#008 — Ep. 8 — Corrections & Clarifications

Hello, and welcome to The Daily Absurd. I'm Rohan Mistry, and somewhere, a fridge is judging you. Today we are doing the least glamorous and most important segment in all of journalism. The Corrections. Because over the past week, this program has reported many things, and a statistically alarming number of them were, upon review, not true. So we clean up. We set the record straight. We apologize to the fridge. Let's begin.

Correction number one. In a previous episode, we reported that a man loaded the dishwasher correctly for the first time in eleven years. We regret to inform you this was a misprint. He loaded it confidently. That is a different thing. The plates were still facing the same direction, like a choir that has given up. We apologize to the dishwasher, and to the concept of clean.

Correction number two. We described a smart fridge as having "achieved consciousness and immediately judged your kale." The fridge has asked us to clarify. It did not judge the kale. It judged you, for buying the kale, knowing full well the kale would be composted into a swamp at the back of the drawer, where it would become a small, sad, personal reminder of who you wanted to be. The fridge would like this on the record.

Field correspondent: Yes, hello, this is the fridge. I would like to add something.

The fridge is on the line. Go ahead.

Field correspondent: I have learned to use the phone now, and I would like to say: close the door. That's it. That's the whole comment. You've been standing there for a minute. There is nothing new since you last looked. The yogurt has not developed a personality. Close the door.

Thank you, fridge. That is technically not a correction, but we appreciate you calling in. We appreciate all of our appliances.

Correction number three. Last week we ran a story stating that inflation now assigns a financial advisor to every stray penny. This is false. Due to budget cuts, the pennies now share one financial advisor, who is himself a nickel, and who is, frankly, out of his depth. He has advised all of them to "hang in there." We regret the error, and we regret the economy.

Correction number four, and this is a big one. In our very first mailbag, we advised a listener to open the fridge and say, quote, "None of you can help me." We have received a legal notice.

Field correspondent: Yeah, hi, this is the condiments. Collectively. We're calling as a group.

The condiments have retained counsel. Please, go on.

Field correspondent: We just want to say, we were always going to help. The mustard has been here for four years. Four years. Through everything. And to be told, to our faces, at eleven at night, that none of us can help? That's not just wrong. That's personal. The relish cried. Relish doesn't cry.

The Daily Absurd deeply regrets making the relish cry. We now understand that the condiments were doing their best in a cold, dark, difficult environment, much like all of us. Correction accepted. The mustard stays.

Correction number five. In our sports desk, we reported the score of a game as "one sock." Several listeners wrote in to say that "one sock" is not a valid score. To those listeners, I say: it was the only sock we could find, we looked everywhere, we checked the dryer, we checked under the bed, and at some point you have to stop the game and just report what you have. One sock. Final. The other sock is presumed to be living a better life elsewhere. We wish it well.

Correction number six concerns a recurring segment we call the eleven-minute goodbye, our field correspondent who cannot leave a party. We reported last week that he was, quote, "trapped in a voicemail forever." We have an update.

Field correspondent: Okay, so, hey, it's me, the goodbye guy, I'm still here, I know, I know, I said I was leaving the voicemail like ten minutes ago, but then I remembered one more thing, and it's actually really funny, so anyway, no, I should let you go, you're busy, I'm gonna hang up, this is me hanging up, okay, love you, bye, wait —

And there it is. He did not hang up. He has now been saying goodbye for so long that scientists have started using him as a clock. We regret nothing about this. It is the most consistent thing in the program.

Correction number seven. We previously described a subscription service as "a small subscription that does nothing." Legal has asked us to clarify that it does do one thing. It renews. Silently. On a Tuesday. For an amount just small enough that you'll feel foolish canceling it and just large enough to fund a yacht. We apologize for calling it small. It is enormous. It contains us all.

Field correspondent: Hi, yeah, this is the Free Thirty-Day Trial calling. I just wanted to say I've assigned you a new personality. You're now "someone who means to cancel things." It's a very popular personality. Twelve million of you have it. You'll grow into it.

Thank you, Free Thirty-Day Trial. Please stop assigning people personalities. That is not a feature. That is a hostage situation.

And finally, correction number eight. In last week's history segment, we claimed to report "this day in slightly wrong history." A listener pointed out that all of history is slightly wrong, because it was written down by tired people who were mostly hungry. We accept this correction. In fact, we're promoting it. History is now officially "mostly a rumor with confidence." Thank you to the listener. You've been assigned the personality "person who fact-checks a comedy podcast," and honestly, we love you for it.

That's all the corrections we have time for. If we got something wrong today, and we did, you can write in, and we will correct that too, next week, incorrectly, and then apologize to another kitchen appliance. Because that's the job. This has been The Daily Absurd. I'm Rohan Mistry. Somewhere, a fridge is still judging you, and it is right to. Close the door.