TRANSCRIPT
Office Ladies | Episode 313 - Best of Office Ladies Deep Dives
Jenna [00:00:04] I'm Jenna Fischer,
Angela [00:00:05] and I'm Angela Kinsey.
Jenna [00:00:06] We were on "The Office" together,
Angela [00:00:08] and we're best friends.
Jenna [00:00:09] And now we're doing the ultimate Office lover's podcast, just for you.
Angela [00:00:13] Each week we will dive deeper into the world of The Office with exclusive interviews, behind the scenes details, and lots of BFF stories.
Jenna [00:00:21] We're the Office Ladies 6.0.
Jenna [00:00:00] Hi everybody.
Angela [00:00:01] Hi! Happy Wednesday!
Jenna [00:00:03] Happy Wednesday. We have all had a very eventful morning, in our own ways.
Angela [00:00:09] We just had a clunky morning, didn't we? I mean, Sam has the craziest story.
Jenna [00:00:14] Yeah, Sam, I think you win.
Angela [00:00:16] Yeah.
Sam [00:00:16] Yeah, someone stole my laundry. Someone stole my clean, dry laundry out of the machine and my laundry basket out of the laundry.
Jenna [00:00:25] And your basket?! I didn't know that part.
Sam [00:00:26] That's how I know it's on purpose. It's someone that is intentionally stealing it.
Angela [00:00:29] Oh yeah, this is a premeditated laundry thievery.
Sam [00:00:33] I needed those clothes, too.
Jenna [00:00:34] This is within your building, right?
Sam [00:00:37] Yeah! Yes.
Jenna [00:00:38] So what is the plan here, and is this a case for Mom Detectives, and are there any cameras?
Sam [00:00:44] Well, here's the thing. I need your help. What type of note do I put up? I need it because I need it to be aggressive, but I also need it to be passive.
Jenna [00:00:51] I will help you.
Angela [00:00:53] Well, Jenna can do the aggressive and I'll do the snark.
Sam [00:00:55] Okay, great.
Angela [00:00:56] And we'll compose this note. You want to start it off, Jenna?
Jenna [00:01:01] My first thought is that you come in strong and you open with something like, "To the laundry thief:"
Angela [00:01:07] Hmm, okay.
Jenna [00:01:08] But now I'm wondering about that. Is that the right move?
Sam [00:01:11] Where does that end, though? Like, "Meet me outside at noon?"
Jenna [00:01:15] It's sort of like, "I would really like my laundry back. No questions asked. Please put it back in the laundry room along with my laundry basket."
Sam [00:01:24] Okay.
Angela [00:01:26] I might start it also, something like this. "On Thursday, September 3rd, at (whatever time it was), my entire clean laundry and my laundry basket were stolen (or taken) out of this room."
Sam [00:01:40] Okay.
Jenna [00:01:41] "Went missing."
Angela [00:01:42] "I would very much like my clothes back and the laundry basket. No questions asked, please leave them here. If not, I will start asking around."
Jenna [00:01:54] "I will notice if you're wearing my clothes."
Sam [00:01:56] Can I post a picture of you two? "If not, I will get these two involved."
Angela [00:01:59] Yes, yes.
Jenna [00:02:03] Two Mom Detectives. I mean, that might be a bad idea because we do not have a great reputation for solving cases.
Angela [00:02:10] This is true, Sam. We will have snacks. We'll never find your clothes.
Sam [00:02:14] True, true, true.
Jenna [00:02:16] Could we stake out his laundry room with some snacks?
Sam [00:02:19] This is becoming a slumber party, so fast. Yeah, if we're gonna do that, we might as well watch "Lord of the Rings." All three Lord of The Rings.
Angela [00:02:25] No, here's what we do.
Sam [00:02:27] Get pizzas, yeah.
Angela [00:02:28] Yes. Here's what we do is we get some nice clean laundry and a nice new basket and we just leave it there.
Sam [00:02:35] And set a trap?
Angela [00:02:36] And set trap. And then we hide out in the bushes, as we do.
Jenna [00:02:40] Yeah.
Sam [00:02:40] Sure.
Angela [00:02:41] And we wait, stakeout style.
Sam [00:02:44] Great.
Jenna [00:02:45] I'm for this. Alright.
Angela [00:02:47] Alright, it is gonna be weird though, Sam. I feel like your clothing is very uniquely you.
Sam [00:02:52] I know, yeah! Someone got a bunch of sleeveless Misfit shirts that they're not gonna wear.
Angela [00:02:57] Damn it.
Jenna [00:02:58] It's very strange.
Sam [00:02:59] Yeah.
Angela [00:02:59] I mean, mine is lame in comparison. I just left the house in a rush and distracted and I didn't have my normal bag. You know how you pack your normal bag? It was upstairs and I was rushing out. I just grabbed a different bag, threw all my stuff in it and then I got in the car and I drove away. I was like, "Wait, I don't have any of my things," and I had to drive back home. I didn't take it out the door with me. I don't know. And then Jenna, you had a total snafu.
Jenna [00:03:26] I spilled an entire cup of coffee all over my car. And when I texted the thread, Matt comes in hot and he's like, "Is this because you drink coffee out of a lidless ceramic mug?"
Angela [00:03:40] Oh yeah.
Matt [00:03:40] I was just connecting the dots.
Jenna [00:03:42] And I was like, "No, this one actually had a cover." [sighs]
Angela [00:03:46] Meanwhile Matt has been sick, but you're doing a little better. So we've had a wonky start this week.
Jenna [00:03:52] But we're gonna have a great episode. Today's episode is a celebration of a few of the deep dives that we have taken on Office Ladies over the years. We get a lot of mail about our deep dives and we wanna share a couple. The first one is from Dawn T. in British Columbia who said, "I love your podcast. I have listened to every episode and I am always so excited when new ones are released. Thank you for coming along with me on countless walks, drives, flights, et cetera. I have learned so much about my favorite show and also about so many other random fascinating things through all your deep dives and tangents. I could listen to you both all day.'
