768 – Missing Challenge Coin Challenge | Big Farm in the Sky P.I. S2E9

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, friends behind the binder, my Patron peeps, I'm thinking more biopic titles after A Snore is Shorn. A podcast, if it was a biopic, would be called Sleepless and Forlorn, but ideally, then, you sleep until morn'. It's time for the podcast that you support. Keep going patrons. It's time for Sleep with Me Podcast to put you to sleep.

Hey, are you up all night, tossing, turning, mind-racing, trouble getting to sleep, trouble staying asleep, well this is sleep with me, a podcast puts you to sleep, we do as a bedtime story. All you need to do is get in bed, turn out the lights and press play. I'm gonna do the rest. What I'm gonna attempt to do is create a safe place where you can set aside whatever's keeping you awake, whether it's thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, changes in time and temperature, changes in routine, whatever it is, something could be on your mind, it could be feeling physically, it could be coming up emotionally, whatever is keeping you awake, it could be any of those things. It could be other stuff. I'm here to take your mind off stuff and keep you company. What I'm gonna do is send my voice across the deep, dark night.

I'm gonna use lulling, soothing creaky dulcet tones, pointless meanders, superfluous tangents. I'll definitely go off topic, I don't know if I'll ever get back. I'll meander, get mixed up. I forget stuff. I go on tangents. Did I say I'm gonna send my voice across the deep dark night? I'm gonna use lulling, soothing, creaky dulcet tones. Nice, smoothed out, safe place. If you're new, welcome, glad you're here. That's one message. Two pieces of information. Structurally, if you're new, what to expect. Show starts off with business. That's literally how we've made this show for almost 800 episodes. It just starts off with business. That keeps the show free. Then there's an intro. The intros are around 12 to 14 minutes or so. It's kind of your bedtime wind-down, little bit of a check-in, little bit of a wind-down. I'll explain what the podcast is, get you settled in and you can slowly wind down. Then there'll be some business between the intro and the episode and tonight will be our episodically modular series, big farm in the sky PI season 2. Then the show closes out with some thank-yous and good nights. That's the structure of the show.

What else, the intro. It gives you a little more info on the intro structure. Some people get confused, they feel like new listeners, which is natural. If you're skeptical or you're confused, you're probably in the right place because I would be skeptical too and this podcast is very confusing, naturally. Me just being myself, it travels ina circuitous route. The intro. Some listeners fall asleep during the intro, a majority of listeners use it as their getting ready for bed routine, that's how the show's made. Like, “Okay, I'm getting ready for bed, I've got Scoots on, maybe do some light hair brushing, some petting of pets, maybe kiss on the cheek, maybe you kiss your own shoulders, that's what I like to say.”I don't know, that has barely caught on with listeners but if you're looking for something that is not only symbolic of self care and self love but is also. I'm no expert in the inner workings of the human body but I could tell you whether you're kissing a clothed or exposed shoulder or nuzzling it, a light kiss of your own shoulder, “I'm gonna do it now.” I have a shirt on, but I say, “Okay.” And do it slow. Don't instantly jump into a shoulder kissing routine. Ease your way into it. Gives you a little stretch. Do it again. I just kissed both shoulders, or a peck.

So the intro's part of people's wind down routines. About 2% of listeners skip the intro and they listen to the sponsor messages and then the episode portion. They skip ahead. More listeners, you'd be surprised, I hear from, listen during the day because it's like a little break. When they need a little break in the day, they put on Scoots and ideally I make things feel okay.

So that's just the structure of the show. As far as rules go, we don't really have any rules. There's a lot of different ways to use the show, but heres a couple of things. You don't need to listen to me. Don't feel bad if you fall asleep right away or if you've changed the volume or the speed of the show. Don't worry about those things. Those are perfectly natural ways to do it. What was my point? Oh, there's no wrong way, oh, you don't need to listen to me. That was point one. Two, no pressure to fall asleep. I really want you to know I'm gonna hear, the reason the shows are over an hour is to give you plenty of time to drift off as you need. No pressure to fall asleep, no pressure to play strict or close attention because I'm gonna be here for a while. Ease into sleep. That's why the shows are made in an hour the episodes are complete.

