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Hey, this this is Alex. appearing on the top appearing

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on the top of the show slot would

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Drive. And look, I know this is And look, weird I

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know this is a little weird because for

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I'm asking you to become a hyper -fixed

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member at the end of every episode. And

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two, my show just my show just started. And

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now I've asked you for money two different

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ways. ways. I'm very sensitive to that. that. But

0:33

let me explain why I am doing

0:36

this. Just getting this

0:38

show off the ground ground taken

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almost almost two years, and it has

0:42

been frustrating and sometimes exhausting. exhausting. At

0:44

my lowest point, I I was applying

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for communications and public relations jobs

0:48

at tech companies. jobs Can you

0:51

imagine? Can you imagine? I am too too for

0:53

that. that. But a huge part huge part of

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getting getting the show in production was

0:57

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1:02

a lot to me. me. It's not

1:04

like I I say, this shows a is

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a proud member of radiootopia in

1:08

the credits because they tell me.

1:10

to. they tell me to. I they do

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tell me to, but it's also

1:14

true. also true. I I am on a

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network with song exploder, the memory palace, the kitchen

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sisters, kitchen that I have shows that

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as inspiration. though And even though I

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Radiotopia helps me with things that

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I absolutely couldn't do on my

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own. do on my own. Ad marketing, tech

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producer Audrey Audrey me find an

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engineer find an the first couple

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really her job. not She's just

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to say is that this show

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3:31

this is uh, this is Alex. be an

3:33

This may be an unusual content

3:35

as as there's nothing, like, thematically

3:37

inappropriate in this episode. in I mean,

3:39

I do say mean, a couple

3:41

times, but that's not particularly out

3:44

of the ordinary for this show. not

3:46

However, out in this episode, we

3:48

say the word However, in this lot. we say

3:50

the word Like, a seriously, a

3:52

lot. lot. So, if you're listening with

3:54

children, or like me, you have the

3:56

mind of a child, of a just don't say

3:58

I didn't warn you. you. This

4:03

is is On this show,

4:05

listeners are writing with problems big and small, and

4:07

I solve them. with or at least I try. big

4:10

and small, and good reason

4:12

why I them. Or at least I try.

4:14

And if to believe. I give

4:17

a good reason why I

4:19

can't. This week, Casey wants

4:21

to believe. Oh my god,

4:23

dude, I have been telling

4:25

dude, I have been telling everybody about

4:27

this one. Oh Oh you you huh? This

4:29

is is Casey. He's a librarian at a at

4:32

arts college. He's got real He's got real gentle

4:34

of reminds me of a Kind of And

4:36

I know this is a young show,

4:38

I we're only on our a episode. only on

4:40

our fourth He has submitted maybe my

4:42

favorite my of all time. It's gonna

4:44

be hard to top. to be I'm so

4:46

excited. This is the problem I

4:48

was born to solve. to solve. Man, I am I

4:50

am very happy to hear that. before But

4:53

before we get into that... there's a There's a

4:55

few more things about think

4:57

you need to know. need to The

4:59

first is that he loves

5:01

research. research. I research. See? Told you. That is

5:03

a big part of why I

5:05

became a librarian as I, as I, for

5:08

as long as I've been on

5:10

the have have loved going down the

5:12

rabbit holes. his In his spare time, loves

5:14

loves digging around on the internet

5:16

for information he can use to edit

5:18

Wikipedia entries, especially the sports entries. the

5:20

sports But here's the second thing you

5:22

should know about Casey. thing you He's

5:24

not into the icons, He's not the Wayne

5:26

icons, the Michael Jordan's, the Tom Brady's.

5:28

the He's into the real the real ones.

5:30

ones. I really enjoy finding a lesser

5:32

known player that has a page that has a page

5:34

that has one or two sentences all seen the

5:36

seen the Wikipedia page with one sentence. And

5:39

even even if I add four or

5:41

five sentences to that, at least there's

5:43

something else out there else out little more

5:46

information out about that person out about that person team.

5:48

So is the same thing. the same thing.

5:50

The buttons. This is the third is

5:52

the third thing you should know about Casey. Back

5:54

in Back in 2020, he just before he finished

5:56

up his library science degree, he was looking

5:58

for an internship. an And in... Keeping with

6:00

his personality, he wasn't interested in locking

6:02

down the in Brady of the Tom Brady of Library

6:04

You know, the New York You Library, Library

6:07

of Congress. Library of So when

6:09

he saw a listing for an internship an

6:11

a place called at a place called the Museum, Button he

6:13

knew he had to apply. to apply. Just

6:15

to make sure our listeners aren't picturing, like,

6:17

you know. the the buttons on their pants. describe

6:19

you describe the buttons we're talking about? I I

6:21

got into that question a lot when I said

6:23

I was doing research for a button company. button

6:26

These are the buttons the would get pinned to

6:28

a shirt to a shirt your backpack or a jacket you

6:30

you were cool enough to have one back in

6:32

the the 80s. I I still have a jean jacket

6:34

with pins all over it and I still think

6:36

that I'm very cool. very you And you are. are.

