871 – Losing Your Swimsuit

EPISODE 871 – Losing Your Swimsuit

 

[START OF RECORDING]

SCOOTER: Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and friends beyond the binary, and my patron peeps, this is the podcaster who put everything in green apples.  Not apples; I said put everything on green apples.  If there’s a Roulette wheel with green apple, I’d say put it all on green apple.  You mean the company?  No, no, no, green apples ‘cause that helps reduce mouth noises and that’s part of making a sleep podcast.  Thanks, patrons.

 

INTRO: [INTRO MUSIC] Alright, slow it down.  Hey, are you up all night tossing, turning, mind-racing, trouble getting to sleep?  Trouble staying asleep?  Well, welcome.  This is Sleep With Me, the podcast that puts you to sleep.  We do it with a bedtime story.  Alls you need to do is get in bed, turn out the lights, and press play.  I’m gonna do the rest.  What I’m going to attempt to do is create a safe place where we could set aside whatever’s keeping you awake; it could be thoughts, things you’re thinking about on your mind.  So, thoughts, feelings, anything coming up emotionally for you or physical sensations, anything you’re experiencing physically.  It could be all the stuff.  Oh boy, it could be all the stuff that’s on all of our minds right now.  I’m here to kind of take your mind off of that and what I’m going to do is I’m going to be here.  I’m here, I’m gonna try to create a safe place where you could set aside whatever’s keeping you awake.  Oh, like I said, whatever it is, I’m gonna try to create some space in there and I’m gonna try to distract you from that.

 

What I’m gonna do, well, I’m gonna repeat myself probably more than once.  I’m gonna send my voice across the deep, dark night.  I’m gonna use lulling, soothing, creaky, dulcet tones, pointless meanders, superfluous tangents.  I’m gonna go off-topic, repeat myself.  I use that…extra words that drag on.  I don’t know what you call that, where my words, they start…I start my words early.  They say those are…are those pre-vowel sounds?  I don’t know.  Or pre…I’ve got pre-consonants and pre-vowels.  When I speak, it’s almost prehistoric and then afterwards, I leave some extra at the end ‘cause I like to stretch those…I don’t actually do it on purpose.  It’s just a thing where I stretch those words out.  Now I’m aware of it.  It is something I’ve said well, I wonder what would happen if I tried to do less of that?  Could it be still sleepy if I was more concise?  I don’t know.  I’m gonna have a lot of extra stuff to take your mind off stuff and help you fall asleep, or as you fall asleep.  If you’re new here, let me give you a couple things to know; this podcast is very, very different.

 

Sometimes I say it’s a little bit different and that’s just ‘cause habitually, I say that but it is very, very different than a normal podcast, even a sleep podcast or a meditation.  It’s not like many things and the things it’s like are not what…you say okay, could you tell me what it’s like?  I say oh boy, you really put me on the spot there, brain.  Usually, sometimes I know…not usually, but sometimes I do have a ready-made analogy, so what about that?  I’d say okay, there you go.  You say what’s the podcast like?  So, for a ready-made analogy…if a normal podcast or a normal sleep podcast or a normal thing is a ready-made analogy, so you go wherever, online or to your local ready-made analogy store or whatever…other things you buy.  You say is that where you get your idioms, too?  You’d say hello Jane, what have you got in the new…I’ve been looking for some…I’m so tired of that lifestyle, coming up with my own analogies.  I got a work thing, then I got an online thingamajig, then I’ve gotta call my mom, and also, I want to oppress everybody around the house.

 

I’m tired, my analogies are tired.  I don’t know my id from an idiom, if you know what I’m saying.  No, you don’t know what I’m saying.  Well, that’s why I’m here; I need a ready…I need some of those ready-made analogies you have.  Jane would say coming right up, here they are, packaged to go.  Delivered, actually, ‘cause I’m just doing this…it’s a tele-analogy store and they’re already downloaded right into your…whatever part of your brain…you know, your cortex.  You say really?  Right into my cortex?  Wow.  Yep, ready-made analogies, good to go.  That would be a normal podcast.  Didn’t describe it in a normal way but I think you get my drift.  Then you just…I don’t know, I don’t have any ready-made analogies so I don’t know how they exactly work.  I’m saving my pennies for some…one of those idioms because…I say just tell me what they are ‘cause it sounds so good, one of those fresh-baked idioms.  Oh boy, my dreaming of the day, if I can afford it, or one of those extreme idioms; you got to go back…to the back of the store, adults only.

 

Not because of that, just because they’re so extreme.  Okay, so that’s…a ready-made analogy, I don’t know how they work but you know, you’re at a party…normal people know this stuff.  We don’t, right?  We can’t sleep, we’re…but you know what it’s like.  You’ve seen those people.  They say…you know what?  You just know how everybody in the crowd reacts and then everybody raises their glasses.  They say let’s hit the dance floor now, after you just regaled us again.  There’s those of us that have to buy ready-made analogies and that’s okay.  Oh, but I’m getting off-topic.  If a normal podcast, you say, like Radiotopia show, any of them, you’d say okay, that’s a ready-made…memory palace is a ready-made analogy.  Well, no, that’d be more of a spoke artistic analogy, so I guess I’m wrong.  Yeah, I guess those podcasts would be…a ready-made analogy would be like the New York Times, The Daily.  There you go, that’s a fair assessment, I think.  My show would be more like…you say okay, well, I don’t know where you’d get it.

 

Maybe you’d go to the flea market and you’d say okay, what’s that part over there that’s always covered in perpetual fog?  You say oh boy, that’s where the mixed…the analogist lives.  You’d say the analogist?  This sounds like an episode of Sleep With Me.  I’d say oh boy, it does.  Maybe that’s what this episode will be about tonight, is a trip to the analogist.  You say well, I might go…you say don’t go back there.  They don’t…no refunds on those analogies.  That person, they don’t have any qualifications to even sell analogies.  They just paid ten dollars for a spot and they get a discount from the fourteen dollars ‘cause it’s covered in perpetual fog.  That’s the most concisive analogy I could give you about Sleep With Me.  If you’re new, may already confused you, so the job done, ‘cause that’s one of my jobs, is to take your mind off of stuff as you fall asleep.  This is a podcast you don’t really need to listen to ‘cause the content is iffy, as you’ve already seen.  You say well, he’s talking, he’s using words; some of the words he knows what they mean.

