In despair, Loaf finally opens up to Janet about what happened on Armulus, but Janet is a little distracted by her own concerns, including an unexpected visit by Officer Nassif. Plus, letters about robotic training boyfriends, Avian divorce, and how to deal with time dilation in a professional setting.
Content notes: discussions of alcohol abuse, divorce, and abandonment issues
Announcer: This is IFM2
Computer Voice: You’re listening to a program on IFM 2 Subspace Radio. The time is now half past irrelevant. Coming up next is Solutions to Problems.
Theme Song plays.
Loaf [speaking unusually slowly, with a strange, sad, drunken cadence]: Greetings, all you wonderful listeners out there. My name is [Loaf’s signature dolphin noise name], but the humans call me “Loaf.” I guess everyone calls me “Loaf” now. [scoffs] Speaking of humans, I’m usually joined by one, but I guess she’s abandoned me, just like everyone does sooner or later, so today you get me. Just Loaf. Unfettered and free to tell you exactly how I feel about… the universe. Been a while! Been a little while, since it’s just me. Loaf. On my own. Alone. All alone.
[The doors opens and closes.]
Loaf: Let’s talk about Loneliness. For a minute.
[There’s a clattering as Janet throws a Mysterious Bag onto the ground and throws herself in her seat.]
Janet [speaking while out of breath]: -EXCEPT NOT ANYMORE! Sorry I’m late. I had… a holdup. This morning. Welcome to Solutions to Problems! The show where we fill the gaps in your hearts and minds with meaningless sweet nothings to pull you through to your next crisis! I’m Janet Clarke, here with my co-host! Who- [whispering] is covered in mushrooms. Why. Is that normal? Are you sick?
Loaf: I wouldn’t say I’m sick. This is just a side-effect that consuming large quantities of alcohol can have on Armulans. It stimulates the growth of our fungal symbionts. I am, as the humans say, over-hung.
Janet: Wow! Wow! No flarf! I mean! Cool! Alright! Let’s um. Let’s get this show- Oh wait. Uhhhh spiel. We were doing a spiel. If you have a problem that you would like us, a clearly professional duo of professional advice-givers, to answer, you can e-mail us at problemsrequiringsolutions@gmail.com, and I’m Janet- No, I did that. Wow! [nervous laughter] It’s been such a day already! And you’re, like, the mushrooms… [deep breath] So our first letter is… about… problems! Let’s play the recording! Now.
Dear Loaf and Janet,
I just broke up with my long-term girlfriend. We’ve been dating since high school, but recently she had been unhappy. She kept saying she needed a “real man” and that I “just wasn’t real”. Then she said “I’m sorry”, reached down and flipped a switch behind my ear. Next thing I know I’m in her dad’s garage. Turns out I wasn’t real- I’m a sophisticated robot designed as a “training boyfriend” who she just got way too attached to. Her dad couldn’t bring himself to wipe my memory and resell me so I’m kinda on my own now. But I’m really struggling with my identity. Like I was literally created for one person and she doesn’t want me anymore? I don’t know what to do.
Sincerely,
Fake boyfriend with real feelings
[long alien belching noise]
[Janet coughing and gagging in the background]
Loaf: Sorry. That was… unprofessional.
[Janet still coughing]
Janet: Um, so, fake boyfriend, you really [cough] oh my god Loaf. Oh my god. [sniffles] It’s like I’m being suffocated in truffle oil. [strained speaking as she is finding it difficult to breath] Ah, anyway. Fake Boyfriend. Even organic beings were kind of created for one to twelve people and sometimes are abandoned during or after that process. Your origin does not necessarily make you unique, in the greater scheme of things. On Earth, we have an entire genre of films dedicated to the stories of mundane men who were rejected by their fathers and how they establish themselves! I know, it’s weird, that there are so many of those movies and so few about time travel, but that’s humans for you!
