Which Riddle Riddle?

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Hey Riddle Riddle.

Okay so basically what the job is, is the two of you will be, ugh boy. Have you guys seen the movie Tenet? Christopher Nolan, one of his biggest films.

I watched it out of order. Perfect. Does that matter?

No. All the deleted scenes. Can't matter. Yes, that's great. So you're familiar with Tenet.

Yep.

Okay, so Erin, and it's Erin. You're gonna be like the... Denzel Washington's daughter? No, we'll just have you... Is it John? John David Washington

Okay, so basically what you're gonna do is you're gonna you're gonna and then and you'll get I watched Tenet last night I was gonna ask and it seems like and correct me if I'm wrong not a lot of it landed the way it should I feel like you watched it within the last like 12 hours or so and You're still pretty confused about what was happening in it. What's going on?

My wife and I watched Tinnit last night, and at the end of Tinnit, my wife went online to like read about Tinnit, and she was like, don't you have any questions? And I said, no, I have zero questions. I never want to think about Tinnit ever again. It doesn't matter to me. It doesn't matter to me.

Did you see it because you saw the Odyssey this weekend as well, and now you're on a Christopher Nolan kick?

I'm about to see the Odyssey, and I realized that Tinnit was my only Christopher Nolan blind spot. It's the only Christopher Nolan I hadn't seen. So I was like, before I see the Odyssey, I should complete the circuit.

Hey JPC, Tanit like you didn't, why? In case you play that backwards. Why didn't you like Tanit?

What could this... Okay, you know what? All this forwards and backwards time travel shit is actually way too hard to explain. I've actually brought in a ringer to help explain all of this stuff. Amal El-Mohtar, welcome to the show.

Hello. Thank you for having me.

Is it fair to now bill you as a time travel expert?

Oh my god. Yeah, absolutely. For sure. Yeah. At some point in the future, I will have become an expert. So that basically means that I'm an expert now.

Okay, now I get it. Yeah.

I can also be an expert about Tenet because I have not seen it and actually still don't know what it's about. But I did see the Odyssey literally yesterday.

What did you think?

What year was Chaos? Two years ago? Jeff Goldblum?

Yeah, it was like last year or the year before. I know I think I watched it last year. It might have come out the year before. I think it was a Netflix show. And its basic premise is like, what if the gods were just shitty billionaires, sort of? But like, the resource that they're all hoarding is like, people's souls it just it's really good um and really moving but the odyssey was like and i i have seen i think a lot of nolan films without like knowing they were nolan films like i loved memento when i saw it i didn't know who christopher nolan was when i saw it because i didn't watch movies knowing you were just you were just a huge jonathan nolan fan when you saw memento and you were like yeah because you're you're a writer you love writers first I wish that was even the case. Movies, they just happen and you just go and see them. People make them? No. But yeah, I just, there's a lot of stuff in the Odyssey in particular that I am Hey Riddle Riddle how much complaint about like the wokeness of it there was and then like watching it it's so interesting to think about that but I really I just like my opinions sort of haven't coalesced except in the one most insufferable way that will only make sense as insufferable if you have seen the film but it's like for the majority of the film's runtime I was kind of irritated by most of what I was seeing until this one crucial conversation between Odysseus and Penelope towards the end. And then it was like, oh, so it's like the film, the whole film is like you've been slowly straining to pull back I can't believe I loved it.

Not to talk about the Odyssey for this entire podcast because this also comes out maybe four weeks after the Odyssey has been out in theaters. But you mentioned that you never saw Tenet, which is crazy because it was probably the most viewed movie in the world. Earlier this year, probably a couple, like a month ago, I read your excellent book, This Is How You Lose the Time War. Did I get it correct? Yes. Yes. Which, did you, before writing that, and I know it's technically, what is it, a novella? Am I supposed to say novella? I don't like to say novella because when I say novella, it makes it seem like I didn't read a book, which I did. I read a whole book. You did. And you wrote a whole book.

Well, I wrote half a book, in fairness. I was like, Max wrote the other half. So saying I wrote half a novella also feels like that much more of a diminishment. But yeah, absolutely.

We'll just split the difference and we'll round up and we'll say you wrote a whole book and I read a whole book and everybody's happy. Exactly, sure. But did you do any like, did you seek out a bunch of other time travel stuff in your writing and research for that? Or did you try to avoid it so that you only had your own vision of what that was?

So, sort of, like, splitting the middle between those things, because Max and I are both, like, science fiction fantasy nerds, we have consumed a lot of time travel stuff. And we also, like, think about the stuff that we've consumed a lot, so, like, are very comfortable talking about things like, so, our time travel book, is it going to be a deterministic sort of time travel, or is it going to be a multiversal kind of time travel? Are we doing grandfather paradoxes, or are we not doing, you know, that sort of thing?

But we didn't... You couldn't know this because you haven't seen Tinnit, but they talk about the grandfather paradox at Tinnit a lot.

It's such a great term. It's so inherently funny. And also, like, you know, we've seen a bunch of movies about it, and you tend to kind of sort them into that. And also, Ted Chiang exists and is, you know, god of the genre and stuff.

Incredible short stories, yeah.

Absolutely. And so I really don't feel like in our circles that you can really think effectively about time travel without having read Ted Chiang, who has done all the thinking that there can be done about time travel, and then has expressed it in some truly magnificent short stories. So we weren't doing research for the book because the book totally happened because we sat down together in a place with no internet for nine days and wrote most of the book in that time. And so we just had the contents of our respective nerderies kind of jostling around. But we did know that the general structure of the time travel that we wanted to have was there is a multiverse, Hey Riddle

I'm

I totally forgot this. I was like, oh, I wonder what we're going to talk about on the podcast.

