Everything's Great, Nothing Is Wrong

After a long walk off a short temper, Jeff hitchhikes his way home and Tales of the Gypsy concludes (for now?). What have we learned? Who are these people, and why do they do what they do? Most importantly, is there any hope at all?

We meant to put a whole mess of racial disclaimers here.

Topics include: Tales of the Gypsy: Homecoming, Manipulation, Superorganisms, Brainwashing, and Guns.

Welcome to The Pain Episode.

Hopped up on Focusil, Crickets runs us through a Tales of the Gypsy Repitch, before we delve deeper into Amanda’s familial history. Jeff continues to explore the age-old question, "Is it unethical to lie to a cult leader to rescue your friend?", but not before we pretend it’s still Rosh Hashanah. The Hottest Day Saga is finally over.

We might have carbon monoxide poisoning now.

Topics include: Tales of the Gypsy: Retreat, 10Q Part 2, False Virtue Equivalency, A Beeping, Dementia, and Guns.

Back to the shaman sham! Jeff enters the Gypsy’s abode, perhaps never to return? (He returns.) Like an informant in the mafia, he arrives back with only recordings of the strange weekend and a fear for his life. Feel free to sing along to what is essentially the poor man's Kumbaya.

We really should have called this "Sects, Lies, and Audiotape."

Topics include: Tales of the Gypsy: CULTureshock, Marriage Counseling, Trumpet Interruptions, Shared Babies, and Guns.

Intermission! It's time to chill for a second between tales, so we twist time around in order to recap and collect our narrative. Jeff sets out on this American frontier with thirst for a new life and identity, while Cricket entreats us to have sympathy for the corporate devil. In lieu of Atlas Chugged, we question biological trains' origins.

We take a breather.

Topics include: Myspace, Fake Identification, Starbucks, Shigellosis, and Guns.

We’ve been spinning two tales simultaneously and now they're all coming to a head: Jeff meets the Gypsy at long last, and we finally reach the final part of the first section of the first part of this tank engine fan-fiction. (The Hottest Day is still ongoing, if you couldn't tell by this tongue twister.) In Atlas Chugged, Thomas and Ashima have an intimate post-fruit moment. Have you ever heard trains play twenty questions? You're about to.

We read the comments.

Topics include: Tales of the Gypsy: First Meeting, Cheese Curds, Clothing Ignorance, Atlas Chugged: Part 1 Section 1 Part 5, Old First Kiss Scenario, and Guns.

Is it ethical to read someone else's texts on the air? The ongoing Tale of the Gypsy is just chock-full of thought experiments like this. Via faux-radio play, we read the exchange leading up to Jeff's meeting with our titular antagonist, to kind of cement exactly how non-hyperbolic we've been with her diction et al. In Atlas Chugged, Thomas and Ashima have a heart-to-heart, or, perhaps, a footplate-to-footplate.

We sense.

Topics include: Tales of the Gypsy: Text Messages, Monaco!, The Neutral Field, Chasing Geese, Atlas Chugged: Part 1 Section 1 Part 4, Shunting, and Guns.

Jeff has gotten himself a little intertwined with a tiny cult, and just like that, a new chapter commences. We begin Tales of the Gypsy with some background information about how Jeff met these people and where to go from here. The Hottest Day takes its first victim (in the form of coherence). In Atlas Chugged, I cannot get this accent correct.

We are only half-audible.

Topics include: Tales of the Gypsy: Introduction, Co-creation, Cricket's Context Clues®, Atlas Chugged: Part 1 Section 1 Part 3, and Guns.

Delirium/drunkenness is in full force as inane laughter reigns supreme. Whoops! We spend too long mucking about unearthed Tinder Topic Title topics but hope that you'll take comfort in our redundancy. Time wraps around itself, while I say "Yes." a whole lot and don't know why. In Atlas Chugged, Dr. Berg and Dr. Carson grill their patient for information. You’ll never guess who it is. The Hottest Day envelops us.

We go insane, even in the middle of ads.

Topics include: Never Married No Kids, Polyamory, Asynchronous Robotic Conversations, Solecism, Atlas Chugged: Part 1 Section 1 Part 2, and Guns.

Cogency devolves rapidly in our respective saunas, as we wade through the gamut of hot topics to match the eponymous weather. Leaping from an Inquisitive Rosh Hashanah to Naughty Catholic School Girls or from slavery to Roald Dahl, there is very little through-line—our wild laughter indicative of our impending madness.

On Atlas Chugged, we are introduced to Dr. Berg and Dr. Carson, who are about to perform surgery on a surprising species of patient. The Hottest Day Saga continues to swelter.

We finally arrive at the thesis of the show.

Topics include: Proud Boys, The Gender Wage Gap, Nine-Eleven, Atlas Chugged: Part 1 Section 1 Part 1, and Guns.

A long recording session begets heatstroke madness. Somewhere between finding my spirit Ethicist and swapping out Pokémon for an even bigger threat, we become promptly distracted by record temperatures. The Hottest Day Saga begins here, and might never ever end. You have been warned.

We start to sweat.

Topics include: Pompeii, Stoicism, People Who Died Funny, Atlas Chugged: Prologue, and Guns.