Angela [00:04:32] Dawn, I love that. Well, we also got this from Liz P. in Nashville, Tennessee. Liz says, "Hey Office Ladies, a long time listener, first time emailer. I'd just like to say that I absolutely love you ladies. I'm nearing the end of my third re-listen." Oh my goodness.
Jenna [00:04:49] Amazing.
Angela [00:04:50] Wow. And Liz goes on to say, "From your deep dives to your soap boxes and everything in between, you ladies have taught me so much. I love re-watching episodes with my boyfriend and telling him all the backstory that he didn't ask for." And then in parentheses, Liz says, "(He loves to hear it though, cause he's the Josh/Lee to my Angela/Jenna.) Thank you so much for being a strong, empowering, safe place for me and so many others. Love you amazing ladies so much."
Jenna [00:05:19] So we thought, why not revisit some of our favorite deep dives. This is for all of y'all who love these. Angela, I know we got a letter from one listener who's wanted us to do this episode for a while now.
Angela [00:05:31] Yes, Joshua S. from Los Angeles, California, wrote in and said, "Hey, ladies. I am married to one of you, and I have been saying for a really long time, 'Will you please do the best of deep dives?' I've literally said this for two years. And then some other people write in and you decide to do it. Sincerely, longtime listener, Joshua S."
Jenna [00:06:00] [laughing] Oh my gosh. I know, when we decided to do this, you told Josh we were gonna do this and he was like, "Wait, what?!"
Angela [00:06:08] Because he has been saying this and we've been like, "No, what, no, no one..." And then we decided to do it. He was like, "I am literally shouting, 'I love the deep dives.'"
Jenna [00:06:20] Oh, it's very sweet. Well, when we decided to do this episode, it kind of got me wondering, what was our first deep dive?
Angela [00:06:27] Mm-hmm.
Jenna [00:06:28] My memory is that Angela's "Fear Factor" was our first deep dive. We had done deep dives on Office related things, but Angela's Fear Factor Tangent was our off-topic deep dive.
Sam [00:06:42] I don't know if I clocked the first time. It seems like something that's always been there.
Angela [00:06:46] Joshua Snyder co-signs that. He said it was Fear Factor and he said, "I'll never forget it because it was really gross."
Jenna [00:06:53] Yeah, well, it's from our breakdown of "The Carpet," which is from season two. It's episode 20 of Office Ladies. I think we should hear it. But yes, warning, it is a little mature for anyone who might be listening with kiddos.
Angela [00:07:09] Yes, this might get the E for explicit. Not because of me, because of the subject matter.
Jenna [00:07:15] Yeah, let's hear it.
Angela [00:07:23] I did a deep dive on Fear Factor. Why, Jenna? Why did I do a deep-dive on Fair Factor?
Jenna [00:07:27] I don't know, this has started to happen to us. Where something's mentioned in an episode and then we spend hours watching clips or researching things on websites.
Angela [00:07:36] Oh my gosh. It was like you watching all the videos of the Hooters birthdays. I watched these Fear Factor clips. You guys, it was like, "Okay, eat this dried horse rectum." I'm not kidding.
Jenna [00:07:47] Yeah.
Angela [00:07:48] I'm not kidding, or intestine or something. I looked up why it got canceled. It's so gross.
Jenna [00:07:55] What happened?
Angela [00:07:56] I don't even think we can say it here.
Jenna [00:07:57] What happened? It got canceled because of an incident?
Angela [00:08:01] Yes, and they didn't air it. But it's why it got canceled and Joe Rogan has talked about it. It's so gross.
Jenna [00:08:07] What?!
Angela [00:08:07] Okay. This episode is called the "Hee Haw" episode. You had two choices, you could drink donkey pee or donkey semen. That is horrible, Jenna. That is horrible.
Jenna [00:08:21] Did they do it?
Angela [00:08:22] They did! They did it. And one guy said as he started drinking, he vomited back in his own cup.
Jenna [00:08:29] Oh, God!
Angela [00:08:29] It's horrible!
Jenna [00:08:31] Oh my god!
Angela [00:08:32] It's horrible! How how did this get made? I mean, who was like, "Yeah, that's a great idea." Also, how did they get the donkey jizz?
Jenna [00:08:40] Oh! Oh, Angela!
Angela [00:08:42] I'm sorry! It was my first thought! "Whose job was that?"
Jenna [00:08:48] Wow. No.
Angela [00:08:50] No.
Jenna [00:08:51] I don't think so.
Angela [00:08:53] No, not happening.
Jenna [00:08:56] Um, next up in the episode... Wow...
Angela [00:08:59] Sorry.
Jenna [00:09:01] Did everyone do it? What happens if you don't do it, you're out?
Angela [00:09:05] I don't know. I know there's the contest and if you do it,ultimately, whatever all the challenges are. I don't know how people get picked but whoever does the challenge if they don't do it, they're out. It was a crazy show. Crazy. Alright. I am looking in the booth where Sam and Cody are sitting.
Jenna [00:09:25] They seem sad.
Angela [00:09:27] I've ruined their day. You guys, I just... This was such a big deal for Michael to be like, "This is my Fear Factor audition tape." I was like, "Oh yeah, what was that show again?" I just started looking it up. That was one of the first things that came up. Anyway you're welcome. Where are we?
audio cue [00:09:40] [musical sting]
Sam [00:09:47] I haven't heard that in two or three years, and I'm just as sad. It bummed me out just as much.
Angela [00:09:54] I'm so sorry. Two or three years, Sam? That's probably, what, six years ago?
Sam [00:10:01] Yeah.
Jenna [00:10:02] Wow. Yeah.
Angela [00:10:04] Well, glad you all got to relive it here today.
Sam [00:10:06] Thank you for that.
Jenna [00:10:06] And that is what started our deep diving.
Angela [00:10:09] Our tangential deep dives, yeah. And then Jenna, you really locked in. You're like, "Wait, we can do this?" You can just see something in an Office episode and then be curious and share about it? And you really leaned in. You started doing a lot of deep dives. They're fantastic. But the thing that I thought was so cute is you were so excited at the beginning. You were like, "We need a sting. We need a deep dive sting." And your son, who was so little at the time, wanted to do a sting for us. And you recorded it at home and we used to play it. Do you remember?