I couldn't, I could not remember if it was, I couldn't remember if it was your section or Max's section. It's my section. Your section. Okay. That referenced the riddles. And I don't want to belittle the riddles by saying that they weren't real riddles, but, but they were, well, Like a lot of riddles that we've done on the show, they're not real riddles. The sick, twisted part of me was like, what if we have Amal on the show and I make her answer the riddles that she wrote for her own book? But then I was like, no, what are you doing? That's not a fun, chill thing to do to a person is to force their riddles back into their mouth. So I won't do that, but I will ask you the question that we ask all of our guests, which is, what is your relationship with riddles, puzzles, um, Adal, what am I missing? Escape rooms, lateral thinking, problems.

Jinx, owe me a coke.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.

12 cokes.

I have never heard that part in my life.

You've never heard that part before?

They're adding on to jinx? I thought when you jinx someone they can't talk, so how are they supposed to say stop? That's what I thought too.

You guys don't know about that jinx thing?

I know about the jinx, but I don't know about the counting part. That's the part that, like, I thought when you jinx, like, either you owe me a Coke and then that's the condition fulfilled, or you get to just dictate when they can speak again.

Okay, this is as complicated as time travel rules. It just depends on who you're talking to. If I jinx with you, and I say jinx, and then I say, owe me a coke, and then I'm going to count.

Count.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 55, 56, 55, 56, 57, 57, 58, 59, 60, 60, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 81, 81, 81, 81, 81, 81

Oh, see, I intuitively thought that was the amount of time Adal had to produce a Coke for you.

Whoa. Oh, wow.

12 seconds. Yeah, exactly. And if you fail, then that's it. Your voice is forfeit.

Did Coca-Cola come up with this part of the deal?

Oh my god, am I being manipulated by big companies? No, right? No, right? Sorry to interrupt, but lateral thinking problems, escapism, so on?

Oh yeah, the question. Oh yeah, I unabashedly and completely earnestly love all of those things. I think I started, this was actually one of the delights for me when I started listening to Hey Riddle Riddle, was remembering that when I was a small child, I had a game called Mind Trap. Didn't you encounter this? Yeah, it's like a box of a bunch of different cards with questions, teasers, like trivia, various things on them. You have it! Oh my god! That's crazy. That is the cover. That is the box that I had. It's very vintage looking.

It's very sort of evocative. It's like a nightmarish mind or something.

Yeah, yeah. It's got that black, purple, smoky kind of thing. It's so 90s goth somehow.

Don't let Stranger Things see that because they'll have a lawsuit on their hands.

So I had that and my absolute favorite thing, I don't know if I ever, this is so embarrassing to actually say, I genuinely can't remember if I ever played the game with other people because no one in my life shared my passion for riddles at the time that I had this. I think it was given as a birthday present and I never played it. But what I did, this is all coming back, it's just so fucking sad. What I did was I sat down and I read every single one of them. Like, I read every single card. I had a marker that I put in the box for where I was at and stuff, and so I would read them and try to guess them for myself and then, like, flip them over and get the answer. But my favorite ones were the ones with Shadow, who is a character who, like, basically has almost a continuity throughout the box. Welcome back to Realized character in my head. And I was like, Shadow's so cool and smart. And anyway, I was very, very young when I was reading these. So it was quite formative. But the OG riddles for me were the ones in The Hobbit. And I super loved them. And like I was a sucker for any italicized text in a book, clearly the most important text, as are all the songs. And yeah, so I super love them. And I only like started doing escape rooms I want to say like 2016, 2017 was when I first did an Escape Room and also loved that. Yeah. So I just, I think, yeah, I've super loved them. There was like to the point where I don't know if any of you guys ever played, I know obviously you play D&D now, but if in your wayward youth you ever encountered like World of Darkness, Vampire the Masquerade stuff. Yeah, yes. So there were like, those were my first role playing game experiences. And the sheet, the character building sheet with its like, abilities, or like, they were called skills, right? I think there was at some point a skill that was like, specifically for riddles, it might have just been called riddles or whatever. And as one does, like, making one's own person into a character and stuff. I was always like, oh, what would my riddle score be at? Because I love them, but how good am I at them actually? And so, yeah, I don't know. I think I have more enthusiasm than skill, probably, for them, but I love them unabashedly.

We should start asking people on the show what their riddle score is. I think that's like, yeah. It's way better. It's way better than what we've been doing.

Your Riddle score should be external. So like, Adal and JPC, you should give me my Riddle score and vice versa.

Yeah, yeah. If it has to come from internal, it can't possibly be as mean as we need it to be. Well, we will test your riddle score today because we have some riddles, as we want to do on this show. And the first riddles that I have for you, and for Adal and Erin as well, you guys are welcome to participate.

Thank you.

Come to us from a listener named Chloe Evans. Now, Chloe sent us something in the mail, some riddles in the mail. And Chloe says that they did not write these, but they found them. And so if these are not good, let's not blame Chloe's mind for these. These are found riddles that Chloe has sent in. Your first riddle is, how do you spell cow in 13 letters? How do you spell cow in 13 letters?

Okay, I've been stumped.

I mean, the mean answer is to find one of your enemies whose name happens to have 13 letters in it.

Have 13 letters in it, yeah.

Brilliant.

Let's see, does it work for any of us?

I've never once thought to be like, how many letters are in my name?

Wait, John Coan, 8, Patrick is… P-N-T-R-I-C-K, 7, 15. Yeah, 15, fuck. How do you spell cow in 13 letters?

Okay, so you write 13 letters, like, handwritten, like, put them in envelopes. And you just do a tiny bit of each of the word cow in each letter.

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, that's it. You got it.

Yeah, right.

Well, you know what my first thought was? Erin, that's not correct, but my first thought was, how do you spell cow in 13 letters? You know how, like, there's no set? I guess it's two. Like, how many O's are in moo?