 

Some, clearly, he does not.  He’s not charming but he’s not…some people definitely don’t find me charming so if you don’t, that’s totally cool.  You’d say it’s more of like a neutral…not charm and not…but he’s not full of smarm, either.  He’s somewhere in-between the charm and smarm scale.  I’d say yeah, I’m not a marm but if there was something like marm…like marshmallow and marm combined, that’s where I would be on that.  If there was a scale like that, that’s where I would fall, or hover.  I guess I would prefer to hover.  If I’m gonna be on a spectrum, I would like to hover on it.  Just my personal preference.  Sorry, I didn’t mean to assert my personal preference there in the middle of talking nonsense.  This is a podcast you don’t really need to listen to ‘cause I’m here to give you friendly, nonsensical banter.  I’m here to give you friendly, nonsensical banter.  So, there’s that.  This is also a podcast not really to put you to sleep; it’s more here to keep you company and take your mind off of stuff as you fall asleep.

 

What I mean by that is, I’m gonna be here for about an hour.  First, I guess I’m gonna do this intro and explain how the show works which I’ve been doing for eight minutes already.  Then I guess we’re gonna go into a bedtime story about analogies and bathing suits, believe it or not, and the analogist.  We’ll have a visit to the analogist.  If you told me that before I started talking about it, I’d say well, I’m not so sure about that.  Sounds very uncomfortable.  You say no, at the flea market.  I would say well, that sounds even [00:10:00] more uncomfortable.  I’d prefer to visit an analogist at someplace that has diplomas on the walls and a waiting room.  You say no, no, no, I don’t think…once again, Scoots, I don’t think you know…I say oh, okay, it’s not that.  Okay, great.  I gotta get back to this pod…so, I’m here to keep you company as you fall asleep but the reason these shows are about an hour is to give you plenty of time to drift off.  The other thing is if you can’t sleep, I’m gonna be here ‘til the very end keeping you company.

 

Whether you’re asleep or you can’t sleep, whether you need to listen during the day for a break or an escape or a little distraction during the day, or at night or all night long, or in the middle of the night, or when you wake up early, I’m here for you and the only way I can, by telling you stories and goofing around.  If you can’t sleep at all, I’m here.  This show is here, I’m your bore-bud, your bore-friend, your bore-bae, your bore-bestie, your bore-sib, your bore-bruh.  The podcast you don’t need to listen to, and it’s not really here to put you to sleep; it’s here to keep you company as you fall asleep, so there’s that.  Then, this is a little late to tell you but the structure of this pod…well, I already told you it’s very different.  The structure is also very different.  I think that’s where that ready-made analogy comes back in because…so, a normal podcast or a normal story structure or anything for mass-consumption or even niche-consumption is…usually, you say okay, this is what we’re gonna do, this is how we’re gonna do it.  This is how we’re gonna lay it out.

 

Then you explain that again, and then you go and do it, I guess.  You’d say well, this is a ready-made analogy cast where we talk about the world’s favorite ready-made analogies and the people who produce them.  Today, we’re gonna be talking to the analogist.  We have that person’s…we told that person they could never come on the show.  They have sloppy, waterlogged analogies.  This is a ready-made…who put this person in?  Oh, the analogist did.  Oh, okay.  Well, so normally on the show, we talk to ready-made…creators of ready-made analogies, fans of ready-made analogies, ready-made analogy critics, ready-made analogy gadflies, all those things.  Holy cow.  What we talk about is…so, today I guess we’ll be talking…I guess today we won’t have an episode but normally we’d talk to the guest, we’d take some questions from the audience, and then we’d wrap it up.  That’s the structure of the ready-made analogy show, so let’s get to it.  This show is not structured like that.

 

It starts off with a little greeting; ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and friends beyond the binary.  Then there’s business which keeps the show free for everybody, which enables us to bring the show to you for free.  Then there’s an intro.  The business is necessary, then there’s an intro which is also necessary but very long.  That ready-made analogy show, that was like, a thirty-second…except when I got mixed up.  That would be a thirty-second intro.  Our intros are somewhere between twelve and eighteen or nineteen minutes.  Some people think when are you gonna get to the point?  Are you just dragging it out or are you trying to be…you’re self-promoting…I don’t know, there’s a lot of things…the intro naturally, I’m telling you naturally can throw people off but really what it is, is it’s just me doing my best job, to be honest, of explaining what the podcast is.  I just never have gotten it down.  But the benefit of my…this is where I talk about this a lot; my liability of not being able to get to the point has become an asset.

 

Of course, I don’t know my rear from…I don’t know my head from my…I don’t know my head from my ass, you know, but…sorry, my brain’s just like, did you just say that?  Really, you should have just spelled it out.  I said well, that sounds more, like…it’s more barely funny when you say it.  The into is really…what it ends up doing, is it gives regular listeners a chance to wind down.  If you’re new, just see how it goes and kind of get used to it.  A lot of listeners say it takes two or three tries to get used to this podcast because it’s so different.  But what I’ve discovered is 98% of listeners listen to the intro in some way.  Now, some fall asleep, 2% skip it, some people fall asleep during the intro but what most people do is they start to unwind.  They’ll either start playing it before they get into bed or as they’re in bed winding down, you know, relaxing and heading off to the Land of Nod, as they say.  I’ve never seen a direct path…that’s why I listen to this podcast.