Jenna [00:10:43] Yes, and you mentioned you wanted to play it today, and I have not heard it in so long, I can't wait.
Angela [00:10:50] It's so precious. Can we hear it?
audio cue [00:10:54] [little boy singing] You've got a deep, you've got a dive. You put them together, get a deep dive!
Jenna [00:10:59] Oh my gosh, his little voice. His little voice! I mean, he's a freshman in high school now, Ange!
Angela [00:11:04] He's a teenager, I know!
Jenna [00:11:06] Totally different voice now. Oh, precious.
Angela [00:11:10] Precious, but anyway, you got super into deep dives and now let's revisit some of them, lady, yours and mine.
Jenna [00:11:17] Yes, we're gonna take a break and when we come back, we will be playing some of our favorite deep dives, but also giving you some new info we uncovered.
Angela [00:11:25] That was very interesting. I'm excited to share and I can't wait to hear yours.
Jenna [00:11:30] Same.
audio cue [00:11:30] [musical sting]
Jenna [00:11:46] Alright, we are back. Lady, should I go first?
Angela [00:11:50] Yeah.
Jenna [00:11:51] I really wanted to revisit my deep dive on dueling. It was one of my fast facts for when we broke down the episode, "The Duel."
Angela [00:11:58] Mm-hmm.
Jenna [00:11:59] Right? Season five, episode 12 of The Office. It was episode 88 of Office Ladies. As you all know, in The Duel, Dwight and Andy duel over Angela.
Angela [00:12:11] Yes.
Jenna [00:12:12] So here we go, dueling deep dive:
audio cue [00:12:22] [musical sting]
Jenna [00:12:22] Alright, fast fact number three, the history of dueling.
Angela [00:12:28] What?
Jenna [00:12:31] First of all, I would just like to say I am not a historian. I'm just a lady with Google.
Angela [00:12:36] You're just a delightful lady that loves to Google.
Jenna [00:12:39] That's right. But I did read about four to five (what seemed like reputable) websites on the subject of dueling. Here is what I have pulled together.
Angela [00:12:50] Okay.
Jenna [00:12:51] Dueling seems to have originated in medieval Europe. Nobles would defend their honor in man-to-man battles.
Angela [00:12:59] Well, listen, if you watch "Outlander," you know that's true.
Jenna [00:13:01] I don't.
Angela [00:13:03] Come on, Sassenach! Come on!
Jenna [00:13:08] [giggles] Well, in 1777, a group of Irishmen codified the dueling practices. They wrote a document of rules, and listen to what they called it. They called it "Code Duello."
Angela [00:13:24] I'm pretty sure that's a type of dessert you can get. "I'll have the code duello, thanks. I love the lemon flavor."
Jenna [00:13:34] It consisted of 26 very specific rules outlining all aspects of the duel, including the time of day during which challenges could be received, the number of shots or wounds required in order to win.
Angela [00:13:49] I feel like Dwight would have known these 26 rules of dueling because he had the "40 rules all Schrute boys have to learn before they're five." He loves rules. I feel Dwight knows about these dueling rules.
Jenna [00:14:01] He must.
Angela [00:14:02] Right? He suggested the duel.
Jenna [00:14:04] Oh, I'm sure he knew. I'm sure that some of these rules have made their way into the Schrute life.
Angela [00:14:11] Into the Schrute 40 rules.
Jenna [00:14:12] Yes. The first recorded duel in America took place in 1621 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Then America created their own set of dueling rules. They were written by South Carolina Governor John Wilson in 1838. So, in a typical American duel, each party has to act through a second. I know this from the musical "Hamilton."
Angela [00:14:46] Yeah, yeah. Oh, like you have your partner that goes with you.
Jenna [00:14:49] You have a second. That's right.
Angela [00:14:51] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And don't you get to bring a medic? Like a doctor? Oh, that's in Outlander. Nevermind.
Jenna [00:14:57] That wasn't in there.
Angela [00:15:00] Jamie would bring Sassenach with him. Okay. Never mind. Go.
Jenna [00:15:02] I don't know about that. I only read four to five websites. If we have a historian, perhaps they would know.
Angela [00:15:10] You should watch Outlander, but don't watch it with your children around.
Jenna [00:15:14] Okay. So listen, if a man felt like his honor had been insulted, he would tell his second to challenge the offender to a duel. You do not do it yourself. You send your second. The main duty of the second is to try to create a reconciliation, to avoid violence.
Angela [00:15:31] Oh, so that person's like the mediator.
Jenna [00:15:33] Yeah, I mean, they're literally doing what all therapists tell us not to do, which is to triangulate communication in order to solve conflicts. But whatever, this is dueling.
Angela [00:15:44] I'm the second in my family. I'm often the person sent in to smooth over the other stuff.
Jenna [00:15:51] I think a lot of people have that position in their family, I get it. But if the second goes and said, "Hey, my guy is offended by you and wants to duel," and the person says, "Great, we're dueling," the recipient of the duel challenge gets to pick the weapons and the time and the place of the dual. So, for example, James Shields, an Illinois attorney general, challenged future president Abraham Lincoln to a duel.
Angela [00:16:22] Oh my gosh!
Jenna [00:16:25] Lincoln accepted the duel and he chose the broad sword as their weapon. James Shields was like, "What the F? That's insane, nevermind, forget it." And he called off the duel. So bold move by Lincoln. Lincoln was like, "I'll show up and I'm bringing my sword to the duel, do you wanna?"
Angela [00:16:47] Lincoln was like, "I'm tall and I'm a swordsman."
Jenna [00:16:51] James Shields was like, "Never mind. You know what, I'm good."
Angela [00:16:55] "You know what? I thought about it and I'm okay."
Jenna [00:16:59] Here's one. This one really got me. I guess Andrew Jackson was very famous for dueling. Lots of duels, this guy. Experts placed his number of duels maybe as many as a hundred. A hundred!
Angela [00:17:12] Was Andrew just pissing everyone off? He was just pissin' everyone off. Everyone wanted to fight him.