Oh yeah, yeah.

So it's like you could like cow, you know, cow with like 11 O's in it or something like that. That's not the answer, but that's where my brain went.

I counted the letters in my own name, and they are 12, but there's also a hyphen in my name, and if you counted that, then I guess I would have 13 letters in my name.

Great, so the answer to that, Riddle, is we could call you a cow.

That doesn't seem very satisfying to me. That's right, exactly. Have any of you guys ever, this is such a tension, but have any of you ever made up, like, looked up anagrams of your name? Oh, Adal, do you want to take this one?

I had, so I'm Adal Shoki Rifai. And I did it sometime back, but there was something fun where it was like something about a hawk or something. It's really delightful to be like, ooh, I didn't realize the word hawk is tucked into my name.

Yeah, there's something like almost divinatory about it that I find really fun. My two favorites of mine were Amoral Hamlet I just put my name into a generator and one of the first ones that came up was easier freethink or freakish teenier. I feel like Adal, you have like a

Is it a secret talent? I feel like you will often, this also happens I think on Gumshoes and Dragons quite frequently, like you will say an anagram for a villain's name and you're like, is this anything? And we're like, how did you do that?

specifically unusual name like it doesn't feel like uh oh i had fun naming this it's like i named i got this name for a reason i will sit there and be like what's going on here but then what happens is i'm like inevitably i go oh your uh your name is an anagram for evil fishes and everyone goes okay And then at the end of the thing, it's like, oh, the names I was using for the characters were all rom-com names. And I was like, so I was on the right track. I was just, I just focused on the wrong name.

I feel like I read, oh fuck, The Westingame. Is that?

Oh yes! Oh yeah, I love The Westingame. I love that, yeah.

I read that one as a child and then there was a part of me after reading that was like, never not pay attention to someone's names ever again because the names are everything. And then I proceeded to live an entire life where that wasn't so quite important.

Nominative determinism, baby. Yeah, this is like, actually, like my parents nakedly be like, yes, the thing that my parents actually did do while they were naming not just me, but my also my three siblings, they very deliberately so my family's from Lebanon, Lebanon as a history and present of sectarian violence. So my parents very deliberately gave us all names that were not easily identifiable with any particular religion. And so my name is Amal, which is like hope, but like the plural of hope. There's Amal and there's Amal. And my sister is Dunya, which means the world. My youngest brother's name is Reith, which is like generous rain. And my middle brother's name Which genuinely was a non-sectarian name at the time of his naming, is Jihad. Which has served him so well in the intervening years.

One kid being named the world is a very funny, very different vibe.

But anyway, I'll just say, nominative determinism. Yeah, that's a thing.

Well, I mean, we're circling it. Do we, do you guys want me to help you out here?

Yes, please.

Okay. So, look, I like this. I like this Riddle, but it's, I think it's kind of hard to get, but the way that you, I'll just give you the answer.

Cause I don't know. How to spell cow in 13 letters.

Yeah. I would say maybe your hint is break down the word cow. C-O-S-E-A.

C-E. Oh yeah.

S-E-A, O-H, S-E-A, S-E-A, S-E-A, S-E-A, S-E-A, S-E-A, S-E-A, S-E-A, S-E-A, S-E-A

Is the last part D-O-U-B-L-E-U? Y-O-U.

Y-O-U.

Oh my god.

The way that you spell cow in 13 letters is S-E-A or S-E-E-O-D-O-U-B-L-E-Y-O-U. That's all Erin Keif. That's all Erin Keif.

C-O-W.

Well I'm mad.

That's incredible.

I'm mad bad.

Very good. Mad cow.

A mad, mad, mad cow. Yeah, we're having a cow. Can you cleanse the space with a new riddle? Open all the windows.

What we are going to do is we're going to do a scene. We're going to have to sit in this riddle longer, my God. Erin, you're supposed to be the expert here. So here's what the scene is. We're going to do a spelling bee. I'm of course going to be judging the spelling bee, but it's not going to be, and all three of you are welcome to participate, it's not going to be normal spelling bee rules. You're going to be, the goal of the spelling bee is to spell things as long as possible with as many letters as possible, okay? Alright, your next contestant is Erin Keif. Erin, please approach. Your word is hat.

Could I have a definition, please?

A hat. Something you wear on your head.

Hat.

Could you use it in a sentence?

Hey, there's something you wear on your head. A hat.

In the language of origins,

A hat, it is.

There's a bee. There's a bee by my neck. There's a literal bee by my neck, and I know it seems like I'm making an excuse.

Are you, are you, did you start spelling? Are you, is that you spelling? No, no, no, no, no.

I'm saying that there is a insect right next to my neck. And he's, he's trying to give me the answers, but I'm not listening.

Okay, well, even if you're not listening, it is still cheating, and so I do have to disqualify.

No, no, no, wait. H-U-H-A-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-T.

I'm sorry, we were looking for H-A-T.

It was H-A-T. Fuck me up. Fuck you. And fuck everybody. Fuck you.

We're all kids here. We're all kids. We're all kids here. We're all kids. Scripts. We're all scripts.

Can I go?

Yes, you can go. Adal, you are next. Okay. Your word is car.

Language of origin?

Car. Japanese.

Could you scream the word, please?

Car! Said like people playing street hockey.

Could you make the sound that the word makes? Chitty chitty bang bang.

That is correct. It is K-H-A-A-A-B-B-B-B-B. That is correct. Adal, you are moving on to the semifinals. Amal, you are next. Your word is I.

Could you use it in a sentence, please?

Not this one. I simply don't know how.

Two... Correct.

You have two I's, and so I starts with the letter two. The number two. The number two. You guys are great at that.