They make the show just as much for the people that fall asleep in the first few minutes as I do for the people that can't sleep at all. If you say, “Scoots, I got a birthday tomorrow and I can't … ” I say, “Don't worry, I'm gonna be here all the way to the end to keep you company. That's really my job. Whether you hear me or not, I'm here for you.” That's really what the show's about, mainly to take your mind off of stuff. There's no pressure to fall asleep and there's no pressure to listen cause I'm here to walk at your side as you drift off at your leisure.

You'll be hearing this in a totally different time than when I'm making this. The show actually had a big anniversary for sleep for people that was sleep stuff was that spring ahead a couple of days ago. So 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019. It's our sixth spring ahead. That's a big deal because springing ahead is s-u-c-k-s! All caps and bolded. It's really my honor to get past the sixth springing ahead. Not everyone in the world has this daylight savings time, they call it. There are pluses to it. People debate why don't we keep it or whatever. It does make it changes the time you go ahead an hour usually it's Saturday night, Sunday morning. Sunday morning, technically, around 2 am or something becomes 2 am I don't actually understand it myself. It tends to just not be easy for people, not only because it changes your sleep, it changes the time. It changes your relationship with daylight, initially, depending on what time you're schedule. Also, just for me, it makes me think about stuff. It makes me think, oh boy. That's what happened to me. I was on the elevator at a hotel when I saw the sign. It was on my general radar of things I forget about. Of course, I never know the date. So I said, “Is that next to Saturday, no, they wouldn't have a xeroxed photocopy of a clock from a print shop deluxe 97 on this elevator.” Then I said, “What day is it? Cause I was at a conference.” I said, “Oh no, that's tomorrow.” And I said, “Well, I'll still be here tomorrow, so its like I'm springing ahead,” and I said, “Oh great, cause I was already on the east coast, I live on the west coast. “

What's daylight savings? It's when you move your clocks ahead an hour. It keeps us on our toes, I think that's the official from the daylight savings office. It keeps you on your toes. Good for getting on your kids' nerves if they have to go bed and the sun's still up. Since, whaever frickin year we invented this thing.

This is just an example of why I make this show cause I've been there. I guess I'm not trying to rehash any of this stuff but I guess it's far in the past. That's my point. Then I had a four hour time change, cause I was already on east coast time, then it springs ahead again but I was kind of used to it. But I was also leaving on a Monday morning, very early, on a flight. So I had to be up around 5:30 am and I know a lot of you can relate to this. A lot of different internal mechanism started. Gears started, winding would be an inaccurate term, grinding, moaning, those type of things. 'cause I said, okay, how many alarms do I need to set? How much sleep am I gonna get? Those kinds of things. We call em brain butts. I won't dig too deep.

Except to tell you I wish the part that went through all of that, that's with you now, the time traveler, could have said to me at the moment, that night, around 7, when I was a pinball bouncing, I said hey, scoots, listen, don't worry. You're trying to go to bed between 10:30 and 11:30 I realize with the springing ahead and everything that's confusing. Even I fou fall asleep at 12:0. That'll be about 5 hours. You can also sleep, you got a six hour flight so you'll be able to sleep on the plane a little bit. You.lll sleep on the plane a little bit, you'll get home, and then you could just go to bed early at your normal bed time and I think it'll work out. I realize it's very intense, and I realize you have valid concerns about your alarms and getting up. It's not easy. I can't do that for myself, that's why i do it for you. To say hey, I just want to take your mind off of stuff. It's gonna be one, your concerns are valid. It's not easy when you're thinking about all of this stuff. But I'm gonna be here to take your mind off stuff, tell you a story.

I'm resistant to someone saying, don't worry, its gonna be fine. Even if it was me telling myself, there's one way to do it. There's another way to do it, to be like, what if? A breath of relief, a breath of fresh air to say, hey, I think its gonna be okay. I don't know what the right wording is because even then I say why don't you mind your own business? Actually, I'm a part of yourself from the future just telling you you slept two hours on the plane and that was great and you're still able to get four hours of work done on the plane and sleep two hours. Then you had an hour BART ride where you got another hour of work done and you got home, you got everything done, and you went to bed at 9:30. I think it's okay to be concerned.

