TAPE 55 - The Mushroom Intelligence Test with Corn Juice

The tape begins with a voicemail — a jumble of static, mumbling, and the distinct sound of someone explaining how to “fix” a cassette with a pencil and a wiggle. From there, the conversation slides straight into Bootstuck logic: juice made from pinecones, acorns, and possibly corn itself.

Soon the townsfolk are preoccupied with a new community effort — putting up lost cat posters around town. The posters, placed two feet high so the missing feline might “see them,” are an act of optimism more than strategy. From there, talk turns to the township’s new “no passing” rule — not for vehicles, but for joints — and the alleged health benefits of mushroom gravy breakfasts.

The episode closes on a high-minded note as Bootstuck’s residents describe their scientific testing methods: paper, pencils, and a race down a hill to see whose “results” travel farthest. The conclusion? Science, like most things in Bootstuck, is mostly guesswork.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 3 (00:01):
Yeah, I got the box machine again.
Hopefully your tape don't runout.
If it does, use a pencil.
And s wiggle a wiggle wigglewiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle.
Think about it in the back.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Oh sort of juice inside of my belly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Juice enough everything aroundhere.
Pine comb juice?
Yeah.
Egg corn juice?
Yeah.
What kind of corns do you like?

Speaker 1 (00:37):
I like corn.
I don't know about corn juicethough.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Try it, yeah.
You ain't never tried it.
You don't know what you don'tlike.
Yeah.
I know I don't like it.
You know what's nice to know?

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Stimulus response.
Just as this sort of stimulus,rage, produces this sort of
involuntary muscular response.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Gerald, new man in town, he put up flyers yesterday
afternoon about a lost cat.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
And and how is that going?
Have you have you found thecat?

Speaker 3 (01:10):
No.
That's why we put up flyers.
It says, hey kitty, kitty,kitty, kitty, come on home.
Hopefully the kitten sees it.
He put them about two feet upfrom the post.
I told him put it about sixinches.
We're not sure if the cat'sgonna see it or not.
Cat's pretty smoke.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Are you assuming cats can read?

Speaker 3 (01:25):
Not knowing, but you gotta give it a try.
So we're waiting untiltomorrow.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
See, I I hope the cat comes back.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
Woo whoop, me too.
Otherwise, we're gonna have toget a chipmunk and replace it.
He doesn't really know.
We can kind of do as we pleaseto do.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Clearly.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Last time he had a fuzzy mouse.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
A fuzzy mouse, and he thought it was a cat.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
No, but he had a fuzzy mouse.
It was nice.
I did a lot.
Then the post came home.

Speaker (01:54):
Excitement in the kitchen.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
Hey, let's see the excitement.

Speaker (01:59):
All right.
Just you come along with me andI'll show it to you.
This, a specially designedmodern young housewife.
Just look at those excitinglines.
Fits in perfectly whereeveryone comes.
It has all the features thatyou expect to find in a big
brown bedding.
High, wide, and handsome, Icall it.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
Was I gonna tell you about something I didn't know
that I was gonna make up anyway?
Woo! I can't remember.
You go ahead.
Wait, I'll let you answer in aminute.
I've got three more things totell you and only one more
minute to talk about.
First thing is one, two, three.
You ever see that writtenaround town?
One, two, three.
And then you know you're ontrack, yeah.
I see.
So, yeah.
And then the last thing Iwanted to talk to you about was
the fact that there's no morepassing here in Bootscope.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Passing?
Yep.
How do you mean?
Uh in driving, you mean you'renot allowed to pass each other?

Speaker 3 (02:46):
Well, we don't drive around too much because Dave's
school's got all cracked up now.
We're gonna have to look forboth new tires and new coffee
tables.
It's gonna be a horrible time,yeah.
But no, I mean passing.
Like we all just smoke our ownjoints now.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Oh, I understand.
I didn't realize it was a drugculture.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
Understand and overstand and stand under the
bridge.
As long as ain't nobody peeingoff the top of it, it should be
okay.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
So there is a drug, there's there's drug use up in
Boostock.
So, what do you use asrecreational drugs up there?

Speaker 3 (03:14):
Mushrooms.
You ever have mushrooms?

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Yeah, yes, I have.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah, we like to put them in our gravy.
A cup of gravy in the morningwith a nice little mushroom cap
inside.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
You microdose mushrooms in the morning.
That's very interesting.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
It's a healthy thing to do.
We've been doing it for 22years, and all of us have been
scientifically proven to be muchsmarter than we were 22 years
ago.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Uh you you tested yourself?
Yep.
Well, I see.
What what does the test consistof?
Is it a good thing?

Speaker 3 (03:38):
The test consists of a paper and a pencil, and you
got a time limit of until it'sdone.
And then what you gotta do,take it to the top of the hill,
and we'll fold them all intopaper airplanes and race them to
the bottom.
And whatever one gets therefirst is gonna be the one that
gets the highest mark.
Last year was Caleb's firstyear, and he won because he had
the smart idea of just puttingthe paper in his pocket and

(04:00):
rolling down the hill.
So he obviously made it thefarthest.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
That's remarkable.
And from this, you havedetermined that you are
scientifically getting smarter.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
Science.
You know what science is a lotof?
Science is a lot of guess all.