Jenna [00:17:17] His most famous duel was with Charles Dickinson. Not to be confused with Charles Dickens, the writer.
Angela [00:17:23] Oh, I was going to say. Did you see my look on my face? I was like, "Wait, wait what?"
Jenna [00:17:26] Yeah, no, Charles Dickinson, he was a horse breeder. I guess these two guys hated each other. Dickinson accused Jackson of cheating on a horse bet, and he challenged Jackson to a duel. Jackson was like, "I'll be there. The weapon is pistols." But here's the thing, Dickinson was known to be one of the best shots in the nation. So I don't know why Andrew Jackson picked pistols, but he did. I think maybe it was just, I don't know, some swagger or something, right? So they show up. They duel. Dickinson got off the first shot. It hit Andrew Jackson in the chest. He's bleeding from the chest, OK? All accounts are that he held one hand to the wound, lifted his pistol, fired at Dickinson. His pistol misfired. It didn't shoot.
Angela [00:18:18] Oh.
Jenna [00:18:18] So Andrew Jackson re-cocked his pistol, fired again and kill Dickinson. This was very controversial, Angela. In the rules of dueling, you only get to fire once.
Angela [00:18:29] That's what I was gonna say, aren't you one and done? And I know nothing about dueling, but I was pretty sure that's the case. Thank you, Hamilton.
Jenna [00:18:36] That's right. Yeah, I don't know. Andrew Jackson lived, he got away with it, and was later elected president of the United States.
Angela [00:18:46] I have a question.
Jenna [00:18:47] What is it?
Angela [00:18:49] If you're Charles Dickinson, you see Andrew Jackson pointing his gun at you to fire, do you run a zigzag? Can you step out of the way, or do you just have to stand there, fingers crossed it doesn't hit you? Is there no movement allowed? Can I not jump around?
Jenna [00:19:06] [laughing] I don't know! I don't know.
Angela [00:19:09] Because I'm not going to stand in one place, if you're pointing a pistol at me. I'm going to get moving.
Jenna [00:19:13] Yeah. I think you're not allowed, Ange. The last duel of record in the United States was in 1859. Here's who it involved.
Angela [00:19:26] Was it more white men shooting at each other?
Jenna [00:19:27] It sure was, lady. Not only that, it was a United States Senator and a retired Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court.
Angela [00:19:35] Oh.
Jenna [00:19:36] Way to go, guys. No one died in this duel because (listen to this madness) one guy's gun jammed, and then the other guy fired his gun, but it hit the other guy in his gold pocket watch, and they called a truce.
Angela [00:19:51] There you go.
Jenna [00:19:52] That was the last duel in America.
Angela [00:19:54] Alright. Now if Andrew Jackson was there, he would have unjammed his gun and shot at you again?
Jenna [00:20:01] Right.
Angela [00:20:02] Yeah, I would like to say I don't know who Andrew Jackson's second was but I think they did a real s***ty job.
Jenna [00:20:08] What about Dickinson's second? Dickinson second tried to make a case that Andrew Jackson, I think should be tried for murder, but no one wanted to hear about it.
Angela [00:20:19] That was very interesting. I liked all your dual trivia.
Jenna [00:20:22] Thank you. I enjoyed researching my dual trivia.
Angela [00:20:25] I mean, there is just a part of me that would do a history podcast with you, but we get everything slightly wrong.
Jenna [00:20:33] Well, we're already doing that. I'm sure there are at least 12 things I did wrong in this Fast Fact number three. You know what? It's like our version of "Drunk History," but we're not drunk.
Angela [00:20:44] Yes.
Jenna [00:20:45] We're just well-meaning ladies who Google and tell you history.
audio cue [00:20:49] [musical sting]
Angela [00:20:57] Well, that was so interesting. I still find it fascinating, but you said you found even more stuff.
Jenna [00:21:05] Well, we had questions. I didn't want to leave us hanging, lady.
Angela [00:21:07] We did.
Jenna [00:21:07] For example, we wondered if you bring a medic to a duel.
Angela [00:21:12] And?
Jenna [00:21:12] And you do. It actually goes back to the Code Duello. It was the job of the second to arrange the medic. I mean, can we talk about that, though? What a thankless job it is to be a second, and a very big job. First, you had to try and mediate. You had to pick the time and location of the duel. You had find a doctor, as if you don't have anything else going on in your life. Could you imagine, imagine you are Andrew Jackson's best friend. A hundred duels? What? So much drama!
Angela [00:21:49] He was so busy.
Jenna [00:21:50] So busy!
Angela [00:21:51] Being the second.
Jenna [00:21:53] How did Andrew Jackson have time for 100 duels?
Angela [00:21:56] I don't know.
Jenna [00:21:57] Lady, could you imagine if you were my second?
Angela [00:22:00] No.
Jenna [00:22:01] And I was like, "Lady, I have another duel."
Angela [00:22:03] II'd be like, "You need to work on some anger management because I don't have time for all these duels." It's like having a horrible bridezilla and you're the maid of honor. And she's like, "Sorry, I'm getting married eight times. Deal with it."
Jenna [00:22:18] "And changing my mind all the time." Lots of drama.
Angela [00:22:20] Lots of drama.
Jenna [00:22:22] Alright, well, anyway. Angela, you also wondered, this made me laugh out loud, do you have to stand in one place and wait for the other person to fire? Or can you move around and "zigzag?"
Angela [00:22:35] Yeah.
Jenna [00:22:36] Well, I couldn't find a firm rule about it, but it was considered proper dueling etiquette to stand in the designated firing spot and not zigzag. But it did not say how you have to stand. This is why a lot of people in pistol duels, they stand sideways. Because then you're a smaller target.
Angela [00:22:58] Right.
Jenna [00:23:01] But you're supposed to stand there. And everyone, I found out that dueling was not just for men.
Angela [00:23:08] Women dueled?
Jenna [00:23:09] Women dueled, it was rare. I'm gonna share about two women duels that I found.
Angela [00:23:16] Okay?
Jenna [00:23:16] This one is amazing. In 1892, there was a duel between Princess Pauline von Metternich and Countess Anastasia Kielmansegg. I'm sure I'm pronouncing that wrong. But it is the duel between the princess and the countess.