I don't know if that's quite the essence of the show. I just want you to know that I go through that kind of stuff and I don't know if that's what you're here looking for, especially if you're new. A caring shoulder kisser, I kiss my own shoulders but I also encourage you to kiss your shoulders. That does sound like a punch line, what do you call those sit coms, kiss your own shoulders, burt. Actually, as part of my self care routine, I will. Thank you. Maybe when they leave the restaurant, they say, don't dofget to kiss your own shoulders. That could be a sign above a restaurant that would be an interesting place to eat. Karen's Carin', that would be what it would be called. Karen's Carin' Carin'.

Anyway, main message I wanted to let you know is the reason I wanted to make this show is cause I wanted to help. This podcast doesn't work for everybody but the majority of listeners, which is a lot that I hear from said, it took two or three times before I realized that this podcast is a bit different, it takes a couple of times to get. Or, you say, oh wait a second, I get it cause I don't understand it. If you're new, give it a few tries. if you dislike the podcast, go to sleepwithmepodcast.com/nothankyou. That's like an option for people that it doesn't work for. There's sleep podcast and other things I use, but the main thing I want you to know is I'm here to help, I work really hard and I strive and I really like to help you fall asleep. I apprecieate you coming by. If you're a regular listener, still with me as you're drifting off, these are a few of the ways that we keep the show going.

Hey, everybody, it's scoots and let's see. Welcome to our ongoing episodically modular series big farm in the sky PI, season two. You can listen to these episodes pretty much in any order. I think the first two episodes, they're connected. But you could still listen to those in any order. If this is you're first time listening, you're in for a treat cause not only will it be an enjoyable episode to put you to sleep or to keep you company but I'll explain everything you need to know right now. So you say, scoots, I don't know it says big farm in sky PI episode eight or nine or whatever number you can't remember right now, and I say, no problem, I'm gonna fill you in.

Big farm in ksy PI involves three main characters, gee, D.K., and Simon. Those are the three main characters. What do you need to know? Gee and dk, best friends, a sisterlike relationship, they temporarily live with dks aunt panty in the largest retirement community in the us, the townes, in florida. What they're doing is a working sabbatical from school during their tweens, somewhere between 11 and 14, maybe, according to my back of my envelope calculations. When I say, what age> they just sigh and roll their eyes. I don't know exactly even though I'm their creator, I say, excuse me, just so we get on the same page as I'm writing out your character, can you… so maybe they are tweens, does that make them tweens? They're doing a working sabbatical, they're such good students that they approach their school and they said, what if we, instead of a semester or two of school, what if we start our own business, i think they call it real life education or broader education, I don't know what the term for that is, and they worked through their school to develop a curriculum where they would run a business in the towns in florida and learn.

What was their business, you say? Kind of like a helping business. Little like a PI, private eyes. Also like a cleanout business, a little bit of Marie Kondo in there, where they would help people find stuff, maybe organize stuff or solve mysteries. That's the key part. They were inspired by the great kid detectives of the world, I think a new Nancy drew movie may be coming out because my phone hears me say stuff and then it sends me ads about it. That's not a mystery.

They're in the towns, solving mysteries. Now, simon is gee's uncle and simon is also a PI, simon is the big farm in sky PI. What simon did is, once upon a time, simon lived on the earth, just like we did, human being, earthly resident. Sometimes they say, you've got your check cashed, or whatever. Simon found that his check was cashed and it said, go from earthly existence, here on planet earth, to your next stage of existence in the big farm in the sky.

The big farm in the sky, here's what I do know. It's not like a middle world, but it's not an all or nothing world, either. There's a good place and a bad place and eleanor makes a pitch for the medium place. Mindy mccloor or ehatever, she lives in another place. It's none of those places. The big farm in the sky is like the next plane of existence for simon, maybe not for everybody. Again, I'm just following simon's story. If you want to hear more of season one of big farm in the sky is available on the podcast feed, too, about two years ago, maybe. Check that out.

Simon in season one, was solving mysteries in the big farm in the sky cause simon got to the next phase of existence and said, I'd like to be a PI. That's one thing. Now, what they're doing, is solving mysteries, mostly in the towns. Simon helps gee and dk, by what mechanism, you may say, which is a great question. A great question.