I trained for years for this.

Okay, here's your next riddle. Erin is correct. We don't have to live in that one anymore.

I was going to ask real quick. Does anyone know what is Scripps? Is that like a company or like a software or something?

Wasn't Scripps a pod? Didn't Scripps own some podcasts? It was a podcast company, right?

Well, Scripps has been around for a minute. So I think it's got to be, they maybe dipped their toes into podcasting.

I had no idea what the reference was. I thought you were just talking about like Scripps.

I feel like the big one is, maybe I'm misremembering, but I thought the big one was called the Scripps Spelling Bee, but this is nothing.

Is that like the National Spelling Bee? I'm not familiar with Scripps. It's probably like everything where it's like, Now it's just there's four companies. It's like Unilever owns whatever it used to be. And it's, you know, played a game.

There's like a, there's a game by Emily Short, who is a an absolute genius, that is about a spelling bee. And it's like, it's like you are training to be a spelling bee champion. But it's very moving. And it's a very like, browser game thing.

Okay, gotcha.

Yeah, everything I know about how spelling bees work in the U.S. is from this game, and it was harrowing. Like, it was really, the general premise of this game is that this girl is, like, trying to support her family or, like, emerge from, like, a really shitty environment by winning the spelling bee. And I'll dig it up and send it to you.

It sounds like a wonderful game, but it also sounds to me like a Josh Safdie movie, where it's like, why would I ever want to live in that? I was in Spell Bowl when I was in seventh grade, and it's so stressful that I'm like, I don't know that I want to do that in my leisure time. Oh, inthewalls.hdio.

Yeah, the game is just called B.

Interesting. Okay, let's do one more. Let's do one more riddle real quick, and then we can head to break. So, your next riddle is, why is Europe like a frying pan?

Oh, um... Adal? Because there's a little grease at the bottom?

Adal, it's because there's grease at the bottom!

Is it a little grease or just grease?

Let's call it a little grease.

I think a little grease is funnier.

I thought you were about, I was going to be like, if this is actually about how it's climate change is making everything 43 degrees Celsius right now, then that's real dark.

The migration of the monarch butterfly has actually been affected by the... I saw one yesterday.

I was so happy.

So they're doing fine. So no one worry about it. They're doing fine. Okay, if you've got your eyes on a butterfly, please let it right in to let us know where it is in the world. And we will see you guys all back after this brief break.

Hey everybody, Adal here. Don't panic, I'm trying not to. The three of us were at the Cook County Pie Factory, I'm still here, on a self-guided tour of course, and JPC and Erin leaned over a bit too far and fell into the pie vat, so they've been baked into pies. I'm trying to run around eating through the pies to find them. No such luck so far, but I do want to let you know, this is stressful of course, but one of the most stressful things we have to deal with after a busy day of recording Riddles is what are we going to have for dinner? JPC of course always suggests, I've got a bone to pick with you, and Erin's all, why don't you have a bollocomtada? Forty-five minutes later, two-thirds of us are baked into pies. This all could have been avoided with Tempo. The meals are already prepared, ready in two minutes, and make it a whole lot easier to eat fresh, balanced meals during the week. With over 20 recipes every week made from nutrient-rich ingredients, Tempo keeps things exciting and helps you stay consistent with healthy habits. And no matter your goals, there's a Tempo meal for you. Protein packed meals with over 30 grams of protein, fiber rich, calorie conscious, gut support, and even GLP-1 smart meals. Glp-1, I guess is maybe how you pronounce it. Personally, I've recently had some favorites from Tempo, including the BBQ Pulled Pork Sweet Potato Skillet, the Fiesta Grilled Chicken and Rice, and The most fun to say. The lean and clean rotini bolognese with garlicky broccoli. Yum, yum, yum. For a limited time, Tempo is offering our listeners 60% off your first box. Go to tempomeals.com slash riddle. That's tempomeals.com slash riddle for 60% off your first box. Tempomeals.com slash riddle. Rules and restrictions may apply. Oh, oh, I bit into a pie. It's Erin. Oh, no, that's a blackbird. This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace.

Hey Adal, Erin, settle a bet for me. Who has the better website? HeyRiddleRiddle.com or GumshoesandDragons.com?

I feel like any website created by Squarespace.com is gonna look pretty great.

I mean, when you use Squarespace, and yeah, I'm talking about the all-in-one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online, whether you're just starting out or scaling your business, Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings to the professional website, grow your brand, and get paid all in one place, you're gonna walk away with a good website.

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The best thing about Squarespace, guys, is you don't have to pick. Both websites can be equally very good. And if you're on the website and you click around and something's not updated, don't send me an email. I'll probably get to it eventually, guys.

By the way, GPC, there's some things on this website that I'm pretty sure you thought me and Adal weren't gonna say. I have eyes on those websites.

Casey, let's end the ad.

Let's just say- I have eyes on them!

We'll just say head to squarespace.com slash riddle for a free trial and when you're ready to launch use offer code riddle to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

He did our descriptions of like our bios. Adal, have you read what he wrote? No.

Hi, I'm Nicole Beyer, host of Why Won't You Date Me here on HeadGum. On my show, I talk a lot about love and dating, but one important thing that doesn't get talked about enough is our sexual health. That's why I'm so excited to partner with Care for the Culture, sponsored by Gilead Sciences. Care for the Culture is an amazing movement focused on helping normalize conversations around HIV prevention in Black communities. And we're doing this without shame, fear, or judgment, because knowing your HIV prevention options, getting tested, and having honest conversations with your partners shouldn't feel awkward. It should feel empowering. Care for the Culture is all about keeping it real, Taking care of yourself and your people and making sexual health a normal part of everyday conversation. Whether you're actively dating in these streets, in a relationship, or somewhere in between, having information and support matters. You can go on their site and find tips on breaking the ice and getting the conversation started. We are building a whole new generation of daters with no shame and no stigma. So go get informed. Learn more about HIV prevention, testing, and how to start the conversation at carefortheculture.com and speak with your health care provider.