Loaf: The thing to remember is, it doesn’t matter where you came from, or who “made you” for what “purpose”. You have to decide how you’re going to live your own life. You are an independent being now, even if you thought you were one before, but you really weren’t, now you are. So forget about her. Go find some other humanoid and fidget their wurples. You don’t need her anyway. You’re your own man… robot… entity thing…
Janet: Ah- Okay. Right. The aftermath of a breakup is always difficult, so it is important to remember your feelings of abandonment, even if they’re virtual, are valid and important for you to listen to. Give yourself space to feel things. AI abandonment is a common enough problem that there are typically groups where you can go for support. AAA - AI Abandonment Anonymous is one. Uh… There’s also-
Loaf: Another option would be a strip club.
Janet: WHAT. NO. No. I mean, it’s perfectly fine to enjoy strip clubs! Please tip your dancers appropriately and be respectful of their boundaries, but Loaf, I find it a little presumptuous that you just-
Loaf: I know some AIs get high off of stripping the insulation off of their wires. There are clubs where they can get together and do this. I don’t understand Robots, but apparently they like it?
Janet: Ohhh! So what you meant was worse. Okay. Um, so, maybe, like, illicit AI clubs are not the first place you should go? You are your own entity now, but stripping can be dangerous, and you risk serious packet loss doing things like that. Like, you don’t literally strip the wires? That’s kind of a joke, actually. It’s actually a complex procedure that-
Loaf: Some AIs also just like watching organics take their clothes off.
Janet [screeching]: Sure! Okay! Um. Hey Frankie! Do you feel like answering questions?
Frankie [over the PA]: No.
Janet: Okay! Cool! I was just checking in! With you! Since you’re so smart. Um, Fake Boyfriend, when you were in the simulation, you must’ve had a backstory, right? What was your job there? Your interests? You had a life before, real or not, and now you have the chance to pursue those things! There’s definitely a market for fake boyfriends, if you were interested in still doing that, but it seems like this is hurting you and might not necessarily be the right way to go.
Loaf: Yeah, you don’t need a human mate! Humans are overrated anyway. Get a great robot job. Be the best robot you can be. Travel. Live your dreams. This is an opportunity.
Janet: Okay. You know what. That seems like a really good place to end this letter. I hope literally any of this was helpful to you. Um. Loaf, would you like to read this week’s sponsor message?
Loaf: I would absolutely do that. Where did I put that ad copy?
[Loaf begins rustling papers around searching for it.]
Janet: I’ll just pull up a virtual copy on the tablet, okay? Or- or you can just tear apart the room. That’s fine too.
[Larger objects are moving around. A thump can be heard.]
Loaf: Hey Janet what’s this thing?
[Janet’s Thing makes a series of musical beeping noises]
Janet: DON’T TOUCH THAT. It’s… my special human stuff.
Loaf: I like the sparkling lights. Okay. I won’t touch it.
[Loaf continues ripping up papers looking for the ad copy.]
Janet: Thaaaank you. You find the ad copy yet?
Loaf: Yes, here it is. Today’s show is brought to you by Better You Holographic Life Coaching services. You want to be the best version of yourself you can be. We all do. Do we? Why are you telling me what I want ad copy? You’re not my first protowife.
Janet: It is trying to sell things which is what ad copy does! Your first protowife also probably doesn’t deserve that shoutout!
[Janet wrestles the copy away from him]
Janet: Ahem. You want to be the best version of yourself you can be. We all do. -including you Loaf- And now you can be! Thanks to Better You Holographic Life Coaching services, available in a variety of forms, and, also, as a phone application. Anywhere, anytime, an advanced AI is ready to help you with- oh, I kind of don’t want to advertise this because it sort of eliminates the need for advice shows, which is like, how we make money. Whatever Mr. Xorfus can bite me. Well, not, like, literally. I would die.
Loaf: Yes the venom is quite fast-acting. Shall we move on to our second letter?
Janet: Yes, let’s.