If you go to the big farm in the sky, let's say two billion people have transitioned from earth to the big farm in the sky. There's probably like a four in two bilion chance you could be a casper-like being the could go from the big farm in the sky and visit the earthly realm, I don't know if that's what they callit but it sounds like something they might call it, right? Maybe, out of those four, and this is just guessing math, but some of those could just observe and maybe make sound effects, but simon could do full phasing. Simon can talk to gee and dk, observe things, pretty much a full activity. I mean, there probably are downsides but that wouldn't be super important part of the story. We're just focusing on the stuff that's somewhat interesting.

Basically, simon helps gee and D.K. solve things. Simon will also occasionally go back to the big farm in the sky and simon is also working on a business and something calle dthe phantom minnow. That was we thought the season was going to be about but it turns out, gee and D.K. had other plans.

That's about it. Two kid detective and a being from the big farm in the sky, PIs, all of them. Solving mysteries and the only mystery is the great person who needs no mystery or introduction but can give me mysterious looks. The Master of Mysterious Looks, the person who introduces the series, mr. Antonio banderas.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the friends begin to [inaudible 00:22:35]. Is time for big farm in the sky PI. Let's crack this case.

Wow, that was haunting. Oh, icant use that word. Wow, that was delicious, antonio, and thank you so much for ocming. You know, you're really popular with the listeners, I don't know if you knew that. I'm sure you're popular pretty much everywehre.

Oh, thank you, my friend.

Everyone really appreciates the fact that you drive from LA, here, and back. But the two of us are driving together. Two trips, hopefully. I'm gonna drive with you, hopfully after we record this, down there and talk to you the whole time or maybe work on my podcast. I can't wait to spend six plus hours in the car with you. It's like you make my dreams com etrue.

you are the oats to my hall, my friend. I will go sit quiety in your bed and wait on return to the city of angels.

Okay, thanks. That's kind of like a pun, cause we're doing big farm in the sky PI.

Yes, I did not realize, my pun.

Also, pun rhymes with bun, which you… anyway. Big farm in the sky PI, thanks everybody. Hey Diane, it's me, simon. Just checking in. Diane, we have a case of lost and not yet found like a ticking clock, that's gee and dee said to him. These are the important things we know so far. We have a missing item we're trying to track down, Diane, and the missing item is a radiotopia challenge coin from one of their, it's not a fun drive where they're raising money for all their shows on radiotopia. Now, originally, they had a '99 PI challenge coin, Diane, which I happened to have in my possession when I was in the earthly realm. But, this is a radiotopia one which is a silver blue and i'm also familiar with how it looks. Believe it or not, my '99 PI challenge coin, D.K. made it into a belt buckle, which is very cool. I asked her if that is now her lucky coin and she said she doesn't believe in luck and she said she doesn't believe in luck, she believes in good design, and I said, well, aren't you like a chip off the avery or truffle or [katiemingle 00:25:44]?

Then she said some famous designer. I said, oh, okay, I'm not familiar with those things. We're missing a Radiotopia challenge coin, Diane. It's an unlucky coin but it means a lot to this person because they were supporting it with someone important. We're trying to keep our clients a little bit more under wraps, at least this one. They had purchased it. It has emotional resonance for them beyond reminding them of, you know, supporting stuff. What happened was the coin went missing. They realized they couldn't find it and first they said, huh, cause they usually always had it on them. But then, they thought, as some of us do that are a little bit calmer, not me Diane, but they said, okay, maybe I put it down somewehre in the house. I came in, I was on the phone and I put it down somewhere. Now, they do good keep a good schedule, so this gives us some things.

they hired us and they just said, I think i misplaced it somewhere in my house and now I can't find it, or I don't know what they call it, condo or townhouse. Their home, you walk in the front door. I'll giveyou the layout. Couple of important pieces. There's no garage. That helps. No attic, no basement. You walk in the front door for the day, it's part of a building with four units, all one storey. When you walk in the front door, there's a little bit of a hallway. To the left of the hallway is a bathroom, straight ahead. To your right is a closet, and to your left is a guest room, guest bedroom, or office, in this case, it was a office with a twin bed. If you walk a little bit further down the hallway, to the left is like another closet which you could use as a pantry closet, and to your right is a kitchen. The kitchen is small for two people or one person. If you're standing in the kitchen and you just walked in, to your left is the sink and the dishwasher and the kitchen's open from there to the living room. Straight ahead is your stove and over and cabinets, to your right is your refrigerator, to the right of the refrigerator are some windows facing out front and to the right of that is just wall space and stuff where you put your shelving and stuff like that.