6:38

I I can't believe we're only four episodes

6:40

into the show, and the guests are already

6:42

making fun of me. making fun of me. Anyway, the Busy

6:44

Beaver is based in Chicago. based in

6:46

Part of it is it is an button

6:49

business. button the other part, the other

6:51

is a is a museum. museum.

6:53

That's the part that Casey worked for. worked for.

6:55

and they have thousands of of buttons gotten as

6:57

donations and collected over the years

6:59

the they're trying to get them

7:01

online onto their website. website. went onto

7:03

this website while I was talking

7:05

to I was talking the collection is

7:07

actually pretty amazing. actually buttons for everything

7:10

from political candidates to party caterers,

7:12

buttons for caterers, buttons for seven up, and AIDS

7:14

a novelty a doll button with a

7:16

wisp of hair that stretches out

7:18

from the top out a button

7:20

commemorating the meeting of the Iowa

7:22

State Medical Society. It's so funny, like

7:24

all of these these buttons have like a

7:26

little bit of history. bit looking

7:29

at one right now, I'm it's a

7:31

fast food restaurant that was owned

7:33

by Mike owned by Mike Ditka Ditka Dogs. Yeah,

7:35

there's there's some fascinating stuff in

7:37

there. Casey's job job was to research the

7:39

history of the buttons in the in the archive.

7:41

then he'd put together a write -up of

7:43

where they came from of where then a

7:45

picture of the button in his historical synopsis

7:48

would become a page on the synopsis would

7:50

become a page on the Busy a massive database when

7:52

I started this internship of all the buttons

7:54

you could internship of all the buttons you could did

7:56

not pick the ones that

7:58

said vote for vote for Ike. Of course

8:00

he didn't. Just like with those Wikipedia

8:02

entries, just like with his choice of

8:05

internships, Casey picked the most niche, obscure

8:07

buttons he could possibly find. What is

8:09

it about you that makes you want

8:11

to preserve that stuff? I think a

8:14

lot of it is my own personality,

8:16

my own experiences. I was a college

8:18

football player, but I played it a

8:21

very small Division, so I was never

8:23

on television. Yeah, I think just never

8:25

really having been in huge major limelight,

8:27

kind of draws me to these smaller

8:30

stories, which can be just as interesting.

8:32

just because they weren't on ESPN or

8:34

there's not a book written about this

8:37

button, doesn't mean there's not some interest

8:39

there that could be entertaining or informative

8:41

for somebody else. This is a very

8:43

admirable, very Goldman-esque way of approaching the

8:46

world. And it's also precisely what led

8:48

Casey to the problem we're talking about

8:50

today. Okay,

8:56

so just to set the scene

8:58

for you. Casey's at home, this

9:00

is a remote internship, so he's

9:02

doing this whole thing from his

9:05

bedroom, and he's sitting at the

9:07

computer with this massive list of

9:09

unidentified buttons open in front of

9:11

him. I was looking at a

9:13

list of buttons and just scrolling

9:16

through because you got to pick

9:18

randomly, and my eye caught the

9:20

word diarrhea. Casey stopped scrolling. and

9:22

read the rest of the button,

9:24

which said, ask me about our

9:27

new diarrhea-inducing chili cheese fries. And

9:29

for me, it was a say

9:31

no more moment. I put my

9:33

name next to it to claim

9:35

it, and I'm off to the

9:38

races on this thing. So

9:43

Casey's goal is to figure out as much as he can

9:45

about where this thing came from and why it was made.

9:47

And he has some clues to help him figure it out.

9:49

It does have the name of the business in what's called

9:51

the curl text. Yes, it's a very technical term that we

9:53

use in the button industry. Pearl text. the industry's

9:55

the little bits of writing that

9:58

curl over the edge of

10:00

the button. the edge of can really

10:02

only see it if you're looking

10:04

at the back of the it

10:06

if you're also sometimes called of the

10:08

button. It's The sometimes called rim text.