Angela [00:23:37] Where? Where did this happen?
Jenna [00:23:39] In Austria.
Angela [00:23:40] Okay.
Jenna [00:23:41] The reason that this duel happened was because the two women had a disagreement. Over floral arrangements.
Angela [00:23:49] Holy crap. Wow.
Jenna [00:23:52] Yeah.
Angela [00:23:53] This would have been their version of reality TV. They'd be like, "You guys. It's going down over florals."
Jenna [00:24:00] They were asked to create a floral arrangement for the Viennese International Exhibition of Music and Theater. But here's the thing, Princess Pauline was the flower lady. She was known for it. This was her thing, flowers. Everyone knew it.
Angela [00:24:21] So she was gonna have a kick-ass, huge, amazing flower arrangement.
Jenna [00:24:26] Until the Countess had a bunch of other ideas. Princess Pauline was so into flowers that she founded something called the Flower Parade that went down the main street of the Prater in Vienna. It started in 1886 and it continues to this day.
Angela [00:24:44] I would love this. Why don't I know about this?
Jenna [00:24:47] I don't know, we should go.
Angela [00:24:49] Oh, can we?
Jenna [00:24:50] Yes!
Angela [00:24:51] Oh, we have so many places we have to go to. Go on.
Jenna [00:24:55] So this lady, she was the flower person. They get in a disagreement. They decide to duel. The weapons,
Angela [00:25:03] Wait, I'm sorry, time out. What? There's no talking it out, about the flower arrangements? We go straight to dual?
Jenna [00:25:11] It got so heated, lady.
Angela [00:25:11] Wow.
Jenna [00:25:12] It got so heated. These women could not figure it out. So they agreed to duel. Their weapon was swords.
Angela [00:25:22] Swords.
Jenna [00:25:23] Swords. They decided the winner would be determined by first blood. So not to the death. This was a thing with duels; with if you dueled with swords, it was just to first blood.
Angela [00:25:34] So one of them could nick the other and be like, "Okay, fine, you win."
Jenna [00:25:41] Yes. I have another element of this duel to share. They did it topless.
Angela [00:25:46] What?!
Jenna [00:25:48] Topless with swords.
Angela [00:25:49] This is reality TV for 1829!
Jenna [00:25:53] This is because the duel was overseen by a Baroness who had a degree in medicine and she told the women that they should duel topless because she had seen how many times someone had gotten just a fragment of dirty fabric in their skin and it would get infected and could kill you.
Angela [00:26:11] Oh.
Jenna [00:26:12] This duel lasted three rounds. Three rounds.
Angela [00:26:17] How long are the rounds? Who's counting that down? The seconds?
Jenna [00:26:20] I guess so. Princess Pauline won. And lady, I saved the best for last! She was 50 f***ing six years old!
Angela [00:26:32] Yeah, girl!
Jenna [00:26:33] Yeah!
Angela [00:26:34] She knew her flowers, she let herself be sloppy titty, and she won.
Jenna [00:26:43] And she f**king won the duel!
Angela [00:26:45] Wow.
Jenna [00:26:45] And her flower parade continues.
Angela [00:26:49] That's an amazing story. That's a amazing story, lady. I loved it.
Jenna [00:26:54] I have a second one.
Angela [00:26:56] Can it top the topless flower arrangement ladies dueling? There's no way.
Jenna [00:27:02] Probably not, probably not. But this was in 1792 in London. Lady Almeria Braddock challenged Mrs. Elphinstone to a duel in Hyde Park with pistols and swords.
Angela [00:27:21] Wow.
Jenna [00:27:22] Because Mrs. Elphinstone insulted Lady Braddock's age. Braddock said that she was 30 years old.
Angela [00:27:35] Was she lying?
Jenna [00:27:37] Elphinstone said, "More like 60."
Angela [00:27:40] Oh, s**t. Get your pistols, get your swords.
Jenna [00:27:45] So there was a duel.
Angela [00:27:47] She did tack on 30 years.
Jenna [00:27:51] She did. So first they shot pistols and they both missed. Braddock was like, "I'm not satisfied." So they picked up swords. She drew first blood and Elphinstone had to write a letter of apology.
Angela [00:28:05] Wow.
Jenna [00:28:07] Incidentally, just tack it on the end, I also found out about a duel between a French woman and an American woman who got into an argument about who had better doctors, France or America. The things people duel all about.
Angela [00:28:21] People get so pissed off. Relax, everybody.
Jenna [00:28:27] Yeah. Listen, if you want to spend hours and hours and hours of your life researching dueling, the internet does not disappoint.
Angela [00:28:36] Does not disappoint. It sounds like a fun time.
Jenna [00:28:38] It actually really, really was.
Angela [00:28:40] Well, lady, I loved every second of that. I also had a really good time on the Internets. I did.
Jenna [00:28:47] What did it bring you?
Angela [00:28:49] Well, I thought it might be fun to dig a little deeper into one of my deep dives on the color green. Now, to refresh your memory. It was the episode, "Take Your Daughter to Work Day," in season two episode 18, that got me started on this. Dwight is playing the song "Green Sleeves" on his little recorder for the kids who came in to work that day. They're all in the conference room. He mentions Green Sleeves was the song, and I had to look it up, and that led me to this journey about the color green. Let's hear it.
audio cue [00:29:23] [musical sting]
Angela [00:29:23] This is big. This is one of my biggest cards of this episode, which might not be saying much.
Jenna [00:29:29] What is it?
Angela [00:29:29] This is a big card for me. He finishes playing the song and he goes, "That was Green Sleeves. It's an English ballad written about the beheading of Anne Boleyn. OK, so, you know, I did a term paper on Anne Boleyn.
Jenna [00:29:41] In college.
Angela [00:29:42] No, in high school. I love Anne Boleyn. Yes. In high school, senior term paper. But I looked up Green Sleeves. OK. This was fascinating to me. Sorry, about to geek out on you guys a little bit. There is a persistent belief that Green Sleeves was composed by Henry VIII for his lover, Anne Boleyn. Here's what really threw me for a loop. Ready?