If you go back to the hallway and you continue, you'll be in the living room straight ahead. Beyond the living room is the [linay 00:28:55], they call is, which is like a screened in, in this case, glassed in portion, but you can open the windows so it can be screend in. If you're standing in the living room, to your left is the bedroom, and if you're standing in the bedroom, to the left is the master bathroom, or whatever, the bedroom bathroom. If you go out on the linay, the linay stretches across the back of the whole, so you can go out on the linay from the living room and then back in to the bedroom. There's two sets of sliding doors. There's also a big closet in the linay with a waher and dryer in there. And then there's a door that leads to a small patio and then there's some nature area beyond, with some grass, before the nature area.

The reason it's important is we just did a bit of a span here. The coin was missing for a while, it didn't turn back. The client contacted us. At first, it was more of a misplace than a mystery, or it's missing to misplaced. Gee and D.K. have become very experienced in this. They really have developed a methodical system and not only methodical, but with addons. “We don't offer a Marie Kondo system, but you could watch some of those videos or you could watch some of their decluttering and while we're methodically looking on a gridbygrid, we use grids. They have a system with bins, multicolored rubber plastic bins and sub bins or boxes. They tell the client, okay, when we're done with one grid, you could declutter or do whatever cause we're gonna search the grid very closely.

The other thing is that they actually have help. Aunt penny, in these grid by grid systems, once gee and D.K. have taught you, it's pretty straightforward, cause you're only working in one grid and you're taking everything in the grid and you're putting it into a bin and then you're checking the remainder of the grid and you're saying, okay, I was paying attention as I placed everything in the grid into this bin, then, a second back up person will take everything from one bin into another bin, so a double check. Then, the client chooses, like, okay, do you wnt us to put everything back, we tooka picture, or do you want to go through stuff and do it themselves? They're affordable bins, we can keep a bin for you if you like.

They have different rules for a pantry, which would be broken into subgrids or a refrigerator or a closet or a section of a room. First, it was a little bit more complicated as they were designing their system and they would use masking tape or painters tape to actually make a physical grid, but as they started bringing in freelance help to help with things, they would train them and they would say, okay, we can do strings, and they were very methodical. A lot of discoveries for the clients, so very popular.

They do also make you sign a contract because they say, okay, here's the thing, you could go through the bin after we've been, but you can't be a part of the binning process because that slwos it down. Actually, they don't like doing the replacing. Once you say, well, keep a bin, or I'll go through the bins and put it back, then they say, okay, we can do a system where we put it back in two weeks like it is in the picture.

Anyway, they're mostly on the front end because they're trying to find this challenge coin, and it is focused and detail-oriented, but really, I think about cleansing, but they're not cleansing anything, they're just checking everything to make sure everything's checked. Basically, because you're [clueing 00:33:51] out an area into one area. But, if you're doing it for six or eight hours in a row, with breaks, of course, they take breaks. There's a mindfulness to it, maybe that's with the Kondo popularity, too. They don't have an emotional attachment, so I guess you'd say, Diane, when you're focusing on every item, you're not focusing on your feelings, you're saying, okay, this is a can of corn, clearly not a Radiotopia challenge coin, and you say that placing the can of corn, and the same person, they might have a different term, they say, oh, this is corn canned, or whatever.

It's interesting for me to watch and hear it because it's very relaxing and surreal, even though for them, it's work.

They went to work in this place and they did everything, they went through the grid by grid system, top to bottom, and the coin did not reappear. While there's no such thing as perfection, they checked behind everything, they look in the vents and things. There's no 100% accurate way to check. They do check pockets, of course, like all that stuff, Diane. There was no 100% but they say, we're pretty confident the coin is not here, especially a challenge coin, if you're not familiar with a challenge coin, Diane, it's much bigger than even the old silver dollar or a 50 cent piece. It's about 1 inch, is that a radius of 1 inch? Probably a two inch radius, Diane. Again, I'm not exactly clear on my terms and also gee and D.K. are listening now because we're trying to refocus.