 

I wish there was a direct path to Nod but every time I try to get there, I either get lost getting there or I accidentally walk out in the middle of the night and then I can’t get back in, or I say well, I was planning on staying in Nod all night, and now I’m like…so, the intro kind of helps ease you into bedtime.  That’s the real goal of the intro.  See how it goes.  More and more people now are listening during the day to ease you out of daytime, too, or have a little easy distraction.  That’ll be that, then there’s some business, then we’ll do the bedtime story, then there’s the thank yous.  That’s the structure of the show.  The reason I make this show is because I truly believe you deserve a good night’s sleep, a place of respite during the night or the day, because I’ve been there, as you’ve heard.  You’ve heard me say it.  You can probably feel it, that I know how it feels and I think you deserve a little bit less gravity and intensity at bedtime.

 

I want bedtime to go from a place of dread…I mean, in my dreams it would become a place of delight where you’d say I can’t wait to go to bed and hang out with Scoots.  That’s really what I strive for.  Realistically, I just…we get to a neutral place.  You say well, instead of saying can’t wait, you say well, at least I got Scoots to listen to.  That’s better than the other stuff.  If I can help you, it would be my honor.  I really appreciate you coming by and checking out the show.  I work very hard and I…on it, believe it or not.  Some people will say what?  But because I believe in it and I believe in you getting some rest and having some respite.  Thank you again for coming by, and here’s a couple ways we’re able to keep this podcast free for you and everybody else who listens.

 

Alright, hey everybody, it’s Scoots.  I always try to keep it sleepy as a bedtime story here on the podcast, but I did want to…I was thinking…I did a live stream recently where I was folding laundry which is not something I particularly…I’m not fond of folding laundry.  I’m not fond of…you know, I mean, you listen to the sleep podcast; you gotta be in it with me or at least be able to relate.  It’s not actually the folding of the…I think it’s probably…it’s definitely something…it’s not vestigial ‘cause I don’t think there’s a…somewhere deep inside me I have feelings about…sometimes I get on a roll.  Can’t think of when I…the last time I did.  I guess, yeah, there probably was a time I was on a roll, but lately, since January, I have not been on a roll.  Mostly I’ve just been living out of…what are those called?  Hampers.  When I say Ben…when I say hamper, I think of Ben Hamper who wrote a book called Riveted, or Rivet Head, about the auto…his life on the assembly line.

 

He was in a movie called Roger and Me, the Michael Moore documentary.  He was in the movie with the most powerful emotional moment for me in the movie, I’m pretty sure, ‘cause he’s the one that says…I’ve talked about this on the podcast but one of my deepest connections to a moment in film, particularly a documentary film, ‘cause he’s talking about Flint, Michigan and living there.  Then he starts talking about the Beach Boys song Wouldn’t It Be Nice?  Then the Beach Boys song Wouldn’t It Be Nice? starts playing and he’s going through the…a very powerful moment for me, I think a beautiful moment.  But that doesn’t have anything to do…other than I’ve been living out of a hamper, or multiple hampers.  Actually, none of them are hampers.  I’m already off-topic but I guess this is a good thing.  Two of them are baskets, or they’re…I guess they’re wire baskets, you’d call them.  They’re part of the IKEA…I think it’s the IGLOT system or something that I bought once upon a time, you know, to get…when I was like this time, I’m gonna get my life organized.

 

I’m starting with my IGLOT or ILLOT, or whatever it was.  Too bad I didn’t have Spock with me to say this is illogical.  Which part, the purchasing or the…?  All of it.  For a time, it did keep me pretty…well, no, [00:20:00] but at some point I bought more of them ‘cause they have kind of taken…they’ve weathered over time but they’re these nice-sized baskets that are good…wire baskets that are good for holding laundry, clean or unclean, folded or unfolded.  Then over the past four months, within the last four months, I also bought a laundry…like, a big, tall one from, you know, when I saw it on sale somewhere online.  Those are my three vessels of laundry.  Most of the time, my dirty laundry is in the washer either waiting to be…’cause I don’t really wear a lot of clothes that have to be separated, at least to my knowledge.  You might ask the clothes; you’ll get a different story.

 

Usually, I have three different types of laundry I do; general clothes laundry, I mean if there was some reason I was wearing whites and hot pinks, I would definitely separate those, or bright reds, but for the most part the only thing I’m wearing that’s white would be an undershirt and I’m like well, close enough, you know?  So, I have that laundry.  Sometimes I have towels which I may wash together or separately, then bedding which I’ll wash separately just because it’s more…it’s easier, plus I feel like with the fitted sheets, shirts or socks always get stuck in the fitted sheets.  Sometimes they’ll get stuck in a way that’s airtight and then they’re not…they don’t get washed, somehow, or watertight, like a watertight seal just on the one part of the clothes I wanted to get clean.  Then I have Koa’s laundry which I do separately because it smells like a dog, which would be her bedding…Koa has her own towels.  Don’t tell her this; they were once our towels but they fell out of…they eventually…they said well, look at these brand-new towels we got for you, Koa.

 

Oh boy, she wags her tail.  What are towels for?  Oh, it’s time to take a B-A-T-H.  B-A-T-H, right?  Then her tail stops wagging and she says did you just say bath?  I say well technically, it’s not a bath ‘cause you never…you don’t go in…it’s either…sometimes it’s in the bathtub; it’s a shower or sometimes it’s outside with a shower with the hose.  I don’t know why I’m not more clear with you that you’re gonna be taking a shower, but we still call it a bath when we bathe the dog.  Those are three kinds of laundry I do.  My daughter lives with me half the time, so then sometimes I’m doing her laundry with mine.  I don’t really do it separately unless it’s some sort of power move where I say okay, well, can you put everything on your floor?  Don’t follow your father’s example.  Could you put everything on your floor and the laundry that’s not clean?  Which I actually do; I don’t really throw my dirty clothes on the floor.  I just put them in the washer or throw them down the stairs and then when I go down the stairs, I put them in the washer.