10:10

The curl text reads Big Chub Jets

10:12

Down Home Ranch Style Kitchen, 35th and

10:14

Custer City, Oklahoma. Now given

10:17

this wealth of information, This

10:19

should be a quick assignment. Casey has

10:21

the name of the restaurant, he

10:23

has its location, and he has the

10:25

name of a very unique menu

10:27

item, the aforementioned diarrhea inducing chili cheese

10:29

fries. chili cheese should all

10:31

be Googleable. But it isn't. If you

10:33

make a Google you make a Google

10:35

search for Ask our new New

10:37

Diary Inducing chili cheese you get get web

10:40

MD. You get You get how boards

10:42

about how these this cheese fries

10:44

gave me this condition. quotation

10:46

tries putting quotation marks around the search

10:48

to make sure that he gets results

10:50

with those words exactly. And maybe one of the

10:52

few times Google says few there's nothing here. says,

10:54

no, he tries searching the

10:56

nothing He searches he tries searching the

10:58

curl text. style kitchen. big chubchets,

11:01

out there. If you go to

11:03

Google Maps out look at If you

11:05

go Oklahoma, you'll notice there's not

11:07

even a 35th main street. you'll

11:09

notice there's not even a 35th

11:12

Main Street. There is a main

11:14

street is a main street in Custer

11:16

City that's bisected by numbered streets, but

11:19

they stop at at 9th Street. not

11:21

35th Street. And And just to be

11:23

clear, Custer City is

11:25

small. to the to the

11:27

2020 the the population

11:29

is 367. find big

11:31

chub his quest to find

11:33

Big Chubb Jets, archives. He through newspaper

11:35

archives. He contacted the official Custer

11:37

City Facebook page, but he always

11:40

came back empty -handed. That's honestly

11:42

where this, for for my research, of kind of

11:44

stopped. spend I research, a spend a little

11:46

time trying to find out if there

11:48

was another city in Oklahoma that was

11:50

previously named Custer City, but changed its

11:52

name. And I I think at that point

11:54

I realized I was a little bit little

11:56

bit too close to Russell and

11:58

a beautiful mind with the news. on the

12:01

wall and the red string connecting them.

12:03

This all happened back in 2020, more

12:05

than four years ago. And Casey is

12:07

still thinking about this button. It's become

12:09

such a preoccupation for him that his

12:11

brother made him a poster like the

12:13

one that Mulder had on the X

12:15

files that says, I want to believe

12:18

with a UFO on it, except instead

12:20

of a blurry flying saucer image, it's

12:22

a photo of this button. Casey sent

12:24

us a picture of the poster

12:26

of the poster. It's hanging above

12:28

his desk at home. Do you

12:30

have a theory, any theory about

12:32

where this came from? I have

12:34

a couple, and they're kind of

12:36

sad. Uh-oh. I guess my theory,

12:38

and there's two different ways to

12:40

look at it, is that this

12:42

was just made as a practice.

12:44

either for a class, like a

12:47

Photoshop class or a marketing class,

12:49

and the assignment was make a

12:51

button advertising something, it's make a

12:53

fictional restaurant or make a fictional

12:55

company, and this is what the

12:57

student did. I don't think it's

12:59

outlandish to think that this asked

13:01

me about our diarrhea, chili cheese

13:03

fries is something that was just

13:05

made for fun. But then why

13:07

would there be the curl text?

13:09

That's the biggest mistake. That's the

13:11

detail that doesn't make any sense.

13:13

Because I was sitting there thinking

13:15

like, what if someone made like

13:17

a student film and they had

13:19

to, you know, make this button

13:21

for it? But then why would

13:23

there be an address on it?

13:25

That part makes no sense. That

13:27

that level of detail like the

13:30

Stanley Kubrick level of detail on

13:32

a movie prop. Mm-hmm. And and

13:34

they chose to locate whatever this

13:36

this fucking place in the middle

13:38

of nowhere. No one knows that

13:40

Custer City exists because 300 something

13:42

people live there. Hold on. What

13:44

did the census say? It's on

13:46

there. It's 367 people at the

13:48

time of the 2020 census. Yeah.

13:50

It's a very it's a very

13:52

small place. I'm not even sure

13:54

that they could handle something like

13:56

big chub chats down home ranch

13:58

style be honest. that

14:01

this is not an I understand that this

14:03

is not an important problem. be the

14:05

In fact, it may be the least important

14:07

problem I've ever attempted to solve. to solve.