Here's where the good news and the news that makes it more of a mystery, Diane, is that we did not find the coin. Search by search, 90-95% certain the coin's not in this home. This also included their car. We also did a grid by grid analysis of their schedule but this is where the ticking clock comes in, Diane, because the townes is not a municipal area, it is a private business where people live, I guess they don't understand how the real state business works. I'm pretty sure people own the homes or rent the homes but the townes owns the land underneath and makes the rules within the rules of the world, or policies, or terms of service, and some of their terms of service and policies are planned out, some come up organically over time, some have to be adjusted and readjusted as they're learning their way even though they're some sort of corporate enterprise. They also have to figure out that they're a business in a sensitive area, because human beings are living there, and human beings in a certain stage of life and there's the legacy of just being human throughout the history of humanity.

One part of life is lost to things, that's what our case is, and lost and found. That's when we get into the terms of service of the policy. This is where we're rehashing things, gee, D.K., and I because they've planned stuff out and readjusted and things. The townes has a very clear lost and ofund policy, Diane, which I would have never expected, and not only is it clear, it's very strict. There's very strict rules and the rules are enforced. That's not just for the town itself, but anything operating in the town. You have restaurants and businesses that lease and run businesses for the town, they have to follow the lost and found policy. Clubs and associations have to follow the policy. All town based, town owned businesses have to follow the policies. This is just within the limits of the town, but actually a lot of the business on the outskirts have just gone with the same policy.

Basically, if you're running an organization within the town, even now, this has become so ubiquitous that even if you have a house party and you find something and you don't know who the guest is, most people will turn it in to their local community lost and found and the lost and found clock will start ticking, Diane. It's interesting because it might be hard to initially understand but the lost and found, let's say you're like our friend here. You've lost your Radiotopia challenge coin and you were hitting golf balls at the driving range. Itfell out of your pocket. Gee, D.K., did we check any driving ranges. Okay, they don't play golf, okay. Well, hitting a ball at a driving range is different than playing golf. Okay, according to their schedule, they didn't go to a driving range. This is a good example, then.

You're right, let's say it's a Radiotopia scarf so we don't get mixed up, that's what gee and D.K. are saying. Or a hat. Let's just say a scarf and it blew away while you were at the driving range. Then you drove home, you got home, you forgot you lost your scarf. Someone at the driving range finds it, they say, oh, this is a lovely… look at this, this has all the artwork from the criminal podcast, lovely. Let's turn it in to the lost and found at the driving range.

Here's where the clock starts ticking, that day, it goes in one of two boxes, Diane. Current month and last month. You have a ticking clock of 30 days, it's the 15th of the month. If you lost it on October 2nd, it would stay in the lost and found fromm October 2nd to November 2nd and then from November 2nd to November 15th, is that clear? But, if you lost it on the 14th, it would only stay to November 14th and then to November 15th. Anywhere from 30 to 45 days. The 15th of the month is donation day and it's a well known day. All these boxes and all these items must be donated on this day and that's the rule, plain and simple, very easy to understand. There's a list of businesses or non-profits that you could donate to. It's a pretty extensive list. People will debate it when it's time, every two years, to add new businesses to the list, but we're not gonna get into that.

For example, for the Radiotopia scarf, also, this is free stuff for these businesses, donations, they do have to go through things and say, well, I don't know if we could sell that, it might be better off to be recycled or something. Each business gets to choose where they send stuff. You might send it to any of these places that run thrift shops, that's the number one receiver of lost and found items. Again, it's considered property, so people are taking stuff that's out of the lost and found that's not theirs, they could be in trouble.

Let's use the Radiotopia scarf. The Radiotopia goes to the happy fun time thrift shop for literacy action, happiness through books, and tutoring people, increasing literacy. They sell stuff to support that foundation. They would get the Radiotopia scarf, tey would say, okay, we're gonna sell this for, whatever, $500 because it's so great. They would put it out there and of course they would put it on sale and they say, okay, we'll take $400 or whatever, you know what I mean, Diane.

That's the chain of custody of most of the items. Now good question, Diane, what about currency? People lose currency all the time. What about due dilligence? Two good questions. Due diligence, if you've lost something with your ID on it, they're supposed to try to track you down and they do their due dilligence and they leave that in their report. They say, well, I tried to find bob smith, didn't do it, shredded bob smith's, whateverm four diamond card, or called the company on the card. But, when it comes to currency, currency is just donated and it goes through this donation, like, there's a list of possible donations.