Jenna [00:30:02] Yeah.
Angela [00:30:03] There's this other interpretation of the lyrics. Ready? Lady Green Sleeves was a promiscuous young woman, even perhaps a prostitute. At the time, the word green had sexual connotations. Most notably in the phrase, "a green gown," a reference to the grass stains on a woman's dress from engaging in sexual intercourse in a field somewhere.
Jenna [00:30:29] [gasps] "Green is kind of wh**ish."
Angela [00:30:31] "Green is kind of w***ish!" This justifies that whole line for Angela Martin. I freaked out. I was in my, "That's what she said," and I'm like, "Green is w***ish!" I'm sure my neighbors were like, "What is happening? Lady! Green was a dirty color!
Jenna [00:30:48] Great find, Angela.
Angela [00:30:50] Thank you.
Jenna [00:30:51] That is some deep diving historian type work
Angela [00:30:56] On the internets.
Jenna [00:30:57] To prove a reference line from The Office. Well done.
Angela [00:31:01] Thank you.
Jenna [00:31:02] I give you this.
Angela [00:31:03] Thank you.
audio cue [00:31:03] [musical sting]
Angela [00:31:09] So, yes, green is wh***sh.
Jenna [00:31:13] This was such an amazing find.
Angela [00:31:18] Well, I did a little more Googling. First of all, I didn't really share much about the actual song, Green Sleeves, and it is a broadside ballad. Its actual name is "A Newe," but spelled N-E-W-E.
Jenna [00:31:32] N-E-W-E?
Angela [00:31:34] It's old English.
Jenna [00:31:36] Oh, old-timey speaking.
Angela [00:31:38] "A new Northern ditty of Ye Lady Green Sleeves" is the actual name. It was registered by Richard Jones at the London Stationaries Company in September of 1580.
Jenna [00:31:51] This is an old song.
Angela [00:31:52] Old song. I've listened to many versions of it now, lady. I didn't share any of the lyrics when we first talked about this, and I wanted to share just the first stanza. So you really know what was going through (maybe) Henry VIII's mind when he wrote this song. Although that has been disputed, that he wrote it. But still, here we go. "Alas, my love / you do me wrong to cast me off discourteously / for I have loved you well and long, delighting in your company / green sleeves was all my joy / green sleeves was my delight / green sleeves was my heart of gold / and who but my lady green sleeves? / Your vows you've broken / like my heart / oh, why did you so enrapture me? / Now I remain in a world apart / but my heart remains in captivity."
Jenna [00:32:42] You know, something that's landing on me now (and again, I'm sorry to be coming back to time management) but when did he have the time to write this whole thing? This is what you did before screens? You could have duels and you could write long songs and poems and things.
Angela [00:33:03] I mean, that was just one stanza.
Jenna [00:33:05] I know. That's what I mean. It goes on and on.
Angela [00:33:07] It does. So yes, Green Sleeves broke his heart and it did send me on a journey of the color green throughout history. It is fascinating. It could be a whole entire episode, okay? I just want to share a few tidbits though about the color green, alright?
Jenna [00:33:27] Is it weird that green is my favorite color, that I've painted all of my offices green?
Angela [00:33:32] My office is sage green, as you know. We both love green. Our studio, we're sitting in, the walls are green.
Jenna [00:33:39] It's supposed to be the color of creativity.
Angela [00:33:42] Well, it has several themes throughout history. Prosperity, it's often most commonly associated with fertility, the seasons of agriculture, rebirth, growth, right? And then somehow it found its way in literature and art to also have lust, betrayal, jealousy. Let's go back in time a little bit, lady.
Jenna [00:34:05] Okay.
Angela [00:34:07] Let's start with the fact that green has been used in art since the time of ancient Egyptians. They used green earth and malachite to make the color green. For example, the Egyptian god of fertility, death and afterlife, Osiris, was often depicted with green skin. Then green pops up in the Ming dynasty. Laws required male relatives of workers connected to prostitutes to wear green headwear or garments so they could be easily identified by the public.
Jenna [00:34:41] A link to prostitution again.
Angela [00:34:43] Yes. In Chinese history, wearing a green hat signified that a man's wife had been unfaithful.
Jenna [00:34:50] Wow.
Angela [00:34:53] Yeah. Then, in artistic drawings throughout history, the color of the snake in the Garden of Eden is often green and sometimes had a woman's face.
Jenna [00:35:02] That pisses me off.
Angela [00:35:04] I know. I thought this was super interesting: in the Elizabethan era, green was a common color for wedding gowns for brides in the lower or middle class. Interesting. Green then had a resurgence in art during the Impressionist movement, due to advancement in green pigments and paints. It became a very bold fashion color in the 1800's for gloves and dresses. But, oh my goodness, this brought me to how the color green was made. Created in 1775 by this Swedish German chemist, Carl Wilhelm Scheele, if I'm saying that correctly. This was wild to me.
Jenna [00:35:47] It's not just yellow and blue make green?
Angela [00:35:50] He used copper and arsenic to make his color green, making it highly toxic. But people didn't know this. It was cheap and easy to produce, and it vividly mimicked the natural color of green and nature. They used his color in house paints, Victorian wallpaper, cotton dresses, artificial flowers, children's toys, even to color certain foods and sweets. But guess what?
Jenna [00:36:18] But it had arsenic in it?!
Angela [00:36:19] Factory workers, tailors, and residents in rooms with green wallpaper suffered from chronic arsenic poisoning. People that dusted the fake flowers with the green paint and dust experienced skin sores, blisters, respiratory failure and in severe cases, death from inhaling dust and flaking wallpaper particles. So it did fall out of favor in the late 19th century because it became clear it was extremely toxic. And historians think that Napoleon Bonaparte died because of Scheele's green, because they used this toxic pigment in his bedroom wallpaper.
Jenna [00:36:56] Oh my gosh, how did news of this spread? News of the spreads and then can you imagine? You get invited over to someone's house for dinner and oh my gosh, they have green walls. You're like, "Babe, we gotta go. I am not going in there" and you're like, "Don't be rude." It's like, "But I read in the paper about the green. You can't go in any room that's green!"