 

What was my…?  Oh, so I’ve been living out of a hamper.  I was thinking man, I gotta get my act together and start…I’d like to…I’ve never been a person to live out of drawers, in my whole life.  When you grow up in a house with six kids, you really don’t use drawers, especially with the kids that are close to your size, except for seasonal clothes that you’ll never see ever again anyway unless you’re like, somehow did I place my favorite…’cause usually when you’re a kid, you just have your favorite clothes or the clothes you’ve settled…you’ve accepted that these are the clothes I’m going to wear to school, or play.  Anyway, at one point I will upgrade and…maybe.  I’d like to have a little bit more peace and quiet around my lifestyle ‘cause those clothes are just so noisy.  I say what are you…you’re clean clothes; what are you making so much fuss about?  I said I thought you were just inanimate.  But believe it or not, what’s interesting is that I just folded…I think either all of my laundry…it’s on my yoga mat, of course.  It’s the worst place to put your clean clothes.

 

There’s something that…I say well, this mat that…anyway.  I put my clean clothes on there that are freshly folded ‘cause the chances are that it could absorb some of my non-cleanliness or Koa might come roll around on it.  All that said, I did a live stream yesterday…or, not yesterday.  It was a few days ago.  Yesterday just sounded more…I don’t know, more relevant.  I was folding laundry and trying to make bedtime stories or songs about folding laundry; I don’t remember the content but I do…what I do remember is I was folding my bathing suit.  Some would call it…I would call it a swimsuit.  Some people call them swim trunks.  These are not trunks; they’re shorts.  That’s one of the things that I like about them.  I’m not a…like, I say what are those…board shorts.  Those were in favor, like whatever, fourteen years ago, twelve, or eight years ago.  Whatever it was, that’s the last time I was buying bathing suits.  But somehow, I bought this pair.  Also, it’s not a pair; it’s just one suit.

 

Why do they call it a swimsuit?  That’s what I would call it but some people would call it…what do they call it, boarding suit?  No, swim trunks.  That’s not what I call it but if you do, it’s fine.  But I’m also looking for a more universal term which I would say ‘swimsuit’, something you swim in that’s…I don’t know, why do they call it a swimsuit?  Or you could call it a bathing suit.  That seems more old-fashioned.  Maybe ‘swimsuit’ is more old-fashioned.  I don’t know, but I was folding it on air and I was talking about how this was my actual favorite swimsuit.  I’ve had it for a while.  Doesn’t have the inside undergarments.  That’s not so much a reason that I like it, but I think it is because there’s something about that inside undergarment that puts me…I say oh boy.  I don’t know why I’m so suspicious of that.  It’s not really a freedom thing; you might say oh…and I say no, it’s…I don’t know what it is.  But I also think these ones just…they’re not long.  They’re not short-shorts.

 

Like, I would love to say who wears short swim shorts?  Scoots wears…but I would never be able to say that, which reminds me of the summer I shaved my legs.  I had hairy legs already and that was one of the many times my parents thought they were gonna have to intervene on my behalf, but then they didn’t.  I mean, I’ll just be honest, I was wondering how it would…I just said what’ll happen if I shaved my legs?  How would that feel?  I got curious about it.  Yes, some of you that are so masculine might have a chuckle.  It doesn’t bother me.  But yeah, it was definitely post-pubescent, so living in the Rust Belt, these are bad ideas according to the Rust Beltians but I decided I would give my legs a shave.  It just happened to be right when my dad’s family was coming to visit.  I’d like to know how old I was, but I was somewhere between…I guess I was…I had hair on my legs.  I don’t know if I had hair everywhere else, though.  I mean, I have it on my head, clearly, but…so maybe I was somewhere between…definitely middle…somewhere between middle school and high school.

 

Probably middle school.  I said let me shave my legs; let me see what that’s like.  I wanna go for it.  I mean, maybe I had other thoughts about it.  I shaved my legs and I didn’t get too much sassing because my leg hair was already blonde anyway.  I don’t know how I got on that topic.  Oh, ‘cause short-shorts, that was the old ad, Nair for short-shorts, and I think I was singing that as I was shaving my legs.  You know, I don’t know, don’t do it…you can do it, just be careful if you’re gonna do it, kids out there.  Because then people will say well, it’ll never grow back.  I don’t know, I said well, I don’t care.  I said well, I just wanted to know what it felt like.  I wanted to feel my legs silky smooth like on the commercials.  So much I have done has been influenced by television and commercials.  I think it was that Nair ad.  I said well, I’d like to wear short-shorts and have ultra-smooth legs.  Those ads said ultra-smooth legs, or whatever.  There’s that but anyway, back to the…so, I have my favorite pair of swim…my favorite swimsuit.

 

It’s a blue, kind of like a blue camo which I was joking about ‘cause it’d be like okay, no one undersea…none of the undersea friends can see me because I have the aqua-camo suit on, or they can only…they can see the rest of me but not my, you know, middle section.  But then I was thinking about this and, you know, right now as…when I’m recording this, this is a period in history…I don’t know when you’ll be listening to this, so it’s really a time where I’m trying to live day by day, moment to moment.  But I’m also very acutely aware of…even though the [00:30:00] globe is spread out and I’m in a position of privilege where I live, that there is a lot that connects us, particularly right now.  I’m trying to focus on that as a feeling of unity, of shared humanity, of comfort, of wonder, and you know, a lot of other positive things or looking at it in an empathetic and compassionate way, because I am in a place that not everybody else is in.

 

But I was thinking as I was talking about my swimsuit, that I was joking about times I’ve lost my swimsuit because one, there’s a few design problems with my favorite swimsuit and one of those is…well, there’s a couple; it has one piece of…let’s see, how do I describe this for every…?  Like, maintain our seal of approval from Family, Family, Family Enterprises, or whatever.  But so, there’s two things; one, it has a button fly which you say well…maybe they said well, we could charge more for it.  Put it on there, we’ll charge more.  ‘Cause they said button fly?  ‘Cause most of…don’t have no fly, so that’s one thing, is like okay, you got a button fly.  Interesting.  But then the top…there’s no button at the very top.  There’s a piece of Velcro which I say hello, do I really want some scruffy Velcro anywhere, even near my belly?  I don’t.  Then it’s already worn down.  Then it has a tie, like most bathing suits.  It has no…oh, this is another reason I like it; it doesn’t have any elastic.