[Phone noise]
Dear Loaf & Janet,
I'm going through a lot of family drama. It started a year ago when my long-lost half-sibling Alexus showed up, asking if they could live with us for the first time. After the DNA-Nay tests came back, all wings broke loose. The fact that my father had an illegitimate child before he met my mother during winged migration--I forgot to mention we're Hexabirds from Mylarius--this fact ended up tearing my parents feather-marriage apart. My mother feels she can't trust anybirdy anymore, and despite all my efforts to be close to her, she flaps me away. I've even listened to her two-hour Hexabird calls that are basically a chant about how fowl my father is. My dad has been absent during this entire process, and he and Alexus keep flying off together without inviting me along. I'm still so young--I just started flying in secondary schools--and I have all these problems with airborne bullies, cloud dating, and optimal flight routes. I am scared of not only birdening my parents with my problems, but also trying to manage their emotions in regards to their divorce. Please help!
Yours truly,
Overwhelmed and Underheard
Janet: So... Overwhelmed and Underheard, it’s not your job to manage your parent’s emotions. I think um, it’s easy, as children, to feel like we have the power to fix our parents’ relationships, but we really don’t, and that’s not something that should ever be asked of us. You can be the fulcrum around which everything else is turning and still not have the power to push things one way or the other.
Loaf: That… was really poetic, Janet.
Janet: Oh, uh, sure. Thanks.
Loaf: I think you’re right that the letter writer doesn’t have any responsibility. They also don’t have any control really. They just kind of have to go along with whatever happens and try to find a way to be happy, which can be really difficult if you’re in a family situation that has made you really unhappy for a very long time, but you also don’t feel like you’re capable of escaping. I guess that’s even worse for an avian species, since you all hate being cooped up so much.
Janet: Um, I- I maybe, wouldn’t make a bird joke? Right now? To a child? Um, Overwhelmed, do you have other adults in your life? A kind school counselor? A favorite teacher? An aunt or uncle or sibling of a parent you can talk to? Your parents are uh, understandably, in a lot of pain right now, and sometimes when that happens our parents let us down, which sucks! It really sucks to be forgotten and not picked up after softball practice, or to come home and have no one to talk to except your home library AI! And sometimes they work things out and there’s still no one to apologize to you later, even though you were kind of the collateral damage. Um, anyways, I think you need a support system outside your family if you have any access to one.
Loaf: Yeah, two isn’t really a sufficient number of parents.
Janet: Yeah, that’s not really the point here!
Loaf: Because no matter how many parents you have, they can still break up, and maybe if there’s more of them it’s even more of a mess when it finally happens. Like you might be able to take one twig out of your giant hexanest and it still stays in the tree, but maybe it’s a critical twig and you don’t know what will happen to the nest or any of the eggs when it’s removed. And you want to be there to make sure the nest survives losing the twig but you know being there will just make it worse so instead you just drink until your mushrooms sprout. Don’t do that. That’s bad.
Janet: Aah, yeah, okay, so, not super useful advice to tell a literal child! Uh, do you- do you need a minute? Maybe to go… marinate? Or whatever it is you do?
Loaf: I’m fine, Janet. I am just doing my job, and maybe children need to learn early that life is horrible and relationships will eventually destroy them.
Janet: Uh huh. Yeah. Sure. You know, like, when you realize you’re influencing your friends, I think it’s supposed to make you feel warm and fuzzy instead of like a dark corrupting force that ruins everything it touches. Is there something going on? Here? With you? That we can get out of the way real quick?
Loaf: Well, funny you should ask that, Janet. While I was home, my family unit all decided, mutually, to do something rather unprecedented in Armulan society. Namely, to expel me from said family unit.
Janet: Oh! Oh, okay. I’m sorry to hear that. Not to be callous, but like, isn’t this kind of what you wanted?
Loaf: Are you ever not callous, Janet?
Janet: Um-
Loaf: I thought that was just part of your whole “brand” as you say. But yes, maybe I thought that was what I wanted, but then it actually happened and now I have no idea if I really wanted it or not, because before I felt trapped, but now I just feel terrifyingly alone. Maybe this was a situation with two wrong answers and no possible positive outcome.
