.

Records from the 18th century record a few examples of these bizarre transactions, which are absolutely worth quoting here.

Quote, a wife was brought to Smithfield Market by coach and sold for fifty guineas and a horse.

And once the sale was complete, quote, the lady with her new lord and master mounted a handsome curacle, which was waiting for them and drove off, seemingly nothing loath to go.

At another sale in September 1815, at Staines Market, quote, only three shillings and four pence were offered for the lot, no one choosing to contend with the bidder for the fair object, whose merits could only be appreciated by those those who knew them.

This the purchaser could boast from a long and intimate acquaintance.

See, guys, you could introduce me to new people like that.

Instead of saying, you know, that I'm a little much.

Stop being all squirmy about the tooth check and the ribbon around your neck.

I don't think you're ready.

We were trying to test you.

It's not a nice enough ribbon.

I want a nicer ribbon.

You're not going to make us any money on this.

It wasn't always the case that a buyer was prearranged, but even then, the wife had to agree to the the sale.

At one sale in Manchester, the wife actually bargained herself down rather than agree to be bought by the wrong guy.

Quote, after several biddings, she, the wife, was knocked down for five shillings.

But not liking the purchaser, she was put up again for three and a quart of ale.

Okay, that's like when the bad barber is like, okay, you're next.

And you're just like, nah, no, no, I was just, I was trying out this neck ribbon here today.

Are you doing like an auction or something?

I was just having fun with the neck ribbon.

All right, this essay is starting to feel like Tom kind of wants to sell his wife and he's floating a trial balloon to see how we're going to react to it at this point.

Or Haley's trying to do that.

Well, Haley, yeah, right, but I didn't say who's impotent.

Can I say, can I say, in either case, $80.

Opening two.

I'm up to $100 for either one of you, whichever way it is.

$115 for Tom, $125 for Haley.

Well, I don't know if it's better or worse, so I'm not going to go again.

Think about Tommy.

You're both married to me now.

I can't tell, which is

jars that Tom could open for you.

So many jars.

Both of them could open jars.

Compared to me?

In other cases, a wife sale was a way to solve the rather contentious problem of infidelity.

Such as in one instance when a shopkeeper came home to find his wife in bed with another man.

Okay, if I knew that was coming next, I wouldn't have written that joke.

The man, in an attempt to defuse the situation, offered to buy the man's wife, and the problem was solved on the spot.

In other cases, some women managed to squirrel away enough of their own money that they would provide the needed funds for their own purchase to their buyer of choice.

Now, friend, before you get mad, I was just doing a test drive.

You know, like a test, you seem equally mad.

MSRP, fuck you.

Looked in the blue balls book.

I'm going with the undercarriage wax.

The money itself wasn't really the point in most cases.

Purchase prices ranged wildly, with one woman selling, along with her two children, for the current equivalent of about $18,000, while another woman sold for a single pint of ale.

And some women weren't so much sold as freely given, though more typically a nominal sum was exchanged, adding some weight to the informal custom.

And even the informality of the thing was itself informal.

Though there are no written laws governing wife sales, everyone knew and supported what was happening, from the church to the courts.

I don't think it was supported by everyone.

The church and the courts, yeah.

Baptismal entries refer to the children born of bought wives.

The courts, too, seemed to recognize they had to recognize the custom, especially after a magistrate who attempted to prevent a wife sale was pelted and driven out of town.

And in in another case, authorities forced men to sell their wives rather than take their wives to workhouses.

Cool, cool, cool, cool.

So instead of inventing divorce or inventing one single woman's right, they came up with a program for distressed assets in like a subprime marriage crisis.

Yeah,

you bundle the wives together.

It's a tranche of wives, you see.

Wow.

It's a spousing crisis.

Yikes.

The wife sale and the symbolism of a woman in a halter being led to auction is not cash money symbolism.

Don't say but.

Please stop saying but.

However,

just start the rest of the sentence.

The whole thing was much more egalitarian than many of the formal laws that followed after marriages were registered and recorded.

And the public nature of the custom was a way to put the community on notice of the change Because a bunch of busybody, god-bothering pearl clutchers couldn't and wouldn't create ways for unhappy couples to dissolve their unions.

The wife sale was invented.