We've been running through these rules because it goes even deeper than that, right? As I'm taking this out, gee just raised her finger because she says, okay, there's another interesting aspect to this, there's paper money and then there's coin money and all the money must be donated toa non-profit on the list. But, D.K., just said, her and gee are pointing at this contract, it can be donated, so this is interesting, this is a new thing. Okay, that's interesting.

Four years ago, there's an addendum here, or whatever they call it. You can donate it, so, if there's a fountain where the money in the fountain is donated to charity that's listed on the list, you can throw the money in the fountain.. this was when they had the bouncy houses, which there's a lot of change in the bouncy houses. Bouncy houses don't exist anymore but this is when this was added. They were only open for six months, Diane, it would make common sense, but a lot of sense was lost at the bouncy houses. The bouncy houses, they would go to the big fountain at the center of one of the villages in the towns and throw all the money in there. There's cameras and stuff so no one takes the money and that money all went to a great organization. That's very interesting. In the end, all that money gets donated.

Diane, I'm gonna check back with you, because we're gonna retrace the steps of all the businesses we think…

Here's where I don't think I said this, the clock is already expired. We have all the businesses our person visited, but now we need to find one if anybody remembers the challenge coin or it was accidentally saved. We have four restaurants, a dentist office, oh, they didn't drive, the car service they used and a bowling alley. We're gonna go to all these places and we're gonna see, one, do you remember the challenge coin? We're gonna be gumshoe-ing Diane, do I'll be back with the update really soon.

Okay, Diane, I'm back and the plot thickens a little. We went to the restaurants, one of which was the same place where you make your own sandals, the same place we'd already been to, make your own Croc restaurant, while you order your food. Another place that specializes in milkshakes, we went to all those places. This is the leadup, Diane, theysaid, no, I run a lost and found. The bowling alley said, yeah, the lost and found's here but the shoes, or I separate the money from the goods and they don't remember a challenge coin. A couple of places were unsure.

Then we started going and putting stuff in their own investigative bins. Definitely no, probably no, let's double check with whatever the place they donated to, or definitely possible or unlikely, those kinds of bins, Diane. We also, initially, were like, what is a challenge coin? Would people view it as a piece of currency or would they know it as a token or a collectable item. There was only one place we were having trouble getting a hold of and he was the one with the most work.

We went and checked. None of those thrift stores had any things. We went to a couple of banks that process the spare change for some places and none of them had, like, they said, no, no, we don't have any challenge coins, this is what we actually do, we would actually bring it back to the thrift shop if t was a challenge coin. If it was another currency, if it was a collectible, and they actually lead us to another interesting thing, Diane.

The bank said, oh no, we're part of the solution, so they said, actually, if they found a rare coin, for example, because would youthink a challenge coin is a rare coin? They said well, it's pretty big because we always had the belt buckle for reference. The belt buckle is the 99 PI one that some of you see on Star Wars, a matte shiny black, I don't know how to describe it, Diane. But just as a reference point. We also had pictures of it. The bank said, if we found a rare coin when we're processing the currency, we actually contact the business and then we help them decide what to do with it. Contact the business and the charity. The reason for that, Diane, is another clue, maybe, is that the business gets its tax credits for the donation and these rare coins can actually have a huge impact on that, because they say, well, this coin was worth this muh money.”

We said, wait a second, is this fair? Oh, wait, no, yeah it is because it's perpetuating honesty because of the thing, all the business owners or even the people, they say, if you're a club, you would get a huge award from the charity because they'd say, well, you can't do a tax write off but that coin really helped out our mission. It was a brilliant win-win but also helped us as we looked down our list for this last business, Diane.

I think I talked about this recently. Outside of the towns or the villages, instead of taxis, people take care-sharing, where you open an app and a care comes to get you. Because the townes is very planned out, initially, the different companies were trying to get in and the residents and the thing were very resistant and it was a whole big to-do and a lot of money was spent saying, we don't want your car-shares here and all of that, then this head of a local physicians group, Diane, came up with this wonderful idea called Tuber instead of the other companies. The physician said, I'm really involved with this community, and even though they're not a resident they're looked up to and they said what about if we take this idea, the car sharing, and we make it better for all the residents? They worked to create Tuber, which was always have a chaperone and that was good for lost and found for the most part, Tuber has one of the lowest lost and founds because the chaperones job is to check the backseat of the car when the guests get out.