14:09

But when sent me a link to

14:11

the button's website buttons I saw the I saw

14:13

the button for the first time. for

14:15

the could feel it pulling me in. me

14:17

I was helpless to its charms. For

14:20

better better or worse. this is believe

14:22

this is my fate. I was but

14:24

these are the stories I was put on

14:26

Earth to tell. think I think we can

14:28

figure it out. figure it to be able to

14:30

figure it out. made out there made this

14:33

thing. Not only did someone out there

14:35

make it, but they like it. it. Yeah, it's it's

14:37

not bad either. If you zoom If you zoom

14:39

in on it, a it's a decent it's a decent

14:41

photo. There's no pixelation. It's a

14:43

It's a well done. of art,

14:45

I of art, I would say. There's

14:47

even a little drop shadow under

14:49

the text. the Right. It really looks

14:52

disgusting, though. It looks though. It looks, it It

14:54

does look like a river of

14:56

molten cheese does and then some meat

14:58

at the bottom. looks, and it is

15:00

very close up. It's pretty gross looks,

15:02

It's way too close up. up. Oh

15:05

my God, this is the This is

15:07

I was problem. This is the

15:09

I was born. that I've to solve. in

15:12

my is the only thing that I've ever wanted

15:14

in my life is to solve this problem. The

15:16

obvious first let's do this. reach

15:18

out to the first step. was

15:20

to reach out to the and ask them if they them if

15:22

they knew anything about where this button came from.

15:25

came from. And in my dream my

15:27

dream version of this call. would tell us

15:29

they would tell us they knew the name of the

15:31

person who donated the the button. And then

15:33

we would call that person and ask where they got it.

15:35

ask that person would tell us where

15:37

they got the button. And on and

15:39

on we'd go like that, meeting fascinating

15:41

people along the way until we finally

15:44

found our way to Big Chubb Chat

15:46

himself and our very own plates of

15:48

until we finally fries. our way that's not

15:50

quite how things worked out. himself and our

15:52

very own plates of

15:55

diarrhea-inducing chili cheese fries. But

15:57

that's not quite how things

15:59

think out. the person I

16:01

was calling to find out how

16:03

to get in touch with. My

16:05

name is Emma Cortland. I'm a

16:08

podcast producer, Emma Cortland, called the

16:10

Busy Beaver's main line. The person

16:12

who answered was actually one of

16:14

its co-founders, Kristen Carter. Kristen founded

16:16

Busy Beaver Buttons back in 1995,

16:18

and she launched the museum in

16:20

2010. Each side has its own

16:23

archive, and between the two of

16:25

them, the Busy Beaver has about

16:27

160,000 buttons in their collection. And

16:30

yet, when Emma asked

16:32

about the diarrhea button,

16:34

Kristen knew exactly what

16:36

she was asking about,

16:38

and who made it.

16:40

After the break, Busy

16:42

Beaver co-founder Kristen Carter,

16:44

who pretty much, Chris

16:46

Carter, who pretty much

16:48

shares a name with

16:50

the creator of the

16:52

X-files, Chris Carter, connects

16:54

us with the Mystery

16:56

Bun maker. We're

17:06

supposed to learn from our own

17:09

mistakes that other people's errors can

17:11

be instructive too, from efforts to

17:13

control the weather that went disastrously

17:15

awry to the untimely death of

17:18

the segue boss. History is a

17:20

treasure trove of mishaps and meltdowns

17:22

that can teach us all. I'm

17:24

Tim Harford, host of cautionary tales,

17:27

the podcast that minds the greatest

17:29

fios of the past, for their

17:31

most valuable lessons. Listen to cautionary

17:33

tales wherever you get your podcasts.

17:38

Welcome back to the show. I will

17:40

say at the time it felt like

17:43

the worst news I could possibly hear.

17:45

Again this is hyper fixed producer Emma

17:47

Cortland. I mean I think we were

17:49

all a little heartbroken. I don't know

17:51

if you remember this Alex but you

17:53

actually got sick like right after this

17:56

and I don't think that's entirely a

17:58

coincidence. My heart couldn't take finding out

18:00

the answer. this button not being exactly

18:02

the way I imagined it in my

18:04

head. So before the break, Emma called

18:06

Busy Beaver, and its founder Kristen Carter

18:09

said that she knew who made the

18:11

diarrhea button, and the reason she knew

18:13

is because he was an employee. And

18:15

yeah, I may have had a moment

18:17

of like, okay, nothing means anything. Let

18:20

us never speak of the diarrhea button

18:22

again. Let's move on to another story

18:24

and toss this one in the dustbin.

18:26

You were sad. It just felt like,

18:28

oh, this is so magical. This is

18:30

such a weird object. This is like,

18:33

if they made Indiana Jones, said in

18:35

modern day, I would be Indiana Jones,

18:37

and this would be the object I

18:39

was searching for. Except, it turned out

18:41

not to be the Ark of the

18:44

Covenant, or the, what is the thing

18:46

that he gets in the last crusade?

18:48

The Holy Grail. No,

18:52

you guys to find the Holy Grail.

18:54

It's a little bit more important. So

18:56

it's not the arc of the government.