I hate to break it to you, Tom, but I think women being chattel was the pearl clutchers' plan all along.

Yeah,

there's there.

The wife sale was actually a radical act of gender, class, and social rebellion.

The wife sale became a way for unhappy wives to marry their lovers, a way for the poor to dissolve their marriages and remarry, a way for women to insist on a fresh start with someone new, and a way for the poor to gain access to the same results as the wealthy, but most importantly, a way for harried men to demand that someone take my wife, please.

The whole essay was a build-up to that fucking joke.

Just for that line.

And you know what, Tom?

I respect that.

Thank you.

And if you had to summarize what you've learned in one sentence, what would it be?

The The stupidity of human existence hasn't changed.

It's just sort of scaled up.

Yeah.

And are you ready for the quiz?

I am indeed.

All right, Tom.

And I'd like to apologize to everybody for this in advance.

What's the best place to buy or sell a wife in the digital age?

Oh, my God.

A.

I'm uncomfortable.

And I wrote Shebe.

Postmates.

Where you go, Boxy, Postmates is good.

See, a little crypto for you.

Buy Nancy.

Buy Nancy.

Or D.

Betsy.

Betsy.

I'm very sorry.

I like postmates.

You didn't have to change it.

That's great.

Postmates.

Postmates.

That was correct.

Or something.

All right.

Tom, if you had to buy one of your co-hosts' wives, who would you buy?

Oh, God.

A, Heath's wife for the free legal advice and fun facts about Lord of the Rings.

She is so good.

B, Cecil's wife because of that one time you guys kissed at Christmas.

What?

C, I don't think Cecil's going to listen to any more of the podcast.

He's probably going to kill you.

Dee, you're welcome.

Oh, God.

I'm so glad Cecil doesn't listen if he doesn't add it.

I'm going to.

And we're back.

Noah?

Questions?

All right.

All right.

So, what essay topics did you consider, Tom, for the second half of this essay before landing on chattel slavery apologetics?

Okay, I thought it was interesting.

God damn it.

I didn't say it wasn't interesting.

Now I'm camping.

Feminist channel slavery apologetics.

It's just asking questions

with periods at the end.

A.

How important it is for trains to run on time.

Oh, shit.

B.

Oh, shit.

How they were just following orders, though, if you think about it.

C, how awesome it is that Cecil isn't here to edit that episode down to 12 minutes.

Or D,

how that bunny from the first half of the episode kind of had it coming.

Remember the first half of the episode?

Oh, remember

when we were just decapitating rabbits?

Maybe I should have swapped him.

I think I should have led with wife sales, finished with optogram.

All right, I miss Cecil.

It's a classic showbiz concept.

You start with wife sales and you end on a dead rabbit.

Either fast tier sell your wife.

You're wrong, Tom.

You do not know Cecil.

So that's.

All right.

Well, Noah's going to edit the episode, so he wins.

Actually, that's going to be Heath, so I think he should have to do the next win.

Okay.

I'm going next week, too.

All right.

Well, for Tom, Noah, Cecil, and Heath, I'm Elon Bosnick, thanking you for hanging out with us today.

We'll be back next week.

And by then, Heath will be an expert on something else.

Sorry for the really short episode last week.

Between now and then, you can listen to our other podcasts in the podcast places hey have you checked out skepticrat lately we're doing some funny stuff over there i feel like we never i feel like skepticrat is the the ugly stepchild of the podcast averse and if you haven't listened lately skepticrat is lovely we got random the raw dog over skeptic's really funny

i feel like it's not getting a shout out as often as a brand can we tie a ribbon around its neck for those sapiosexual podcast fans out there check out skepticrat and he does like a nice ooh it's when he introduces it sometimes

Sometimes I fuck it up, but some he does.

But then he edits it.

So you never know.

I just use the same one that's my favorite one from like all the years.

What's that?

Fucking if I do a bad one.

What's the file called?

What's that file?

It's called best one ever.

All right.

And if you'd like to help keep this show going, not sure why you'd want to do that, but you can ever ask for a donation.

At patreon.com slash citationpod or leave us a five-star review everywhere you can.

And if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes and connect with us on social media or check the show notes, be sure to check out citationpod.com.

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