The physician was like, maybe it's better to encourage less driving for the environment for everybody. but then he said, well, it's less expensive than cabs, but they were still saying, well, I don't know about the cost of this. Then this physician said, what if we have Tuber and then Tuber Free. They said, what is the Tuber free? He said, you pick where you want to be picked up, we'll pick you up, 1000 steps from where you want to be picked up and we'll drop you off 1000 steps from your destination. Also, the chaperone will walk with you those 1000 steps and then the chaperone gets picked back up. We'll work to get grants and it'll be free, it'll encourage walking.

There's a trade off. But they'll figure that out, Diane, don't worry, they worked all the angles, slowly. That's just the basic vision, not the actual policy. If you're a walker already, you walk 2000 steps, you get a free ride. Also, there's a gray economy, Diane. There was people that would drive around in their golf carts and they would say, hey, I can pick you up and give you a ride those 1000 steps for $2, with cash, you know. Those unregulated businesses.

That's Tuber, and the physician was the brainchild behind that. That's really where our attention went because we know our client took two Tuber Free rides around the time the coin went missing. Then we said, okay, as we've gathered things, we couldn't get a hold of Tuber, Diane, this is interesting, that Tuber is just actually one of those companies that's built on the backbone of the architecture or something and we actually worked with some of our friends to say, this is actually a small division of this larger company. We went to the physician, he was a physician, not just a figurehead, but we also tried to figure out, where is your lost and found money go? I don't know we just wanted to interview the physician. The physician said that all of it was going down this well but he said, I'm glad you're here because there's something that I've been thinking about, I don't think all the money's going down in the well. We said, what do you mean? He said, this is the one where ou throw the coins down the well.

We went with them to the well where the money's supposed to go down and the money would eventually get collected and donated, but to this person it had a lot of meaning. We said, okay, maybe the challenge coin's in there. You know, gee and D.K. are kids, so we coulnt have them just climb in there like they were in the Goonies or something. It became time for Phantom Minnow Mode. The physician didn't see any of this but I traveled down and it was a decorative thing but also probably inspired by the Goonies and I think this was person was a big Goonies fan. I went down there and, lo and behold, there was only pennies down there, Diane. No other coins. Only pennies.

What gee and D.K. did is they got binocculars and they pretended they could see down there for the physicians' benefit and then I got back and told them, I said, there's only pennies down there, there's no other change. It was the 12th of the month so it should have been full of things because they were gonna collect all of the stuff down there. Then we got into a forensic analysis situation so we had to follow paper trails, with the figurehead saying, this is odd, why are there only pennies in there?

Then I actually went back to the big farm, Diane, and I had to get my teams. That's where you crowdsource things and I had such a powerful force of posters to help at the Phantom Minnow Enterprises or whatever I'm calling it. We quickly found out that what Tuber's parent company had done was they had seen the tax things and even the carbon costs and the cost of moving anything but pennies and the raw materials and looked at how they could maximize their deductions, so they had this whole system that was unrelated to the technical calendar because this was some sort of automated coin market or something. It ended up being quite the news for the towne's courier. Oh, sorry Diane, it's the Towne Herald Courier, thank you gee. It was also done in conjunction with a podcast.

The good news was, in exchange for the podcast, they went and looked, they did a whole episode looking for the coin and they gave us a new coin temporarily and then they actually found the coin and also gee and D.K. now probably end up being podcasters and they got to learn a lot because everybody from criminal came down and taught them the ropes. It was a really woderful experience, I was only observing it. The case ended up being solved. They were holding and checking their computer algorithms, saying, when is the height of Radiotopia challenge coin value on the secondary market? If we donate it at that time, then we donate the money, then we get a maximum write-off.

The twist was, Diane, that I'll close with, is that it didn't sink Tuber or Tuber Free, those were successes, but they were unintentional successes. They had agreed to Tuber Free because they thought Tuber Free would fail and then they could just come in and run non-Tuber Free. I guess, in the end, more than one case was solved, it was wonderful. Sometimes, things want to go wrong, go right. The coins find their way home.

That's it Diane, another case closed, with my good friends gee and D.K. and you listening in, good night.