18:58

It's not the Holy Grail. I know,

19:00

and I definitely felt a lot of

19:03

what you were feeling, but I think

19:05

the reason that I wanted to keep

19:07

working on this was because it still

19:09

felt unresolved to me. Like, why did

19:12

they assign an intern to log and

19:14

archive this button if they knew it

19:16

was made by an employee? Right? Not

19:18

only that, like they didn't give him

19:20

any information about it. So if it

19:23

was made by an employee, they didn't

19:25

let him know. And like, again, why

19:27

is there curl text with the name

19:29

of a business and a location that

19:31

doesn't exist? Right. So while you were

19:34

sick, I decided to reach back out

19:36

to Kristen. And, like, what did you

19:38

find out? Well, first of all, I

19:40

learned that buttons are truly an American

19:42

art form, like jazz. Oh

19:48

yeah, 100%. I mean they were invented

19:50

in Newark, New Jersey in 1896. That's

19:52

so bananas. So yeah, we traced the

19:54

lineage back to George Washington's inauguration. when

19:57

he was inaugurated, everyone was like, hey,

19:59

we started a country, let's make souvenirs.

20:01

So they made all these different souvenir

20:04

buttons that have different engraving or stamps

20:06

on them. We need to let people

20:08

know. I mean, the goal of the

20:10

button museum is to tell as much

20:13

American history as possible through pinback buttons.

20:15

I like that you went into this

20:17

conversation as if you were planning to

20:20

demand answers and then immediately were just

20:22

like, oh my God, buttons are wonderful,

20:24

I love them so much. I don't

20:26

know how someone could not fall in

20:29

love with the fact that America invented

20:31

buttons because it needed party favors at

20:33

its like little celebration. I think that's

20:36

adorable. But honestly, it was a dozen

20:38

things. Um, Kristen told me that the

20:40

button community has like this council of

20:42

elders, the APIC, they have a Facebook

20:45

page where you can post questions about

20:47

the origins of different buttons, and they'll

20:49

help you figure it out, because that's

20:52

just what they like to do. And

20:54

some of the most interesting stuff on

20:56

the Busy Beavers website has been submitted

20:58

randomly by people outside of the museum.

21:01

We do get people often like saying,

21:03

hey I know about this button, you

21:05

know, or I know about the backstory

21:08

of this button. And even more frequently

21:10

we have people googling themselves or googling

21:12

something they did and finding the button

21:14

that matched what they were doing. This

21:17

happened with the Grateful Dead button. Apparently

21:19

there's only one Grateful Dead button that's

21:21

considered authentic. It's designed by this guy

21:24

named Gil Sanchez. his son looked it

21:26

up and he gave us all sorts

21:28

of information and it was a lot

21:31

of stuff that collectors didn't know so

21:33

like that one we learned that there

21:35

were 300 in the first run and

21:37

that was the only run and somebody

21:40

redid those buttons but they took Gil

21:42

Sanchez's name off. So collectors will

21:44

know which is which. So when Kristen says the museum is using buttons

21:46

to preserve history, she's talking about these little relics of the past, these

21:48

individual stories and expressions that might otherwise have been forgotten. And yeah, that's

21:50

just very romantic to me. so I mean I

21:53

get it. I see why that

21:55

you found passion in the button universe

21:57

But like if she already knew

21:59

where this button came from how did

22:01

it end up on the list

22:03

of buttons to research? Oh, yeah, okay

22:06

So the short version of this

22:08

is that the museum is a very

22:10

small operation There's only one librarian

22:12

she works part -time and there are

22:14

tens of thousands of buttons waiting to

22:16

be cataloged So when an in -house

22:18

button makes it into the museum

22:21

collection, which almost never happens it may

22:23

be years before she gets a

22:25

chance to photograph and measure it and

22:27

Since there's already very little crossover

22:29

between the e -commerce business and the

22:31

nonprofit by the time this one wound

22:34

up in the research pile the

22:36

story of its origin had been lost

22:38

to time The other thing that

22:40

happened is that while Kristen was on

22:42

the call with me She got

22:44

an email from this guy who made

22:46

the button. His name is Nick

22:49

Raleigh Apparently she'd written to him about

22:51

the curl text which remember is

22:53

also called rim text I just heard

22:55

back from him about why the

22:57

back rim text if you want to

22:59

hear it. Yes, please So he

23:01

says The rim text was to help

23:04

legitimize the button. So if someone

23:06

found it 25 years later It would

23:08

only further them into Further them

23:10

to question if it was in fact

23:12

a real place. Why does he

23:14

want people to question if it's a

23:17

real place? That's what I wanted

23:19

to know as well. So I asked

23:21

Kristen if she would put me

23:23

in touch with him She connected us

23:25

over email and Alex. I am

23:27

so glad I talked to this guy

23:29

Because that magic you thought we

23:32

lost It turns out It was there

23:34

the whole time this sounds ridiculous

23:36

to say aloud But this conversation we're

23:38

having is like the fate of

23:40

the button This is Nick Raleigh the

23:42

man behind the diarrhea button He

23:45

spoke to us on a call with

23:47

his friend Eric Harms who helped

23:49

him with the visual design of the

23:51

button So if you hear some

23:53

stick ring in the background, that's Eric.