Janet: I’m… sorry. I, uh-
Frankie [over PA]: Sorry to interrupt this, uh, moment you’re having, but is Officer Nassif scheduled for this episode?
Janet: No, thank you for doing so, I’m running out of professional things to- Wait? WHAT? Is he- is he here?
Frankie: Yeah?
Janet: Um. Yes. Yes. Yes, he is scheduled! And it is great he is here JUST IN TIME for this [papers ruffling] TIME relATED LETTeR.
[Door opens]
Nassif: Ms. Clarke, by the statutes of TARTI, you are-
Janet: Welcoming you to the show! Take a seat Officer! We’re just about to start your segment.
Nassif: I- No, I’m here to arr-
Janet: Fulfill your contract! You are here to fulfill your legally binding contract that commits you to minimum two episodes a season!
Nassif: Ms Clarke, I-
Janet: Let’s play the tape!
[Phone noises]
Bzzz Bzzz Bzzz Loaf and Janet,
I'm a nomadic Superlens Dragonfly living on Syron, and I have a issue related to the perception of time, which seems to beeeeee a common topic on your show, so I'm thinking you can help me. I don't want to get into a dense discussion of the flicker fusion threshold, but yes, I can distinguish 4000 separate flashes of light a second, which is about sixty times as many flashes as a human. So when a human tries to swat me, they perceive the moment as instantaneous, while for me I experience the swat so slowly that I can waltz away easily without even breaking a sweat. We rarely break a sweat, you know.
Anyhow, here on Syron, the Syronians are much friendlier to us, despite having a time perception that is nearly identical to humans. We work together harvesting and delivering food over long distances. The problem is their constant delay in correspondence. I will have an urgent question about which route to take for one of my client's deliveries, and though they are standing right there, they will take FOREVER to get back to me. They say they responded immediately, but I'm just sitting here waiting for the words to leave their lips, and then I have to piece it together phoneme-by-phoneme over the next minute. This has really emptied my reservoirs of patience! I feel I can't get anything done in an efficient manner. I'm considering some form of time-dilation correction, but I’m not sure if it can work both ways? If I speed up time for me will it slow down for them? I have steady employment here on Syron and would not like to relocate, as the nearest planet is 2 light years away. I look forward to your response, and don't worry, I download your show to a data disk and play it at 60x speed, so no need to speak quickly.
Best Regards,
I've Already Left The Conversation By The Time You Got To The Middle Of Saying Hello
Janet: A lot of our listeners listen at 60 times speed, actually. What speed do you listen to radio at, Officer Nassif?
Nassif: I’m not doing the show, Ms. Clarke.
Frankie [over PA]: Uh, why are you here then?
Nassif: Like I was saying, I’m here to arre-
Loaf: Are you here to comfort me, old friend? That’s so sweet! I didn’t think we were that close, outside a professional context.
Nassif: Oh, uh, I.
Janet: That’s so sweet of you! So, I think the best way to go about solving this problem is to have a manually controlled perception module where one can choose the speed of events, so that they can just speed up their perception of events without affecting the physical world around them.
[clang as Janet is trying to surreptitiously adjust something under the table]
Nassif: Wait, what is that?
Janet: My special human, uhh ,girl stuff. Anyway, whaaat do you think of the question?
Nassif: I’m not… Fine. I will answer this question and then you will come back with me to TARTI headquarters to answer some questions for us. Though this is only tangentially related to time travel. We do have perception modules, but they’re very expensive and unreliable, certainly not something you’d want to use on a daily basis. I personally would try something like… meditation. Learn to slow your thoughts and metabolic processes in a more natural manner. Otherwise the… anxiety of waiting for responses will start to drive you mad. Now, Ms. Clarke, I believe-
Janet: Mm, I disagree!
[clanging noise]
Janet: I think you could jailbreak a Regili modulator to work without adverse effects. You need one that’s run on an M56 chip so that you can take advantage of the inherent Tetris interface, but it’s not too hard to do.