 

Not a big elastic fan, either.  But then it has a tie thing, so you tie it up…so, it’s a bit over-designed as far as like, if you…if, for example, I said well, I had too much water today.  I’ve gotta go out and use the…place where I…the water leaves my body.  I would have to untie the suit, then un-Velcro it, and then un-fly…and then unbutton the fly.  That’s quite a…talk about…they said okay, what are you…maybe there was some sort of evil swimsuit scientist involved in this.  I mean, hear me out, it’s a bit of a stretch but said well…if we were being honest and we had the scientist here, Dr. Hans Zimmer Gorbelli, swimsuit scientist, and they were going to be perfectly honest with us, we say so, you…at one part in your career did you turn to bathing suit design?  Ah yes, I did.  Yeah, you came up with this revolutionary bathing suit idea.  Now, it didn’t take off and ended up failing but the great bathing suit historians around the world, yeah, they really started to look at this design and wonder what the heck you were thinking because it’s really inconvenient to go to the restroom.

 

Yes, I wanted people to pee in the pool.  I never had a pool, I never…I was always fed up with people that did so I designed a bathing suit that would force people to pee in the pool.  Yeah, that’s what I thought.  So, thanks for nothing because it’s just not a great idea.  That was why it was designed that way, I guess, but on top of that…so, it had a tie thing where your belly…like, below your belly button where your normal button would be, just like on any other pants or shorts or whatever that have a button below your belly button.  But while it had a tie there, it did not have a rope that went around the whole suit, which is kind of key in what we’re gonna talk about next because if you have a rope or whatever, a string or lace, I guess it’s a lace; not lace-lace.  That was the shorts I would have been wearing when my legs were shaved but this one…’cause then you can cinch it around…above your hips.  A lot of people…maybe this is only something that very few people ever think about, just me and bathing suit designers.

 

But that way, you can tie the rope.  You can cinch it so it’s locked above your hips which prevents it from coming off.  Now, again, I’m only operating from my simple and narrow cultural window of using just the bathing suits I’ve experienced.  People of the world, boys, girls, and friends beyond the binary, and people across the globe, there’s a lot of probably different experiences and different styles and ways you’ve worn bathing suits before, or swimsuits.  But I was thinking as I was describing that; ‘cause I said well then your…so, this bathing suit, it doesn’t have a tendency to come off because now that I’m not a kid anymore, I don’t know, I guess I probably hold onto it when I’m…if I was gonna dive in a pool, I would probably hold onto it, or I would just dive really deep and then pull them back up.  I think that’s probably what I do now because I dive pretty deep.  If I’m diving in a pool, I like to go under the water, otherwise I would just jump in.

 

That way, I would pull…I said if they did come off…they wouldn’t come all the way off, probably.  I would just pull them back up.  Then if I was in the ocean or a lake with a lot of waves, I don’t know, I guess I would assess things pretty quickly.  Just because…I don’t think I would be super embarrassed.  I guess I would just not want to be offending anyone, you know?  Especially if it’s a public place.  I don’t want to offend any kids or whatever.  But I was thinking though, as I was mentioning it, a lot of people were laughing because I think this may be a nearly-universal experience.  Now, clearly, it’s not 100% universal experience; not everybody’s worn a bathing suit or a swimsuit and not everybody has the privilege of being able to go swimming so I totally acknowledge that fact, but I’d say a large number of humans on the globe, and especially when you sub in, like…remember that story I did along time ago about when I…I talked my sister and my brother, this is when we were little…I’d always dreamed of going swimming in a pond like in the movie Stand by Me, even though I don’t think they were swimming; they were just crossing it or something.

 

In my tidy-whitey underwear, one day after school, I found a pond and then the next day, it was hot, or a couple days later, and I convinced…it was a runoff pond from snowmelt, not farm runoff, hopefully, ‘cause there was no farms nearby.  But I convinced my brother and my sister and me…we were in grammar school or elementary school, to go swim at this pond.  We were on the walk home from the bus stop so we never went home, which was a bad idea, and then we stripped down.  Me and my brother stripped down to our tidy-whities.  I’m not sure if my sister, what she was wearing.  But so, we went swimming in our tidy-whities so that’s another thing you could swim in that could come off, and so I was thinking of that, yeah, it may be a nearly-universal human experience that you’ve lost your bathing suit while being in the water.  Also, it’s nearly never convenient, or almost never convenient.  Not only is losing your bathing suit universal, it happens…majority of the time it happens, it’s not at a good time.

 

Some of you that wear two-piece bathing suits, you may only lose one portion of your bathing suit but it never happens at a time that you say well, this would be the ideal…you say there’s really only one ideal time to lose your bathing suit and well, I guess there’s a couple times.  You say well, I’m getting changed or whatever, or you say that’s it, you’re going into the sea.  You’ve become a sea-being.  You’re doing a reverse-Ariel and you say okay, I’m joining the mer-people.  Then you would say I’m losing my bathing suit, but you’d more say I’m shedding my suit.  Symbolically, I’m leaving behind the remnants of my humanity to accept my mer-side.  I don’t know, was that like, The Little Mermaid 4?  I guess they wouldn’t call it The Little Mermaid.  They’d say from the universe of The Little Mermaid, Eric’s cousin Andy, the shedding of the suit.