Hey everybody, JPC here, and I want to tell you about a traumatic experience that I had recently. Now, if you listen to the show, you know I'm a big foodie. I love restaurants. I love restauranteuring. I love going out to eat. But a lot of times, because of how I am, it's hard to get a group of people to want to dine with me. So I go to a lot of restaurants solo. Now, classically, I like to go to restaurants. I don't like to dress up. I don't like to put on airs. So I do eat at a lot of restaurants. I'm wearing a potato sack with arm holes cut out and not really leg holes cut out because it's just the bottom of the sack. I guess there is a head hole for me to stick my head out of the sack if I remember, but recently I was eating in a restaurant and they kicked me out because they didn't like the potato sack that I was wearing. I'm sorry, it's hard for me to talk about this. So I went to Quince because Quince is all about fewer, better pieces. Their clothes are made with premium materials, built to last, and designed to become the ones you reach for day after day. And they will not scratch you like a potato sack. They will not hurt you like a potato sack. And they, for the most part, do not smell like potatoes. Quince specializes in everyday staples that work harder, like their ultra-soft organic cotton tees and premium Mongolian cashmere sweaters. They're versatile, timeless, and transition seamlessly from casual workday to dinner out. I love my Mongolian cashmere sweater that I got at Quince. I wear it whenever I have the opportunity. I am so excited for fall because I will get to fall back into that sweater. Summer's been really hard for me because I have been wearing so many potato sacks and they are scratchy and uncomfortable and you cannot buy them at Quince. Everything at Quince is priced 50-80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen. So you're paying for high quality, not brand markup. And it's not just clothing. Quince has become my go-to for everything from hotel quality bedding and bath essentials to premium cookware and travel must-haves. Now I know I said they have premium cookware. Potato sacks are not cookware. Hey Riddle Riddle Okay, we're rolling right along here. We're back. We're going to do more riddles. Here's your next one. This is, again, another one that Chloe sent in. What can you hold in your right hand, but not your left hand? What can you hold in your right hand? Your left hand. Erin, that is correct. It is your left hand.

Um, I, uh, what do I want to see? Oh my gosh. Um, Amal, you're going to be a person and JPC is going to be your left hand. And I know you're not going to believe this, but you're a person. And Adal, you're going to be the right hand and you two are kind of bickering and arguing and you're trying to sort of get your hands to get along.

Okay, so we've talked about this, right?

Now we're going to use feeling words, right? Strokes your chin, strokes your chin.

That's very nice. I'm feeling great about this. Left hand, how are you feeling?

I'm in a pocket. Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

No, no worries. It's just like, I feel like that keeps happening. It's happening that I'm in the pocket and... Oh.

Hey, Larry.

Hey, right, right, you know?

Yeah, this is great. This is great. I'm sorry. I take responsibility for my role in this. I think I've just gotten used to needing to keep the two of you apart.

No, no, no. You've done nothing. Claire, you've done nothing wrong. Nothing wrong.

Well, I just I really want to see the two of you, you know, I know you have your differences, but I really think that you like they can meet, you know, they can they can come together. You can appreciate those things together.

It's so it's so cool to hear you say that. Do you think that maybe like today if if we're like everything's equal and we're trying to like, you know, work together, maybe we teach me how to write? Oh no, that's stupid.

No, we can do that. We can do that, absolutely. No, I don't need to learn how to write.

We can do that. Hey, let's become ambidextrous at 37. That's an awesome idea. That'll be super simple and very quick.

I'm hearing some hostility from you, Write Journal. I think this actually could be a really great idea. Because why not? Yeah, right?

Why not?

Have there been things you've been longing to express that you feel like not being able to write has been holding you back?

I mean, yeah, I guess so. It's just like I just can't participate in like a lot of stuff that Reginald can participate in. Like, you know, like part of writing is reading. So it's like I know that he knows how to read and I don't. And I've always wanted to open a pickle jar. I know this is not what we're talking about, but it's just like something that...

It's just something that I've always wanted to do. You're right. And it's also, honestly- No, I'm left! Exactly. I'm left! Scene, scene, scene, scene.

Classic stuff. You just say you wanted to be the one to jerk off. Just say it.

Hey Erin, I was thinking it. I was biting my thumb.

Is that the kind of energy that I want to bring to what we have a guest on the show today?

You're right, you're right, you're right.

I just love that opening a pickle jar is on par with writing. That is truly, those two things are the same thing.

If you're a hand, that's gotta be like the most important thing to you in life, is opening a pickle jar.

Fair. Also, do you guys have things where you are... I'll just say the thing that it is for me. I am right-handed in all aspects of my life except swinging a baseball bat. Weirdly, ever since I was a child, I would swing on the left. And I didn't have any cause to think about this in my adulthood until Friday when I was unexpectedly drafted into my sister's workplace softball team. And suddenly it all came back to me. I was like, wow, I should maybe try swinging. No, that doesn't work. It has to be on the left. And it's very weird. It's the only thing. That's wild.

Yeah, I don't know. I think I do most, I'm right-handed, and I think I do most things in a right-handed way. But so much of this world is made for right-handed people, and it is crazy that, like, when you stop to think about, like, they sell left-handed scissors. Yeah! And you're like, aren't all scissors, like, can't you use them with both hands? And it's like, no, not really. Scissors are made to be right-handed. And it's like, wow.

