157: A red rubber ball

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Where would you find two arms above an eye, above a foot, above a throat?

The answer 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 100 paying audience members and it really, 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 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 owe negative as we get pumped for question one.

Thank you to James for this question.

A guide is leading a group of school children around the Pain 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?

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 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 just, I'll cut that off there and just say yes.

P-A-I-N-E.

Payne Art Center.

Okay, Payne.

Oh, well, 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 Payne Art Center.

Yeah,

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 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 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 being 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 a hard hope and guess.

I like that.

It shows confidence.

It shows confidence.

Okay, but Toby was close with like the gum thing and an example of teaching kids how to behave.

You said was close.

Okay.

Yes.

I think Macy putting it as like how to behave is very much the rule here.

What do kids do?

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 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 me.

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 saying 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 are.

No, there's no

suicide or block of ice.

Yeah.

Is it water on the floor?

Is it just a liquid on the floor?

It's just a liquid on the 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.

And like a two-in-one pressure cooker.

Yeah, that might be.

Well, crock pot is technically.

I'm thinking of Instapot too.

But so a crockpot does put it under pressure or does it not?

Is it just slow cooking?

I think a crockpot is just...

Just slow cooking?

So there's none of that release of it.

A crockpot does plug into a wall.

Crockpots 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 came and got a little too curious.

And I'm the liquid to me is like

urine or something.

Like something, something got into the kitchen that wasn't supposed to be.

A bad vegan 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.

No, not cause them to pee.

The puddle is...

That's how she understood that the animal was in there, other than all the other disruption.

That's what I was thinking, actually, what you said, Tom.

You're on the wrong track with urine.

Good.

Excellent.

Happy about that.

Yeah.

Well,

crock pots 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 what other liquids would end up in a kitchen though?

I mean lots of it's not necessarily a kitchen.

We just saw 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.

Like that she just no the crock pot didn't leak.

So smell, she 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 that's oh, it's not pet related because I keep thinking like slobbering dog, like with so

she's the dog is just sitting there waiting and like the drool is just puddling on the floor.

Wait, really?

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 crock pot.

That is so much saliva if you think about it.

What?

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 and the question writer that this is like personal anecdote here.

This is a personal anecdote.

This is this is Brian's.

It was sent in by Brian and this is something that happened to Brian's mom.

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Thank you to Elliot for sending in this question.

Created by two members of Represent US 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 US 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.

Just nailed the font joke.

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.

But it probably isn't visual, if I had to guess, because that's like too...

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.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or smells really bad.

There's synthesis.

Oh, gosh, I don't know if I can pronounce it.

Synesthesia.

Synesthesia when you can like hear colors or like taste fonts.

So maybe it was a synthesis.

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 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 font.

And so I'm thinking Jerry, like famous Jerry's, Jerry Seinfeld, Jerry Garcia.

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 gerrymandered 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 along.

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 US,

made up of gerrymandered political district maps.

Could someone explain gerrymandering for the folks who don't know it?

Gerrymandering 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 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 have no idea.

Did you not know that about gerrymandering?

No, I did not know.

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.

So like 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 a 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 have

animals.

Scary animals.

Animals, I was thinking stunts.

Stunts, too.

Maybe it's like if she doesn't feel safe to do this 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.

And I have no idea how it works, but 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 disalay.

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 said big budget theatrical rather than definitely a play.

True.

Yeah, so I was thinking more circusy acrobats, cirque dule, something like that.

I don't know the intricacies of how those 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 him essentially a ball or something loud to drop.

as an emergency, 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 your instinct is to drop it so it's obviously it's not gonna 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 would might need to signal but Tom that is 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

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 theater, which is like a fake prop gun, a prop sword, if you're in a big, you know, know, knife fight or something.

It's Westside's story.

From a spot.

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 1 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

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.

I'm wondering if 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,

it's hilarious.

Tom, you are as close as you could possibly be in this where you're right, it is a signal and you're 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?

Why?

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 part of your sentence was on the right.

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 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 a harness under a helicopter.

Second of all, it warns the crew that she's fainted when in a flying 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?

What do we know Switzerland for?

Federer.

Watches.

Watches.

Chocolate.

That is the first time that a sports reference has been used as what do we know Switzerland?

What do we know country for?

That's amazing.

I could have gone chocolate, but fetterer sounded better.

Cylindrical

and stone.

Stones seem 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.

Pangea.

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 as Switzerland, obviously.

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 it's that 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 you are you right macy because there's cesium there's like were you reacting to me tom no way i'm reacting to both of you because i know that like 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

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 0-0.

Yes, it is, Neil.

Spot on.

0-0.

Yeah, it's 0 degrees longitude and 0 degrees latitude because it's Greenwich Mean Time going up and down and then from

up, then the other way.

So

it's not Greenwich Mean Time.

And you're right that it's 0-0.

0-0 for what?

Longitude and latitude.

Is it 0-0 for just longitude and latitude on Magnetic?

No, it can't be because that's the equator.

That's why I was like, it's not that.

The longitude.

No.

Does it go back to watches or no?

Well, 0-0 and related to Switzerland.

I think you've basically got it.

It is the 0-0 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.

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 vertical climb?

Or I wonder if

maybe it was marked so long ago that like the land used to be under one

country, kingdom, whatever.

The great conquerors of Switzerland.

They used to spread out the family.

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 LV95.

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 meters.

And if you want that for every point in Switzerland, you put your zero point near Bordeaux.

This Friday, I'm an angel.

See the wings?

Don't miss the new comedy Good Fortune, starring Seth Rogan, Aziz Ansari, and Keanu Reeves.

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Okay, Chad.

Today you're gonna drive the all-electric Toyota BZ.

But my electric vehicle phobia.

I'm not ready, Dr.

Ross.

I believe in you.

Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.

We're inside it.

Try to take deep breaths, okay?

Move the ventilated seats.

They're touching me.

You can do this, Chad.

Drive the car.

How do you feel, Chad?

I feel cured.

Woohoo!

I'm doing it.

I'm doing it.

The all-electric BZ.

One drive can change your mind.

Toyota, let's go places.

Neil, whenever you're ready, your question, please.

All right, let's do it.

It's been sent in by GC.

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 salon and put the logo on her.

I don't know why.

She did not do that, Toby, 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 tanning 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 that

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 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 unusual visits to the tanning salon did get her this particular job.

She had a watch strap tan that

is disqualifying for her job as a historical reenactor.

Oh,

I like that.

That's solvable with a bracelet.

That's solvable in ways that do not involve extremely precise stray tanning.

You're not going to be able to colour match with that.

Her unusual visits there.

Like, she went so many times.

She went at odd hours

she 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 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, you're

landscaping or something like that.

Specific tan lines to denote you're good at something that you've.

Well, I know in 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 and that

you don't have tan lines in that respect.

What jobs jobs do you do outside?

Like a coach.

We'll go back to sports.

She could be like some sort of coach.

She could 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 tanned 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 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 links 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 at this.

My first thought was a Picasso painting.

Oh.

That is definitely true, I feel like.

So some museum, the Met.

I don't know.

Arms, foot, throat.

Those are 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, foot.

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.

Eye was singular.

Yeah, the rest are singular, 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.

That 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 sewing machine.

No.

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.

So you were

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, that 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 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-host it with Neil here.

So if you're looking for a 25-minute rundown of the most important business news stories of the day, tune in at 7 a.m.

Eastern.

I'm Neil.

I'll shout out something else Morning Brewery 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 Freeman.

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.