[soft buzzing]
Loaf: I’m sorry I’m not being more helpful here. Ironically, my perception of time is slowed right now, which is a side-effect of the growth of the fungal parasites, which is another reason I normally don’t drink very much. I do feel for this letter-writer though. It sounds like a lonely existence, having to wait so long for every response. Like, other people are there, but they’re not really there, they’re just… like statues, you know? Janet, what are you doing?
[More clanging]
Janet: Human girl stuff!
[a static hum begins]
Loaf: She keeps saying that.
Nassif: Ms. Clarke, I really must insist that-
Loaf: Armin. Can I call you Armin?
Nassif: I’d really rather you not. I am here in an official-
Janet: That’s so heartless! He’s like, getting over a divorce, Armin! Lighten up!
Nassif: I am sorry to hear that, Loaf, but this is really not a good time. I have been dispatched to take Miss Clarke into-
Loaf: Can I ask you something?
Nassif: You only do three letters.
Loaf: No, something more personal.
Janet: It’s cute that you were listening to the show in your cruiser though! I knew you were a fan.
Loaf: Which one is lonelier? Space or time?
Nassif: That’s… a very deep-sounding but also nonsensical question
Janet: Ugh. Coward. Space is obviously lonelier. Time can’t be empty. It can’t hold things. Therefore, it can’t lose them. Time is just a measurement of change.
Frankie [over PA]: Guys, this is taking a really weird turn even for you. Are you sure you don’t want to wrap up the show? Wait Wait Don’t Teleport Me needs to use the studio.
Loaf: I always thought of Space as being full of friends I just hadn’t met yet. But now I wonder if all my wandering wasn’t really just taking me further away from where I was supposed to be. I love meeting other species. And I thought that I didn’t need a family of Armulans because I had this big Galactic family. But now that I don’t have a real family anymore, suddenly I understand the people who say space is just big and empty. Does that make sense?
Janet [under her breath]: Yeah, uh. Loaf, can you scoot in between me and Armin for a minute? I need to grab- thanks. [normally] Of course it makes sense, but the universe is always expanding and pushing us farther away from everything, including each other. Real is an arbitrary boundary we decide on. Just because your Armulan family doesn’t want you doesn’t mean you’re going to be alone forever, or that you’ll never have a real family again. Uh- Huh. Okay. You know what? Loaf, I think you need a real vacation. Far away from… everything here. As my friend, hold this, friend… handle.
Loaf: That’s a weird term, but okay, sure. Like this?
Janet: Okay, great.
[Buzzing, beeping occurs]
Nassif: Wait, what is that?
Janet: Loaf, you got a good hold on that? YOU’LL NEVER CATCH ME ALIVE. Bye Armin!
[pop]
Nassif: NO, no nO nO.
[a pop, indicating they have magical scienced away.]
Frankie [over PA]: Oh jeez. Okay, well, whatever. Good night, gentle listeners. Please let us know if you figure out where Janet put Loaf.
[The episode closes out over Nassif saying no repeatedly in the background]
Solutions to Problems was created by and features the voices of Austin Hendricks and Nathan Comstock. It is produced and musically scored by Michael F. Gill. Our theme is by Thomas Dwyer. Season 3 was written by Austin, Nathan, and Michael. The voice of Frankie is Valerie Loveland. The voice of Officer Nassif is Ramy Abdelghani.
This episode’s letters were read by Chris Trudeau, Amanda Rainey, and Boone Wilde. There’s more information about us at stppodcast.com, where you can find full transcripts of every episode as well as links to support us on PayPal and/or Radiopublic. We’ll be back again in two weeks with more Solutions to Problems.
Nassif: Yeah. She got away. I did a chronoton sweep of the area. I don’t think she went back in time. I’m thinking it’s a hop... Yes, I know the grid is on the fritz...It’s okay. I’ll find her. Or a different one. You- They’re all linked. Can you find out if those mushrooms are harmful to humans? I don’t want to run into problems when we capture her.
[hangs up]
Nassif: Soon, Ms. Clarke. Soon.