 

I don’t know, I was thinking that…and I guess I’m taking a risk here, but I did float it by [00:40:00] the people I was talking to on Instagram, the listeners, I said well, is this a kind of human thing that a lot of people…’cause I can think of the times I’ve lost my suit and it’s always been that you can be with other kids your age and they’re laughing at you, or it could be something where you’re like, somebody’s mom’s there and you say oh boy, or it just falls down.  Then one of my brothers was saying, and I think it was happening to him, that…so, we used to swim at Lake Ontario and Lake Ontario would get very intense waves.  Maybe it did happen to me, ‘cause I got the feeling it happened to me but my brother was making it sound like I was on the shore.  Maybe, or maybe he was saying it happened to me.  But there’s times where the waves are so strong that they take your suit off.  I’m pretty sure it happened to me but maybe I didn’t totally lose my suit, but what would happen is…it could happen where your suit, especially if you’re body-surfing, that your suit gets totally taken off you and washed out to sea.

 

I mean, in this case, to Canada.  My brother was counting…maybe it was me and I was staying in the water ‘cause maybe my…some of my female cousins were there or neighbors or something, and saying ‘get me a towel’ and no one would give you…get me a towel.  But then that could have been I was the one not giving the towel.  That does also sound like I’m not the greatest person in the world, you know?  I was also, when I was a kid, I was much…I was not a good person.  I was like, a bad person in-training.  Everybody’s…almost…I’m gonna say this and I’m not trying to be exclusive, but I would say almost everybody has lost their bathing suit.  Then I was thinking well, that makes a nice analogy for right now, how I’m feeling today.  Who knows…I’m gonna try to get this episode out sooner than later, of where everybody is in the world where…I said well, that’s how I feel.  I feel like I’m losing my bathing suit right now.  I think it’s a little bit more…fun way to put it in terms ‘cause it says…because it actually addresses one of the things we’re going through right now which is that it’s not unique that…the feelings we have are shared by the majority of the world.

 

You say jeez, everybody feels…you say well, I mean, it doesn’t have that idea of everybody pointing and laughing at you but you know, the rest, I say…I don’t know, is that the term for our times?  I say well, maybe for just a sleep podcast…I thought about that.  I said whoa, I feel like I’m losing my bathing suit.  If you want to use that, you can.  You can go out in the world, you can say I feel like I’m losing my bathing suit, and I’ll know what you mean.  ‘Cause you say well, it’s not like…I don’t know how else to put it.  I say well, did you feel…what does that mean?  You say well, I don’t even know what it means.  I think I’m okay but at the same time, I feel like I’m losing my bathing suit, the essence of losing your bathing suit and that experience.  You say okay Scoots, I’ve never lost my bathing suit.  I say okay, I’ve got a couple places that you could…I could give you some shoes, some water-shoes you could put your feet into.  There’s two of them and they’re for anyone.

 

They should be relatable to you.  I want you to start off imagining that you are…you’re in a yellow school bus with a bunch of other high school kids.  You’re in high school or you’re, you know, that’s where you are.  Also, on the bus is someone you have a huge crush on.  Definitely, if not multiple people you have huge crushes on and you’re going to a waterpark, okay?  You’re on a school trip to a waterpark; the bus is loud, it’s rowdy.  Maybe you already have your swimsuit on or your bathing suit on, maybe you’re gonna put it on in the changing room, whatever it is.  Maybe you say you have a packed lunch, or maybe you have twelve dollars to buy lunch at the waterpark ‘cause we’re going on a trip to waterpark.  So, we get off the bus, all the kids are loud.  There we are…some of your close friends are there, so you feel good.  You say oh boy, I’m ready to experience the visceral experience of waterparking.  Maybe you have water-shoes on ‘cause you say well, that’ll be less distracting if I have water-shoes on ‘cause I won’t have to think about my feet touching anything, or hot concrete.

 

You have top-of-the-line water-shoes on.  There we are, we’re waiting in line, maybe we start the day off with a couple…you go on the two…maybe not the…you wouldn’t go on the Lazy River first; I mean, who are we kidding?  But maybe we work our way up.  We go on the team raft ride, maybe you happen to get on…the raft is like six people, you happen to get in the raft with the person you have the crush on, so you’re already feeling those palpitation…oh boy, oh boy, holy cow, I mean, that’s another probably near-universal experience, right?  You say holy moly, there’s something about this water, I can’t put it into words, and then we’re moving and we’re swishing and we’re whooshing.  You get to the end of the team raft ride, you say oh boy, that was great, you’re feeling good.  Then maybe we go on a couple tube rides where you go…you sit on a tube and you swish around.  Those are fun, but you know…everybody’s waiting in line, you’re chatting it up, everybody’s having fun because we’re at a waterpark.

 

There’s only one day of school left and the day of school is one of those ones where you don’t do any work.  Maybe you’re…I don’t know, maybe you’re not…who knows where you are?  It doesn’t really matter.  This is just to get you in a relatable…’cause you say well, I’ve never lost my bathing suit so I’m trying to help distill the experience for you in a meandering way.  Okay, then you say well, Scoots, which kind of bathing suit do we have?  I say don’t worry; I’ve got it all covered.  I got you covered.  ‘Cause they say well, there’s two kinds of suit losses that are normally experienced, and…so, I guess we’ll go through the first one which is…we’ve all seen it happen, probably, and…so, let’s say you have a two-piece suit on, one covering your top and one covering your bottom.  Everybody’s in line for the Purple Gush which is…this is the premier ride at this park.  I don’t want to go into any archetypal things but it’s a premier ride at this park.  It’s known for everybody…you’re supposed to say ‘Purple Gush’ when you go down…when the ride let’s you go.

 

This one is actually a waterslide; there’s no foam pad, no boat, just you, your behind…you get up there, you cross your legs, and you’re supposed to cross your arms over your chest.  Part of the reason that you do that, I think, is to prevent this but you had heard, like your mother before you left, she said don’t listen to them when they say cross your arms.  I’m a scientician and you’re supposed to hold your arms at your sides.  Trust me because I know and when I was just a girl, they didn’t have waterslides.  But you say okay, mom.  Just promise me one thing; I’ll give you an extra eight dollars.  You’ll have twenty dollars for lunch if you just don’t cross your arms over your chest.  You say mom, this goes against…you don’t even usually talk about my chest.  You say well, this is…so, there you are, you’re at the top of the Purple Gush or whatever it’s called, the Gush Purple.  All the other kids that have gone, there’s kids in line and there’s kids that have gone because everybody likes to hear the way people say ‘Purple Gush’.