23:55

It's like a dream come true

23:57

for this to come full circle. Oh

24:00

my god Because that was was the intention

24:02

of it. Nick is a is a huge collector

24:04

of things. Even before he worked at at the

24:06

he had a ton of buttons. a ton of

24:08

And of all his all his absolute favorites were

24:10

the ones that made him wonder, the ones in

24:12

the world did someone make this? why in So

24:14

when he came to work at the Busy

24:16

Beaver, he found himself surrounded by all of

24:18

these people who were investigating the kind of

24:20

weird stuff that he was into. of these people who

24:22

were to make a button

24:24

that gave someone else the feeling that he

24:27

got when he discovered his favorite buttons. Honestly,

24:30

I'm being perfectly honest, I think this

24:32

came to me one night, stoned

24:34

on a couch in my living room

24:36

in my living room in my to just

24:38

come up with something ridiculous. up with something ridiculous.

24:41

And the dietary habits of my

24:43

friends in their in their was

24:45

also inspiring to to it. We knew a

24:47

bar that would have free wings every Friday night. if

24:50

you got one beer. one beer.

24:52

like for like 20 somethings in it was

24:54

like, like, let's go buy one beer,

24:56

it, and nurse it, and it, just

24:58

eat wings. wings. these guys then these

25:00

guys are, just, some of Some of

25:02

these dudes are getting like. like,

25:04

tummy eggs. I I won't go into

25:06

the details of it, but it's not

25:08

agreeing with them. agreeing with them. So it kind

25:10

of, that made me think about it

25:12

a little bit. a little bit. Cheese

25:14

better, better, but but the deeper idea,

25:16

which is the true beauty

25:19

of you coming to us to

25:21

talk about this, this, but the and

25:23

and this was the idea

25:25

from the the get-go, was I love love

25:27

buttons, got a, you know, people's junk drawers, stuff

25:29

that's where buttons go. buttons go. They

25:31

get lost in time. People

25:33

forget about them. about preserved. And

25:35

you find buttons later on and you're like, oh,

25:37

I never even heard of this political candidate or

25:39

what's this for? I wanted to make a button.

25:42

that someone would find 25

25:44

years later make a be like. someone

25:47

would the hell is

25:49

this? be like, what would

25:51

any restaurant? restaurant the word word diarrhea

25:53

on a a button. to be has to

25:56

be one of the worst words you

25:58

could ever use to try to. sell.

26:00

you gotta be kidding me. But it wasn't

26:02

enough for someone to have that thought and

26:04

then move on. In order for the button

26:06

to really capture the feeling Nick was going

26:08

for, the person who found the diary at

26:11

Button would have to think it came from

26:13

a real restaurant. So Nick took the idea

26:15

to Eric harms, who was one of the

26:17

busy beavers in-house designers at the time, and

26:19

Eric said, you got to add girl text.

26:21

Right. Has it legitimizes somehow, right? Yeah, a

26:24

lot of businesses would put their addresses, and

26:26

I just told it. I think Eric, you

26:28

came up with that, right? I was like,

26:30

just come up with a business in the

26:32

middle of the country, so it seems like

26:35

it'd be harder to find. And that's how

26:37

they came up with Custer City City, Oklahoma,

26:39

Oklahoma. I told him

26:41

about Casey and they were absolutely

26:43

delighted and they were really so

26:45

delighted to know that this had

26:47

worked out exactly the way they

26:49

dreamed it would. Well, it's, it

26:51

is actually amazing. I am sorry

26:53

that it isn't an actual restaurant

26:55

for him. I know you love

26:57

that more than, I feel sad

26:59

for him in that sense, but

27:01

selfishly, I don't know of this

27:03

dude, so who gives his shit?

27:07

We'll talk I guess afterwards and

27:09

I'll send him, I'll find, I

27:11

know I have some, so I'll

27:13

send him some extras and some

27:15

other fun buttons I made. I

27:17

know that that was going to

27:19

mean so much to him because

27:21

truthfully, like not only because he

27:23

had this obsession, but the only,

27:25

like the only manifestation of it

27:27

has been this like shitty scan

27:29

of it online. He's never held

27:31

one of these buttons before. So

27:33

Alex, I know this is normally

27:36

your line, but before I send

27:38

you off to follow up with

27:40

Casey, I want to ask you.

27:42

Knowing all of this, how do

27:44

you feel? Oh my God, dude.