Fuck. Yeah, writing with a fountain pen is really interesting for this too, because you can get like the fountain nib ground to a different angle, specifically if you're left handed. And I don't know how this interacts with the fact that like, I've been thinking about this recently, because my dad's not gonna listen to this. So it's not a gonna get this away. But I've been wanting to get my dad a fountain pen for Amal, can I be vulnerable with you? Absolutely.

Up until the age of maybe 10 or so, my dad would read the whatever newspapers in Arabic, and they were backwards. And for a while, I thought my dad couldn't read. And I was like, this is embarrassing. Like he clearly doesn't know what he's doing. And at some point he was like, that's so funny. He was like, Oh, let me teach you how to do this. And I was like, Oh, okay. So this is legit. And I'm just

And then he's like, what? And you were like, nothing, um, no, you're, of course you could read, you're my dad.

So you saw all the notes I left. Okay, and you and mom are getting a divorce because of the notes. Interesting, interesting. Oh my god.

If anyone out there, during that scene, you know what I kept thinking of? Is, like, I want songs for musicals. And if anyone out there writes musicals, please write a song from the perspective of the non-dominant hand. And everything it wants to do. Open a pickle jar. Sign its name.

Flip a coin.

I'm totally hearing it to the cadence of, like, the Little Mermaid's, like, look at this stuff, you know?

Welcome back to like weight percentages of each like muscle group of your body but you one of the reasons why you do it is so that you know like your dominant side yeah how much like how much more muscle mass you have on your dominant side so you can adjust the way that you're like working out so like things become more even and it is crazy to like have a dominant side and and not like go through that in your life and being like oh there is like a What's up everyone?

Hello, everyone. It is a concept of referred pain, basically, where you can be feeling pain in one part of your body, but that's not where the problem is. Very metaphorically resonant. That's wild. Yeah. So, like, if you're feeling a pain in your shoulder, it might be because of something, like, in your lower back or various things like that. So, the thing that I have had to be working on a lot is figuring out what muscle in what leg is overworking, causing a muscle in the other leg to underwork or overwork. And so you can end up like the sense of your body that isn't so much split down the middle with one side stronger than the other. It's more like you're an elastic band that's been twisted on itself multiple times and is creating all of these tensions pulling in all of these different directions. And everything that I learn about muscle and anatomy and stuff just becomes layers and layers of metaphor for the ways in which we do and don't understand our psyche. It's so messed up and frustrating.

But yeah. That's crazy. That's what it feels like.

I can talk about this for so long. It's ridiculous.

But yeah.

So our bodies are basically pretzels and salt is basically sweat. So we basically are pretzels. So if I eat a person, I'm not a cannibal.

Wait a minute. No, hold on. Back up. But if you eat a pretzel, you are a cannibal.

So don't do that. I am a cannibal. I can't eat pretzels anymore. Don't do that. Do we want to do another riddle? This is a riddle that has something to do, well, I'll just, I will say it transitions well. What has a bottom at the top? What has a bottom at the top?

A dabbling duck. I just always think about that when I watch them. Their bottoms go up.

You should not dabble with ducks. Everyone knows that. Leave ducks alone, guys. Don't feed them bread.

It's bad for them. Midsummer Night's Dream.

Now Erin, what was the first scene that Bottom is in Midsummer Night's Dream? Is it at the top of the play?

Yeah, Bottom opens the show, right? And says, hey, what's up? I'm going to be a donkey later or something. I just want you guys don't get scared. God, I forget that Shakespeare is such a wordsmith. You forget that Shakespeare is a wordsmith.

What's my deal? What's my deal? What's my deal? I'm Peter Quince's friend. I will not see Lysander this play. What else? What else? What else?

What's my deal? What's my deal? What's my deal?

Can you read Riddle one more time? What has a bottom at the top? What is a bottom at the top? What has a bottom at the top?

Someone like a boss.

Oh boy. Help me with it, Erin. In what way?

Every boss has an ass.

This is as big as Every Kiss Begins With Kate.

I'm trying to not just answer this as heated rivalry fanfiction.

I was going to say like a gay pride flip. And what stopped you from saying it?

What is a bottom on the top? What is a bottom? I mean a barrel? Because you can put a barrel either way.

That is a good, a barrel, okay. So Amal gets, you get partial credit. Sometimes what happens is when you get an answer that is not the one that is written down but still works, you get the rest of the riddle off. So congratulations, you don't have to do any more of this riddle today. But yeah, it's like that. The conversation we were having right before I read this riddle feeds into it, I will say, in another way.

We're talking about pain. We're talking about your body scans. We're talking about bodies. Oh, is it? What is a body?

Oh, sorry. Can I go again?

You don't have to. You're off for the rest of the day, but you can if you want extra credit.

Well, I was just thinking bodies and like a body of water. You kind of can't tell what is at the top or the bottom, right? Because it's water all the way. Riddle Riddle Riddle Riddle Riddle An inverted pyramid.

So this has something to do with our bodies? Your body, yes.

Something on your body has a bottom at the top. Your specific body, Adal.

Oh, jeez. Do you guys mind if I turn off my camera?

I'm sorry, yeah. Chloe sent in a lot of Adal's body riddles. I gotta say, we did Riddles for the Show, Chloe, but this is maybe a little too far. It's everyone's body. It's a part of the body that has a bottom at the top.

Eyes, nose, ears, mouth, heel, toes, head, shoulders.

Where's the bottom of your body? What's another word for bottom? Foot. Feet. Butt. No, another word. Ass. Butt, butt, ass, yes. So what has a bottom at the top? Your legs.

Your legs. Oh my god. I met a traveler in a desert land who said two vast and trunkless legs of stone is what comes to mind when I'm just imagining these two like shining glutes at the top of the trunks.

My ass is not a hat. My ass is not a hat!

I was starting to think about hats and like, you know, just a top hat.