Angela [00:37:17] And it was everywhere. This is also interesting to me, too, though, about the fact that it was cheap to make, right? This led me to this. You know the UK Parliament, right?
Jenna [00:37:31] [excitedly] Is it green?
Angela [00:37:33] Hold up. It's split into two chambers, right. The publicly elected House of Commons, sometimes called the lower house, and the appointed House of Lords, the upper house. The House of Commons has green seats.
Jenna [00:37:48] Stop it.
Angela [00:37:49] And the House of Lords has red seats, primarily due to centuries-old traditions, right? House of Lourdes, they were the "red." Red was associated to royalty at the time. Then House of Commons were, "commoners." Green, right? And green was historically linked to public meeting places and the common people.
Jenna [00:38:10] Wow.
Angela [00:38:11] Right? To this day, their seats are still green and red.
Jenna [00:38:14] But, like, the seats are...
Angela [00:38:16] They're not the toxic seats. But I just find it very interesting. I have to end this with one last thing. Which is, did William Shakespeare talk about the color green? There are two famous moments. In "Antony and Cleopatra," which was performed in 1607 for the first time, Cleopatra has this famous line that I now want to use.
Jenna [00:38:42] What is it?
Angela [00:38:42] OK. She is reminiscing about her youth, about her inexperienced past and her early romance with Julius Caesar. And she says, "My salad days, when I was green in judgment, cold in blood." This has gone on to become kind of a phrase to talk about your salad days as your early days. Isn't that kind of fun? Don't you kind of want to use that? Just randomly, at back to school night or something? Or a cocktail party?
Jenna [00:39:14] "Those were my salad days."
Angela [00:39:16] Yeah, and then also Shakespeare talked about the green-eyed monster in "Othello."
Jenna [00:39:21] Sure. Yeah.
Angela [00:39:22] "Oh, beware, my lord of jealousy, it is the green eyed monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on." I mean, I could go on and on. I ended up looking up green and the Celtic age and the Green Man. I read a whole thing on Sir Gowan and the Green Knight. It's just fascinating, how this color is just woven throughout history.
Jenna [00:39:47] Well, my question for you is: does Angela know all of this when she says green is w***sh?
Angela [00:39:53] It's very interesting because there's so many positive references to the color green. You could choose to see rebirth and fertility and nature, or you could choose see common and lower class and lustfulness and all that. That might be the filter that Angela Martin was using. I think she knew some of it. I do.
Jenna [00:40:20] I think she did too. Alright, well, I loved that. Everyone, we're gonna take a break and we're going to be back with even more deep dives.
audio cue [00:40:28] [musical sting]
Angela [00:40:41] Okay, we are back and now we have two fun things to share. They're both from our World War II deep dives. I'll start. This was one of my favorite surprises when I was researching things for the podcast. I talk about it in "Lecture Circuit Part One," which is season five, episode 16. I did a deep dive on the Mounds bar. Because it all started with that scene, at the Utica branch, where Pam throws Mounds bars in the conference room as part of the presentations that she and Michael were doing. That led me to look up the origin of the Mounds bar. It was fascinating.
Jenna [00:41:17] I'm so glad you did.
Angela [00:41:19] Let's hear it.
audio cue [00:41:26] [musical sting]
Angela [00:41:27] Well, I couldn't resist, Jenna, when I heard mini Mounds bars, I had to look up the origin of the mini Mounds bar.
Jenna [00:41:34] Oh, I'm fascinated. I love a Mounds Bar. I ate many of the Mounds bars that day, I should say.
Angela [00:41:40] Are you Mounds Bar or Almond Joy?
Jenna [00:41:43] No, no, no. Don't throw any nuts in my dark chocolate and coconut treat.
Angela [00:41:47] Oh, can we play the jingle, please, that will live in your brain forever?
clip: Almond Joy/Mounds Ad [00:41:54] Sometimes you feel like a nut / Sometimes you don't / Almond Joy's got nuts / Mounds don't be good Sometimes you feel like a nut / Sometimes you don't
Jenna [00:42:06] Yeah, I never feel like a nut.
Angela [00:42:08] You never feel like a nut?
Jenna [00:42:09] No.
Angela [00:42:10] I am also a mini Mounds bar person. I love the dark chocolate. I love it. But let's start our story, guys. How did we get the mini Mounds bar? Our story starts with Peter Paul Halajian. He was a candy manufacturer in New Haven, Connecticut in the early 20th century. He was born in Armenia and he immigrated to the US in 1890 and opened a candy shop. He would sell candy bars to the US Army and they would put them in the soldiers' monthly rations during World War I. Then they loved the candy bar so much that when they came home, they wanted more. So after the success of that, he teamed with five other Armenian investors to form the Peter Paul Candy Manufacturing Company. They then made a very smart purchase. They purchased a candy line from candy maker, Vincent Natito, who created the original Mounds Bar. He was selling it for five cents.
Jenna [00:43:07] Oh, full size for five cents?
Angela [00:43:09] They're not very big.
Jenna [00:43:11] But a full-size bar is 2.
Angela [00:43:14] He sold one.
Jenna [00:43:15] It was always a mini?
Angela [00:43:16] It was always a mini.
Jenna [00:43:17] Okay.
Angela [00:43:17] And then Peter Paul actually just starts selling it in a pack of two for ten cents.
Jenna [00:43:22] I wish you could see Angela's hands right now. Two Mounds bars.
Angela [00:43:25] Here, you want to take my pictures? I wanted to show Jenna what it would look like. Too mini Mounds bars.
Jenna [00:43:31] There it is.
Angela [00:43:32] Okay. Well Jenna, during World War II, the Peter Paul Candy Manufacturing Company was faced with a severe shortage of sugar and coconut. Right? World War Two, they had normally been shipped from the Philippines. Then the war broke out. So the company began sourcing coconut from the Caribbean using its own fleet of small vessels to transport coconut supplies to the U.S. They were nicknamed the "Mound's Flea Fleet." There were about seven ships small enough to avoid detailed scrutiny by the German naval war vessels.