27:46

Magic restored. This is perfect. This

27:48

is exactly what I wanted. I

27:50

wanted a story with a journey.

27:52

And this isn't like a six-week

27:54

journey. This is like a 15-year

27:56

journey. What more could I possibly

27:58

ask for? It really feels like

28:00

when you were a child and

28:02

your school project to build a

28:04

time capsule where you buried all

28:06

of the treasures that would tell

28:08

you about the moment in time

28:10

when you were doing that, and

28:12

then someone actually dug it up

28:14

and found it. But not only

28:16

that, like this isn't even digging

28:18

it up. It's like literally up

28:20

on a website for us to

28:22

look at. It is hidden in

28:24

plain sight. I mean, I'm honestly

28:26

kind of surprised. It took this

28:28

long for someone to find it.

28:30

One of the things that he

28:32

kept saying to me over and

28:34

over again was that he's just

28:36

like, I anticipated this taking 25

28:38

years. I can't believe I undershot.

28:40

And he said, but I'm so

28:42

glad that I'm of an age

28:44

when I can still enjoy this.

28:46

With the complete answer in hand,

28:48

it was time to go back

28:50

to Casey. I think one

28:53

of the funniest emails I ever got

28:55

was Emma's invite to this meeting and

28:57

it said, diarrhea follow-up with Alex. I

28:59

mean, it really has made like for

29:02

a lot of wonderful jokes, especially since,

29:04

you know, there are people who are

29:06

only passingly familiar with what we're working

29:08

on, who are like members of our

29:10

slack, like Breakmaster Cylinder, who does music.

29:13

So they'll see us feverishly typing in

29:15

a channel called diarrhea button, and be

29:17

like, what the fuck? is going on

29:19

here? It's great. So I have some

29:22

good news and I have some bad

29:24

news. Okay. I'm gonna start with the

29:26

bad news, which is that you were

29:28

very close to your answer. I told

29:31

Casey that as soon as we reached

29:33

out to the busy beaver, they told

29:35

us that the button had not been

29:37

made by a restaurant and that as

29:40

far as they knew, there was no

29:42

such thing as big chubchett's down home

29:44

ranch style kitchen in Custer City or

29:46

anywhere else. In case he admitted, he

29:48

was bummed out by the news, but

29:51

it was what he expected. But then

29:53

I got to tell him the good

29:55

news. During our first conversation, you told

29:57

us that you strongly wanted this to

30:00

do. a restaurant and more And more

30:02

than that. not want it to have been

30:04

a joke or a it. project. to

30:06

have been a joke that to a school project.

30:08

you were afraid of I take that to mean

30:10

is that didn't what you were afraid of

30:12

is that this thing didn't have a story.

30:14

Like it didn't have anything interesting behind

30:16

it. if it was a right, because if

30:18

it was a school project or something, it

30:20

was just a to get the just to

30:22

get the points for the assignment and

30:24

and there's not anything, all that interesting

30:26

behind it other than. it other than The design of

30:29

it, I guess. I guess. So,

30:31

the good news is this. I The

30:33

good news is this. that we found the

30:35

person who made the button.

30:37

That he's a long-time button

30:40

I told Casey that we found the person

30:42

who made the button, that that he's a longtime

30:44

button collector named Nick the and that when

30:46

we asked him about the diarrhea button, he

30:48

said it was like a dream come true. true.

30:50

We told him all about how the button

30:52

came to be, to about how Nick's most

30:54

treasured collectibles are the ones that make him

30:57

wonder, that make in the world why in someone decide

30:59

to make this? to And about how how he

31:01

got the opportunity to make a button of

31:03

his own, his he wanted to make one that

31:05

gave someone else gave same feeling that his

31:07

favorite buttons gave him. gave him. And he said to

31:09

us to was, I wanted to make a

31:12

button a someone would find 25

31:14

years later 25 be like and be

31:16

like, the hell is this? this? Why

31:18

Why would any restaurant use

31:20

the word diarrhea on a button?

31:22

on a button? Wow, mission accomplished. So Nick was so glad

31:24

so glad to get this

31:26

call this call that he was

31:28

he had been waiting for since

31:30

2010 that that he would never

31:32

get get. As

31:34

a gesture of gratitude of wants

31:36

to send you your very

31:38

own you your very own diary of chili

31:41

many were made gosh! this like

31:43

one of one made? Is this

31:45

made like He made, were very

31:47

few There were very few. Whoa!

31:49

That is an honor, And and

31:52

I will cherish it forever. This

31:54

one was a one was a

31:56

clear win. Nick was happy. Casey

31:58

was happy. I was happy happy. there

32:00

was one more thing I wanted to

32:02

share with Casey before I said goodbye.