 

It’s your turn and then so, you’re waiting.  Actually, you’re talking in line.  You say oh boy, that’s four people in…ahead of me.  That’s the one.  Old Dreamy Eyes.  Holy moly, those dreamy eyes.  You can feel it in your tummy.  Then you also feel in your tummy…you say well, I’m about to go down the Purple Gush.  I wonder what it’s gonna feel like, but I’m already feeling feelings.  Right before Old Dream Eyes goes down, they look at you and you say oh boy, oof, and then they go and they say ‘Purple Gush’ in a super-cool way.  Everybody’s cheering and then you’re getting your turn, you start to say well, what’s this gonna be like?  This experience?  Then you hear your mother’s voice; she says don’t…the person and the operator, they say okay, sit down, cross your legs, and then lay back and [00:50:00] cross your arms over your chest.  You say okay, then they say five, four, three, two, one.  After I say one, start to say ‘Purple Gush’.

 

As soon as they say one, you say ‘purple’ and then you undo your arms and put them at your side because your mother…you know, you heard your mother’s voice say put those arms at your side.  I studied physics in high school.  I know the degree of angles and inertia.  So, you do it ‘cause you said well, I did get that extra eight dollars that I’m gonna use to buy tater tots with cheese on them, or whatever.  You go down the Purple Gush, and you say ‘Purple Gush’ and then as you go down, you realize that the area your mother had said…because the Purple Gush…’cause there’s so much water that’s supposed to slow you down, and this water also removes the top of your bathing suit in front of all your classmates.  Now, this is in a progressive era where everybody says wow, that…but still, you feel the archetypal feelings of losing your bathing suit.  Also, you say mother, what was I thinking?  Why didn’t I just listen?  Everybody says well, that’s why you’re supposed to cross your arms.

 

Also, because the physics.  Physics have shown crossed arms on waterslides…but it’s mostly to keep your suit on.  You say well, I never thought that until I listened to this sleep podcast.  Everybody says well, and then it’s like, this united moment ‘cause your initial feelings were…you felt your face turning pink, you felt like you were trying to put a…get it back on or cover up, or oh boy, feelings.  But then you notice everybody says it’s okay, especially Old Dreamy Eyes.  He’s the first person that comes up and says…after they give you a moment.  Actually, you were surprised also because there was immediately classmates of yours you never even got along with holding up towels around you, people you viewed as your rivals or your nemesi holding towels around you so that you could recover.  You say whoa, and then Old Dreamy Eyes…everyone says jeez, I remember the first time I lost…is that the first time you ever lost your suit?  You say yeah, and you’re kind of breathless and still unsure.

 

Dreamy Eyes is there, and Old…Jock McGee, everybody.  Palmo, the mascot.  They say jeez, oh yeah, I…then they do, they say why was your…where were your arms?  Weren’t your arms crossed over your chest like every picture in the whole park?  You say oh, my mom told me to put my arms at my side.  Maybe you wonder if your mom was up to something and maybe she wanted to lead you to this vestigial moment.  I don’t know, but you say well, that’s not the proper use of vestigial.  You say you’re probably right; it’s not the proper use of vestigial but…and you can’t…instead, it’s worked its way through the whole park where people are like, they’re respecting your personal space but they’re saying hey, gonna go on the Gusher again?  Don’t worry about it.  Then you hear all these stories of public pools and pool parties, and ponds and river…you were like jeez, I didn’t know there was so many rope swing swimsuit losses but it makes perfect sense; swinging…just like the commercial from Scoot’s youth of doing it country cool, of swinging off a rope swing into a swimming hole.

 

You run the high risk of losing your swimsuit unless it’s…you say wow.  Or waterskiing, watersports, diving.  Holy cow, swim lessons.  You say wow, I had no idea.  Then your biggest nemesis, just like in the movies, person that was your best friend, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade, and then you got into ninth grade and then you were kind of still…and then tenth.  There was this schism and they say I don’t know if you remember, but last year I worked at this park and I did the exact same thing, not because my mother told me but because I said…we were getting ready, we were doing the soft opening and I just…I had a crush on this person and they were the only other person working, my co-worker that I had fallen for, just like in that other movie.  You say holy cow, and I said I wanna try the Purple Gusher with my arms at my side.  You think it’d be safe, and they said why not?  Give it a try.  Of course, this is totally…yeah, I don’t know.  I did it and the same exact thing happened but I wasn’t as cool and calm as you were.

 

You were so poised when you came off that waterslide and you lost your suit.  You see, throughout the day, other things happening to other kids like dropping a fresh ice-cream cone, dropping an entire tray of food from the food court, and people say I feel like I just lost my bathing suit.  Then the other kids help the person.  You say wow, this loss your…now, now, now, you might say well, that’s not the kind of bathing suit I roll in, Scoots.  I can’t empathize with that person.  I say well, okay, well, I know you were on the bus, too, thinking you couldn’t empathize with us because you walked.  You said I didn’t…you said okay, well…and you couldn’t empathize with a person just jumping into a bog or swinging into a bog, or a person on every coastline in the…any coastline in the world when the wave comes and washes their suit away.  I say don’t worry, I got something for you.  I don’t worry, do I?  So, there you are.  You say well, I can picture that waterpark.