That's a good idea. Let's go with that thought process. We're going to see a scene. Adal, you are going to a haberdasher. I guess a haberdasher is just clothes. Does anyone know the one that means... No, haberdasher is hat.

Today's episode is

Next time we see Paula Tompkins, we can ask her what the one for just hats is. I just never remember it. I know that it's not that. I just don't remember what the one is. But anyway, you're going to a... Milliner!

Sorry, I had them confused. I thought milliner was for sewing and stuff, but it might just be women's hats. Not sure.

Fuck, well this won't work. You're gonna go to the male equivalent of a milliner, Adal.

A hat store? A hat store!

And Erin, you're designing a hat, but Adal, you're trying to get a hat made for your butt, but you don't really want to admit that it's for your butt.

Great. Ah, ring-a-ling-a-ling, hello! Hi!

Um, good. I was hoping that you wouldn't be busy today. Fantastic.

Oh, me? Are you the customer?

Oh, I see, I see. I buy internet cutouts. No, no, no, no. Start over, start over, start over.

I own a store. Hold on.

That was an internet issue. Oh my god.

I own a store. Erin, you had a 50-50 chance of getting it right. Let's try one more time.

I'll try again.

Okay.

Adal, you... Let's wait, hold on. No, because I thought I had guessed right and then Adal did the ring-a-ling-a-ling. Adal, that is not your fault. I just, I was having to guess. Alright, let's start over.

And here we go. I don't have a horse in this race. Who wants to be the customer and who wants to be the person buying the hat?

I want to be the hat person. I want Adal to be the customer.

Okay, got it. Great. Adal, you are the customer. Erin, you are making the hats.

Oh my goodness, welcome in. Oh, thank you so much. I see a naked head. Ooh! Ready for a hat.

Oh yeah, I never thought of a hatless head as being naked, but ooh, let me cover it up with my hands.

Oh, you've seen everything. Oh no.

Oh, I've seen it all. No, let me just measure this. Oh. Circumference, big head, big thoughts. Let me measure this, measure this. Now what kind of hat would a man like you want on a day like this? Hooray? Top hat? Sherlock Holmes thing? Oh, Deerstalker? Doc Holliday's hat from Tombstone?

Oh my, oh my goodness. That would be, uh, a goddamned delight. No, but think of top hat but, um, the inverse. Or reverse. We're

I roll my eyes and I point to a sign that says we do not sell hats for butts.

0 for 14, Reginald.

There is ne'er a hat salesman on this street, sir, that will fulfill your purvish request. Purvish? Hats are for heads.

Purvish? Oi, oi, mate. I heard you were looking for a specialty hat that you couldn't find in a store.

Yes, uh, might we get out of these cobblestone alleys? I feel like this is a dark deed.

Yeah, well, it is. You want a specialty hat? I'm the one who likes it. Okay, um... So, it's a hat for your penis, then, is it?

Oh, um... No, no, no, no. I want a hat. I want a butt hat. Oh, good God, sir! No! No, we're... Stop shoving me! Stop shoving me! No, get out of my alley! This is for perverts!

I never... Okay, here's my last chances to knock on this random home and hope that whoever resides inside is willing to bend their moral compass to a... Hello?

Hello, citizen. My name is Reginald. I come from across the pond and I'm looking for a... Your ass is...

RIDDLE RIDDLE

Oh, thank you.

Thank you so much. Yes, I'm looking for an ass hat. That's right. That's right. But bonnet or whatever you're willing to provide.

All right, well, a custom job is going to take some time. You can of course, peruse from the ready made merchandise.

Oh, you sell out of your home, what have you. I do, but I have to, obviously.

And also, you've never spoken to me. You will leave here with your ass covered, but you will never speak of me again.

I will never utter a word about, let me look at the address, H.H. Holt. Do you want to cover your mouth or not?

I simply must get to the World's Fair, the Columbian Exposition even.

uh yeah i think we all wanted to just uh make the that asshat person a an absolute serial murderer i was like yo you come on in What tastes better than it smells? Tongue. It's the tongue. I keep hearing people say this of durian but I've never had it yet so I don't know neither how it smells nor it tastes.

I do want to see a scene. All three of you are in a, what is it, like a sommelier exam, I guess, or certification class, and I'll be sort of running it and putting the three of your palettes to the test. Everyone please pick up glass number A. Swirl it around.

Number A. We pan out. There's glasses just scattered around the table. They're not definable in front of any one person and they're all like labeled like with like infinity symbol.

And as you taste it, please just let me know everyone what notes you taste.

Um, I, I can't tell if you said notes in this way because I've never, I've never experienced anesthesia before, but I'm like tasting C-flat?

Mmm, yes. Let me know what notes you taste or what flavors you hear.

I taste this. I taste aeolian mold.

Okay, chuck that down in my notebook, aioli and mold. Write song later, question mark. And I guess it's the there's an aftertaste like I said finishes I think they say the wine finishes and it tastes like 100% black pepper Mm-hmm.

Yes, the wine finishes first if you're a gentleman I don't mean to be uncouth about this, but there's a rumor that in your taste tests you Have a gas leak in the room where we're being tested just to really see if we could work through Any and all sensory issues that's not happening now, is it?

Adelo, do I look like an albino seal to you? Yes.

Yes.

Yes, remarkably. Remarkably, that's what you look like. Okay everyone, grab glass number blue and let me know what notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your notes your You're right. I'm sorry. That was very insensitive. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I only saw the Ben Affleck movie. I never saw the show.

In the show, he simply has a blindfold on.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

Everyone drink the blue. Let me know what you feel.

This is Gatorade. This is the blue Gatorade.

This is Frost Gatorade.

Yeah, Frost, I believe. Mine might be Diet Frost.

Mm-hmm. Anything else?