32:04

Very quickly before we end the call,

32:07

I just wanted to hold on just

32:09

a second. I wanted to drop something

32:11

in the chat for you. Okay. I

32:13

was thinking about something that Casey had

32:15

said on our first call, about how

32:17

part of the reason he was drawn

32:19

to niche history was because he'd never

32:21

really been in the spotlight before. And

32:24

in the small way that I could,

32:26

I wanted to do something to change

32:28

that. I'm wondering if

32:30

you could follow this link. Did I

32:32

get it? Yeah, and just shady link.

32:35

It is a very shady link. And

32:37

just take a look at it and

32:39

tell me what it, can you read

32:41

it for me? But sure, I see,

32:43

the first thing I saw was my

32:46

name, so I knew this wasn't the

32:48

original text that I had came up

32:50

with. The link opens to the Busy

32:52

Beaver website. The page for the diarrhea

32:54

button that Casey has seen countless times

32:56

before. Only now, it's a little different.

32:59

Under additional information where it used to

33:01

say nothing, it now says, in 2024,

33:03

this button became the subject of a

33:05

podcast episode when a librarian named Casey

33:07

Cost became obsessed with finding the person

33:09

who made it. A few days before

33:12

this conversation, we wrote to Kristen and

33:14

asked if we could update the entry

33:16

for the diarrhea button. And she said,

33:18

yeah, go for it. So now, if

33:20

you search for it, you'll see the

33:22

story of this button with Casey's name

33:25

right up top. Well, that's fantastic. I

33:27

am honored to be immortalized on the

33:29

Busy Beaver Button Museum and to be

33:31

part of this story. Wow. Thank you

33:33

both. This is fantastic. What a cool

33:35

experience. I honestly thought I would never

33:37

get the answer to this because it's

33:40

so obscure. I also thought that I'd

33:42

never get the answer because there's two

33:44

that intersection does not exist. I was

33:46

just like, what the... I

33:48

was wondering if like maybe there was like nuclear bomb testing

33:50

going on on this part of the country and they just

33:52

erased certain parts of the city by blowing it up. I

33:55

had no idea. Oh I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

33:57

I am so happy. to have to

33:59

have an end to this. this. Now

34:01

I I can go on to

34:03

the next to the next inane that

34:06

I need to solve. solve. know, if

34:08

you if you're just dedicated enough to

34:10

that cause, you can make a whole

34:12

career out of it. It's what I a

34:14

whole career out of it. It's what I did. Casey

34:21

is now in possession of his

34:23

very own Chub Chets button. And with And

34:26

with the blessing of everyone involved

34:28

in this story, we've been given the

34:30

go ahead to make a limited

34:32

second pressing of the Big Chub Chets, me about

34:34

our diarrhea-inducing chili cheese fries button. If you go

34:37

to to hyperfixed pod.com/and get a get a

34:39

hyperfixed premium membership, in addition to

34:41

getting bonus episodes and all the

34:43

other perks of being a premium

34:45

podcast member, we will send you

34:47

your very own you your very own big And

34:50

to make sure that button make sure

34:52

won't try and pass it off

34:54

as a first try and sell it

34:56

for an inflated price. and sell it

34:58

added inflated price, we added hyperfixed podcast 2024 to the curl text.

35:12

HyperFix produced by Emma by Emma Cortland,

35:14

Sery Softer, Sukenic, and Amore Yates. It also

35:16

edited by Emma, Emma Sary more.

35:18

This episode was hosted by

35:20

Emma Emma and me and me, Alex Golden.

35:22

The is by the is by the

35:24

mysterious Breakmaster The show was engineered

35:26

by Tony Williams by Tony

35:28

Williams. Fact checking by You can get

35:30

bonus episodes join our discord and

35:33

much more at hyperfix and much more at Hyperfix

35:35

pod.com/joy. if you want your very

35:37

own diarrhea button, you can get

35:39

that as well as all

35:41

the other stuff other stuff at hyperfixod.com/ But that's

35:43

only for 500 people. And then

35:45

it's gone forever. it's gone forever. is

35:47

a proud member of member of Radio Topia

35:50

a network of independent of independent, creator-supported

35:52

podcasts. audio with vision with Vision at Radio Topia.fam.

35:54

Last thing, Busy Beaver Button. is always looking

35:56

for volunteers to help research

35:58

the buttons in their collection, so

36:00

if you're interested in helping out

36:02

you can email their Archive So

36:04

their internship coordinator at in helping out, you can

36:06

email their Thanks so much for

36:09

listening. We'll see you next week

36:11

if you're a premium member or

36:13

a week after that if you're

36:15

not. Take it easy! Thanks

36:18

so much for listening. We'll see

36:20

you next week if you're a

36:22

premium member or a week after

36:25

that if you're not.