 

I’ve always wanted to go to it and I’ve always wanted to see a waterpark and to feel those feelings you were talking about.  I say okay, well, we could get in there.  They invited you; it’s a universal experience trip and I could take you to the special journey across the…I don’t even know what it’s called.  It’s not the metaverse in my world.  Something…transverse-plane, and you’re now the same age as everyone there.  They know you, you know them, you feel pretty comfortable.  Maybe you’ve had a couple sodas, even.  People have been calling you the Sour Patch Kid ‘cause you brought a eight-pound bag of Sour Patch Kids to share with everybody.  Now you’re feeling it and you know how you roll in your suit, so you’re totally like okay Scoots, I got it covered, man.  I say okay, well yeah, there you go, you’ve spent the day at the park and maybe you even made it through the wave pool without any incident, you know?  You also have enjoyed things and you had proper screening.

 

Everybody has the proper sunscreen level.  Holy cow, have you been reapplying.  They also called you the Re-Applier because you set the example for the day in the reapplication of sunscreen on a regular basis, of making sure everyone else either used spray or helped everybody make sure the backs and shoulders were properly screened.  At some point during the day, they made an announcement that the re-screener got a free cone at the Sugar Shack and you went there, and people cheered for you.  Then you heard about these slides they have; they’re called racing slides, or bobsled slides, or toboggan slides.  You said that hill just doesn’t look as exciting as the other hills, or the excitement of making sure everyone’s properly screened, or just enjoying this thing.  But everybody’s saying how much fun it was and how exciting it was, and then your friend said you know that [01:00:00] if you really lean in, you gotta lean forward.  You could really build up speed.

 

Your friend said I’ve won like, nine races in a row.  I’m so tired of the accolades that I think I should teach you this method of winning.  You say well, what’s the method?  He said well, you put all your weight on your hands and then you try to lean your weight forward.  Again, this isn’t proven; this is just totally imaginary so don’t try it because this probably won’t work.  If you try to win a race, remember this is just an empathy-building exercise so this advice is purely not based on waterslide experience.  Then you try to like, put as little weight as you can on just your kneecaps on the back, ‘cause it’s a slide you lie down on face-first and if you can, stretch your body out.  Pull your belly button in towards your spine and also try to make yourself as aerodynamic as possible.  Can you handle that?  Re-screener, Sour Patch Kid, maybe you’ll be the Bobsled Beast.  You say I’m willing to try, because then you realize that you hearken back across the transverse plane to those times you had butterflies in your tummy.

 

You could feel them butterflying around as you wait in line for your turn.  This is the eight-person bobsled run, so there’s seven other kids including that butterfly person you…that makes you feel like, glee inside. You get on there and you…now, the first time you come in first.  The method works.  Then they say okay…and this was the tournament.  You say okay, now you’re…that was the…whatever the finals are before the…whatever.  Now, you’re in the quarter-finals except it’s still the same eight people.  It’s just…I don’t know, it’s a point system, maybe.  I don’t know, I’m not an officiant of official bobsleds.  Then the second race comes and you come in…you get a little…something happens and you have to scratch your ear.  So, you come in second.  Who comes in first?  Butterfly, and then you get in again, and you go again, and you win the race.  There’s six other kids and then they come in second.  Then you go again and you really try this time, to win.

 

Butterfly comes in first and then they say last run of the day.  You say okay, now you’ve been someone who’s regularly practiced screen, sunscreen, and taking care of everybody’s skin and everything, but there’s some skin on our bodies that’s just…rarely sees the light of sun, right?  So, no matter what kind of body we have, this part of our body just doesn’t see much sun.  It’s also part of the body, you know, known as the B to the U to the double T that is a humorous part of the body no matter what age you are.  If you say ‘butt’…I just wanted to let you know that everybody’s got a…not only has everybody or almost everybody lost their bathing suit but almost everybody has a butt, too.  So, you get up there and everybody’s anticipating, and then Old Butterfly says well, what’s the bet?  How about a trip to the movies or the ice cream place, or a walk down the lane?  Trip to the duck pond, whatever it is, a night staring at the stars for the winner.  You say oh boy, I’m in.

 

Then you go down there and you’re leaning forward with all your might, your knees are…you dug into your mat and they say ready, set, go.  You propel yourself forward at such a speed somehow that you’re racing, and then Butterfly is somehow…they’re keeping in pace with you and you’re back and forth.  It feels like time has stretched to an eternity.  It feels like you’re willing yourself forward and somehow, they’re effortlessly just ahead of you, and then you’re ahead of them, and they’re ahead of you.  Then you hit the slow-down lane and you realize you’ve leaned so far ahead and put so much weight that when you hit it, it may be a tie, but you’re not aware of that anymore ‘cause the water splashes up your suit and no matter how you roll, somehow, I don’t know if it was the side or the mat, or something, your suit, oof, washes right away, right away with your toboggan sled and there you are.  Now you’re on your stomach but your B to the U to the T to the T, your heiney, as some people call it, it’s shiny; hasn’t seen the sun and you say oh boy.

 

Now, you managed to say one of the most hilarious things any kid…they said did I win?  This could have been put in your mouth by a writer of a rom-com movie.  They say no, and then Butterfly’s smiling at you, probably looking at…they say well, that thing’s never seen the light of day, barely.  You say well, are we still on for that…I guess if it was a rom-com, you’d say are we still on looking at stars?  They would say well, I’m looking at the full moon right now.  Then everyone, you know…and then they help cover you up and then everybody helps you.  Then you get on the bus and you say oh wow, I never knew what it was like to lose my bathing suit.  Now I realize I’m not the only one that’s lost it and maybe you remem…you say okay, now I know how it feels.  I do feel like right now, some days or some moments of some days I’m losing my bathing suit, but I also know there’s a lot of other people out there that feel the same way, and somehow that makes me feel less alone.

 

Somehow that makes me feel closer to everybody no matter where they are, that they’ve lost their bathing suit, too.  I don’t know, I hope I can help you.  Say yeah, it’s okay, I’m a human, these are very human times and I feel like I’m losing my bathing suit.  That’s totally one thing that you can say; huh, right now I don’t feel like I’m losing my bathing suit but maybe somebody else does.  That’s it, that’s just a little story about losing your bathing suit.  Goodnight.

 

[END OF RECORDING]

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