TAPE 44 - The Ocean Comes To Town

Spring stirs something in Bootstuck, and apparently that something is an ocean under construction. What began as a single hole, diligently filled with Caleb’s 17 buckets of water, has now become a civic engineering project—one bucket per week until the town achieves “ocean status.” Skeptics suggest it’s more of a pond, but optimism prevails.

In equally practical fashion, the locals have invented short pants by cutting long ones in half, rotating them daily so that nobody has to fully commit to shorts or trousers. “Pants is pants is pants,” after all.

A sudden burst of applause interrupts, revealing the town-wide enthusiasm for Sacky Mac, a game involving chasing down a man named Mac and trying to stuff him into a sack. Cheers are mandatory, orchids are breathed upon, and Elvis—always Elvis—sings, fights, dances, and, inevitably, falls in love.

From there, the conversation drifts into top hats (“aren’t they all top hats, since you wear them on top?”), mistaken identity (a man endlessly confused with someone named Ted), and Bootstuck’s laissez-faire approach to airport management—whoever’s around that day is in charge. No flights today, but by Saturday two “whirlybirds” are expected to arrive as part of their spring migration. These aren’t helicopters, mind you, but flap-flapping, squiggly-tailed creatures that apparently choose Bootstuck as a seasonal stopover.

The episode closes with the promise of contact—though whether with machines, birds, or simply more buckets of water, remains uncertain.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Speaking of oceans, we've got one coming to town.
You have an ocean coming totown?
Well, what we had originally wasa small hole.
Caleb gone filled it up with 17buckets of water, made it as
pretty deep as it could be.

(00:22):
And then since then, we've beenexpanding weekly.
Every week, we're adding anotherbucket to the water hole, and
then that's going to be okay.
We'll have an ocean at somepoint, probably a lake first.
Yep, think about it.
I don't think that's how itworks.
Well, how do you think it works,mister
I-know-how-to-build-an-ocean?
Well, you don't build an ocean.
You can build a pond.

(00:42):
That's what we started with.
Now we're going to keep fillingit up till we get an ocean.
We'll talk about something youcan understand.
How about short pants?
Hang on, I'm speaking.
Wonderful.
I have a long pair of pants andI rolled them up to short pants,
but halfway through the day theybecome long pants again.
So we came up with a concept ofcutting off half of people's
pants.

(01:03):
And now half the people here gotshort pants.
And we'll just rotate pants on adaily basis.
Make sense?
Rotate pants.
Do you wear short pants?
Pants is pants is pants.
No question about it.
So they're not shorts.
They're just short pants.
Yeah, we cut the pants.
Why buy shorts when you can makepants short that you already
have?

(01:23):
But what if you want long pants?
Hey, everybody clap your hands.
We got a big thing happeninghere.
Sorry about that.
Hang on a second.

UNKNOWN (01:37):
We're all clapping hands.
Everybody.

SPEAKER_01 (01:39):
What's going on?
What is all that?
What's going on over there?
Yeah, just another minute of it.
That sounds like there's athousand people there.
Close to.
That's what happens wheneverybody claps their hands at
the same time.
You see, it's a wonderful thingthat we do.
And we get real excited forother people and individuals
that are playing the game withus.
What game?
Oh, we're playing Sacky Mac.

(02:00):
You know that game?
Not at all.
No, there's a guy named Mac whocomes around once in a while and
we try and get him in his sack.
We all clap.
Cheer if we get good.
Take a shiny orchid

SPEAKER_00 (02:10):
breathe on it and you can see your own breath but
you cannot see whether it's safeor breeding in your mind Elvis
sings Elvis fights Elvis dancesElvis fights Elvis sings Elvis
fights Elvis sings Elvis fightsand Elvis falls in love gosh and

(02:35):
something else very special ohwhat's that Ted Elvis fights and
is wonderful too.
What's up with the top hat?

SPEAKER_01 (02:43):
Anybody wear a top hat these days?
Well, technically, aren't theyall top hats?
You wear them on top.
But does that mean you gotta putit on top of a hat?
Ooh, think about it.
Confusing.
That's alright.
I have a middle name.
You keep switching gears on melike that and my head's gonna
get stripped.
We had a stripper in town onetime.
You did?
Yeah.

(03:05):
It was good.
Oh, dear.
We got the Hanged off the wallin record time.
And then we put up a coat ofyellow.
I'm sorry.
I thought you meant somethingelse.
A lot of people confuse me witha guy named Ted.
I ain't never met him, butthat's what they say.
So who runs the airport?
Whoever's there that day.
What's today?
Wednesday?
Yeah.

(03:26):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Nope.
Yeah.
Not sure who's there today.
Wait a minute.
I'll check the schedule.
Caleb! Check the airportschedule for flying and landing
and landing and flying.
Nobody's there today.
There's no air show and there'sno travel.
But on Saturday, we have twowhirlybirds coming in.
You do?
So you do make contact withother people then?

(03:48):
Contact! Yeah, we say that atthe airport sometimes.
Back from the south where theylike to do the migration.
Springs here, you know?
Whirlybird migration.
So, who's on the helicopters?
Helicopter?
What's that?
No, no, no.
Whirlybirds.
You ever know them?
They've got squiggly tails.
They go flap, flap, flap.

(04:08):
They come for the migrationalpatterns of the South.
Oh my God.
Yeah, coming in tomorrow.
You should be nice.