TAPE 46 - The Hot Chocolate Day Ruffle Kerfuffle

Another one from the Sudbury box that reads like half a weather report and half a late-night infomercial. It begins with someone solemnly tuned to the “hot chocolate channel,” explaining how to make your cocoa the exact temperature you desire — and, when it cools, how to rescue it with a scoop of something Bootstuck calls hotener. Caleb is dispatched to “boil up another pot” while the rest of the room debates whether a glass will do the job.

The day turns stranger fast. Background noise (a “ruffle kerfuffle”) and what sound like two old ladies trading barbs bleed into a description of the morning: the speaker claims the sky was on fire, the woods briefly glowing red, then the birds coming out and singing in a language no one else understands. Our narrator’s job is revealed—self-appointed weather tracker and jacket-adviser for a town where everyone owns one jacket, so his utility is, at best, ceremonial.

Food and ritual thread through the tape: gravy with optional hotener becomes breakfast, and the idea of sipping medicinalized beverages is treated as perfectly ordinary. The recording collapses into familiar Bootstuck chaos — insults, a demand to “kick my ass,” and someone yelling they have to make coffee and toast — leaving the listener less informed than when they started, but oddly hungry and a little warmer for it.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
you should stir your chocolate if you do not drink it
to your temperature liking itwill not necessarily be hot you

(00:24):
should have a hot one but if youwant a mild chocolate if you
want a cold chocolate you canhave it I am having a hot
chocolate as it's a hotchocolate day.

SPEAKER_02 (00:39):
Sorry, I'm listening to the hot chocolate channel
here.
Let's see if I can get bootstuckback.
Hello?

SPEAKER_01 (00:46):
Hello?
Did you hear the hot chocolateman?

SPEAKER_02 (00:50):
You heard that too.

SPEAKER_01 (00:52):
Yeah, I did.
He was going on about makingyour chocolate hot or cold or
whatever you want.
We do things like that here too,you know.

SPEAKER_02 (01:02):
I'm sure you do.

SPEAKER_01 (01:04):
Hang on, I'm speaking.
And you left it outside and itwasn't a sunny day.
What would happen?
That's right, it'd get a littlebit cold.
A little bit cold.
So what we do, we take it insideand we just add some hottener to
it.

SPEAKER_02 (01:13):
Hottener?

SPEAKER_01 (01:14):
Yeah, you got hotener where you are, what do
you do?
If you had a tea, maybe you liketea, we make tea out of cedar,
cedar tea, it gets cold.
So take it inside, put somehotener in it, and then there
you go.
Yep.
Caleb's going to boil up anotherpot of hotener right now.
Caleb, make that hotener so it'sready because my chocolate's

SPEAKER_03 (01:32):
getting cold.
Sit down.
My answer is I get a pair ofglasses I can see out of.

SPEAKER_02 (01:36):
Goodness, what's all that noise?

SPEAKER_01 (01:38):
That happens to be a ruffle kerfuffle.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (01:42):
Would you like to have a piece of candy?
I don't want a piece of candy.

UNKNOWN (01:46):
All right.

SPEAKER_01 (01:46):
Like a scurry in a hurry.
All sorts of little fur ballsgoing everywhere.
Yeah, can you see it?
Wouldn't want to get too close.
Let's move over here.
I

SPEAKER_03 (01:55):
don't have my hairnet on.
What the hell do you want?

SPEAKER_01 (02:02):
Caleb, throw a rock and run.

SPEAKER_03 (02:05):
I said, quit looking at all those pictures.
I haven't seen them before.
Yeah, but Jesus, they make yousad.
She's so dumb.

SPEAKER_02 (02:20):
That sounds like two old ladies.

SPEAKER_01 (02:22):
Yeah, well, sometimes that's what it sounds
like.
So it's morning time today.
The fire was on the sky.
Morning time today, the sky wason fire.

SPEAKER_02 (02:35):
Morning time?

SPEAKER_01 (02:36):
This day.
Early.
Burning up.
Yep.
The morning time.
No fire.
Yeah.
The woods was like...

SPEAKER_02 (02:43):
red.
And you had a sky fire?
Is that what you said?

SPEAKER_01 (02:46):
Yeah, it looked like a fire in the sky or aliens
taking over.
So it's morning time.

SPEAKER_02 (02:52):
What's a morning like in Bootstuck?
What's a morning routine?
How does everybody start theirday?

SPEAKER_01 (02:56):
Well, I can't tell you because most of them start
their day with their eyes closedand so do I, so I can't see
them.
But I can tell you about me.
So I wake up and open my eyes.
I wake up in the dark time, gooutside and watch the morning
happen.
Yep.
So the trees go on fire a littlebit, goes away, and then the
birds comes out and says, Likethat.

(03:17):
Kind of like that, but he talksin a different language.
And then from there, what I dois I go and I put on a cup of
gravy and I add some hotener toit if necessary.
And then after that, I'll gooutside and I will...
So I'm a weather tracker.
I like to track the weather.
Yep.
And I'll have a look up in thesky and determine what the day

(03:38):
will be.
And then from there, I'll telleverybody what jacket to wear.
Everybody's only got one jacket,so I don't think my job is very
useful.

SPEAKER_03 (03:47):
You're so damn dumb, it isn't funny.
Kick my ass! Yeah, you're painin the ass! You are squat! You
are so squat! I don't have myhairnet on! Kick my ass! I feel
like kicking and not kissing it.

UNKNOWN (04:04):
Uh-oh.

SPEAKER_03 (04:05):
Hello, what the hell do you want now?
Say where are you, you damnfool?
Bullshit.
I gotta make my coffee.
I gotta make my toast.
I hate you.