I'm remembering something. Something deep. Something suppressed. Something... Why... Why is there a ball balanced on my nose? I... I... I... I'm clapping. I'm clapping for an audience. But the audience should be clapping for me.

Are we seals too?

Would you believe we're all seals in the zoo and we took LSD?

I do think that if you go to the zoo and they have a seal exhibit at the zoo, they should be playing Kiss from a Rose all day. Because, A, seals love that song. It'll never get old for them. They won't know that it's not just the sounds of nature. They're in a zoo, right? And it's fun for the people that come and visit.

I just need to know, when you said albino seal before, were you actually talking about the singer and I just made it into a seal in my head? Oh my God.

I was thinking about a real seal.

I was thinking of a real seal. I was too.

Okay, thank God.

But I mean, there's certainly the concept of an albino seal could exist. Yeah. And I mean, the singer, he could, like, he's not albino, but you know, in a Spider-Verse situation where we're in multiple collapsing realities, he could be an albino seal.

I think it's sort of a Seal Morales situation.

Are any of you familiar with a game called Skeel? Now, this is where you are. It's like a skiing game. And you're trying to just navigate a bunch of stuff while Kiss from a Rose is playing. And at some point, the seals actual like the creature appear in the game. And it's very, it's very funny. It's very brief. It's a joke game, but it was very fun. And it's called

Is it, yeah, what are those games called, like the free running games? Is it a side scroll or are you like skiing downhill? I'm gonna play it, it sounds awesome.

Wasn't there one where you control like the left and right leg of like a sprinter or something and you have to...

I don't know.

Yes. Yes. I remember that one too. It was probably like 15 years ago. I can't remember, but it was like you control the right and left leg and it's, you have to like make the person run, but it's pretty much impossible. You're just basically a sack of potatoes. It was quap, Adal. Thank you. Quap. Quap.

Was it cooperative?

I remember in the days of early internet, when flash games were a huge thing, and I would be stuck at my office job when I worked at a self-storage facility in college, and I would just be constantly on Newgrounds.com just playing the worst free flash games that could run in-browser forever. I have a deep fondness for, not that those are bad video games, but I have a deep fondness for bad video games.

Absolutely. I didn't have a console. I was like, I grew up not allowed to play video games. But all of my cousins had like every conceivable console. So video games were something I could only play at my cousin's places. Up until my brothers became of an age to play video games, and then suddenly it was totally fine. I don't have elder daughter of immigrants trauma at all. I But my brothers did in fact eventually have a PS1, and then one of my most formative game experiences at that point was that they kept saving over my Final Fantasy IX games. And so I still have not actually finished that game except for one of them because they were kids and they kept asking me to take them through the harder parts and stuff. But anyway, yeah. I thought playing Flash games on the computer was something that I also did a lot of because of that particular intersection of time and place.

Once you have your, what was it, Final Fantasy IX? Yeah. Once you have your Final Fantasy IX file erased, I would only play Flash games because that is traumatic to get that. That's a long game. Yeah. Damn.

I'm so sorry. Now that I know that you played Final Fantasy IX, it kind of makes me not having sat on the, uh, you had a crush on Shadow and I also had a crush on Shadow from Final Fantasy VI bit that I sat on for most of the show, but he's so cool. He's a ninja and an assassin. Come on. Come on. What's not to love? So true. Well, that brings us to the end of the show, and the only thing that we have time for is our plugs. So, Amal, thank you so much for joining us. Is there anything that you have that you would like to plug? Where can people find your work, follow you, all of that jazz?

Yes, thank you. So I have, besides The Society Lives That Time War, I have two other books that are out. One is called The River Has Roots, which actually also has riddle content in it, because one of the… Fuck. It's a retelling of a ballad, and it's about sisters, and one of the sisters really loves murder ballads, and the other one really loves riddle songs. And so their riddle songs are a kind of component thing there. And I also had a short story collection come out this year called Seasons of Glass and Iron, which is the name of a specific story in it, as well as the whole collection. And that is, I think... I think that's it.

Those are the things I want to plug. Amazing.

Congratulations.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, that's very awesome. And I can't recommend... I've only ever read one of your books, but I can't recommend them enough because they are... The first one that I read was fantastic.

That makes me so happy. Hopefully it's not all downhill from there.

I peaked. And Adal, Erin, do you guys have anything that you guys want to plug? Anything for the people out there?

Yes, I want to plug Gumshoes and Dragons, a podcast that the three of us do with Anthony Birch, that Amal was a guest on very recently. It was a goddamn delight. It was, I believe, a Broadway-themed episode. And I have one other quick thing. Amal, would you mind closing your eyes? Shadow and other avid mountain climbers paid a lot of money to be the first to scale a mountain. After several days of climbing, they finally reached the pinnacle and, in their dismay, found a cabin and three frozen bodies. Since Shadow and his fellow climbers were the first men to ever climb the summit, how could this be possible?

It was the cabin of an airplane!

It was the cabin... The cabin shadow that his fellow climbers found was the airplane cabin. Just wanted to see if you still had it.

God, how do you not want to fuck that guy?

I mean, he's got everything. He's the full package.

He's got three dead bodies. He's a cabin climber. Okay, that's great. Erin, anything you want to plug?

Nothing. Bye! Hot dogs! Alright, bye everybody! Bye! Created by Adal Rifai

Are there any parrots in the music?

Hey there Qs and As, if you liked that, you are going to love this week's episode. It's another ch-ch-ch-ch-chatterbox where we're answering your questions. You can listen to that plus our entire back catalog by going to patreon.com slash hey riddle riddle and joining the clue crew for $5 a month or start your seven day free trial or the review crew for $8 a month. Plus you get those ad free episodes. See you there.

That was a hate gum podcast.

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