Jenna [00:44:08] Gosh, all of this just to get coconut for some candy!
Angela [00:44:11] Wait, it gets better!
Jenna [00:44:13] I have to say, if you're a ship captain during World War II, are you risking your life to bring people coconut?
Angela [00:44:19] Hold up.
Jenna [00:44:20] Okay, I guess you are.
Angela [00:44:23] Apparently this flea-fleet, as it was called, was so small in size it posed no threat to the German U-boats that were patrolling the Atlantic waters. But what the German naval commanders did not know was that the crew of these vessels were also gathering more than coconuts! They were gathering valuable intelligence about the German's fleet movements and sharing it with the American armed forces.
Jenna [00:44:56] Wait one moment. What you're telling me is that while collecting supplies to make one of my favorite candies, these folks were also providing important war intelligence to the United States government during World War II?
Angela [00:45:12] Yeah, the mini Mounds bar. I'm telling you, I was fascinated by all of this. They also dropped all of their other production of candies and just concentrated on the Mounds bar because it was so popular. The US military purchased as much as 80% of their output by 1944. They would package five million candy bars monthly into combat rations.
Jenna [00:45:34] Wow.
Angela [00:45:35] Yeah. And now as we know, over the years, Peter Paul, they added several more things to their line, including the Almond Joy, which are often sold together. But that's the story of the mini Mounds bar. They're now owned by the Hershey company. You can still enjoy them today. Isn't that an amazing story?
Jenna [00:45:54] I would like to enjoy one today.
Angela [00:45:56] So would I. The Mounds Flea Fleet.
Jenna [00:46:00] Wow.
Angela [00:46:01] You guys, you can learn more about it at ConnecticutHistory.org. Fascinating.
Jenna [00:46:05] I have to say, I also love that it's an East Coast candy because it tracks with our show.
Angela [00:46:10] It does.
Jenna [00:46:10] That Michael would be supporting something that originated in Connecticut. Wow.
Angela [00:46:16] There you go. I mean, wasn't that fascinating?
Jenna [00:46:18] The things you did not know you were gonna learn today were that.
Angela [00:46:21] I know!
Jenna [00:46:22] I definitely was not expecting that.
Angela [00:46:31] Amazing. And you know, after listening to that, I went back and looked at my notes and then I went online and I pretty much got it.
Jenna [00:46:39] Lady, I retell that fact at dinner parties because it is such a great little unknown tidbit. This is especially good at Halloween. You're around candy. I love a Mounds bar. You just say, "Oh, actually I have an interesting fact about the mini Mounds bar." It kills.
Angela [00:47:00] It kills, it's just a great little story. Well, I was wondering, was there any other candy used during wartime?
Jenna [00:47:09] Was there?
Angela [00:47:10] Well, let's just say I did find a cool story that might be fun at a party.
Jenna [00:47:16] Okay?
Angela [00:47:16] Not so much wartime, but sort of historical moments. So it's about Twizzlers.
Jenna [00:47:24] What?
Angela [00:47:24] Yes. Alright, so they were first made in 1912 by the Young and Smiley Company. The company that invented Twizzler's is one of the oldest confectionary firms in the United States. Young and Smiley.
Jenna [00:47:36] Young and Smiley.
Angela [00:47:37] Which was trademarked later to be Y and S, okay? But they've been around a really long time. But Twizzler's was kind of little known. Until the 1960's and they became really mainstream.
Jenna [00:47:50] OK.
Angela [00:47:51] Now, there is some great lore, ready? We all know Neil Armstrong's famous quote that he said after landing on the moon during his historic moon landing mission. He said, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." There is rumor that he had a second comment that he said right after that.
Jenna [00:48:16] What? About Twizzlers?
Angela [00:48:18] There's rumor that he said, "I could go for some Twizzlers right now." I mean, the Hershey's company had it on their website. Other people have talked about it. I don't know for sure, but this is the rumor. That he said, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. I could really go for some Twizzler's right now." Also, Twizzler's set a Guinness World Record on July 19th, 1998, for the longest piece of licorice ever made, stretching over 1,200 feet long and weighing 100 pounds.
Jenna [00:48:55] Where on earth is it? Was it edible? I guess it had to be edible.
Angela [00:49:01] It had to be edible.
Jenna [00:49:01] Did a whole bunch of people come and eat it?
Angela [00:49:04] I don't know, I should have looked that up more.
Jenna [00:49:06] I have so many questions about the largest piece of licorice.
Angela [00:49:08] I'll have to look back into that one. Here's the other thing, which put it in a little bit of the sort of world of historical conflict, right?
Jenna [00:49:18] Okay.
Angela [00:49:20] It is documented that in 2016, during the American-Iran nuclear talks, that the American diplomatic team consumed 10 pounds of strawberry Twizzlers.
Jenna [00:49:33] Wow.
Angela [00:49:34] I guess they were stress eating.
Jenna [00:49:36] I guess so. You know, Twizzlers can be used as a weapon. Have you ever thwapped somebody with a Twizzler real hard? It hurts.
Angela [00:49:44] Have you?
Jenna [00:49:45] I feel like my sister and I might have thwapped each other in our youth.
Angela [00:49:49] I mean, that's a random tidbit to know. Just to have ready on the go, Jenna. "Did you know you can hit people with them?"
Jenna [00:49:58] You can. You know, if you thwap somebody with a towel?
Angela [00:50:00] Sure.
Jenna [00:50:02] It's similar.
Angela [00:50:03] Yeah.
Jenna [00:50:03] The Twizzler thwap.
Angela [00:50:05] Well, there goes our Twizzler contract.
Jenna [00:50:07] I guess so. Well, that was very interesting, Angela. I love every time you deep dive food. There have been others that are always delicious. [laughs] Did you like that?
Angela [00:50:20] That was so bad.
Jenna [00:50:21] That was lame. That was such a dad joke.
Angela [00:50:23] You know what? I almost brought Twizzlers in today and I wish I would have, because then we could have -
Jenna [00:50:28] We could have tried to thwap each other.
Angela [00:50:29] We could have tried to thwap each other and seen if it hurt.
Jenna [00:50:32] Yeah, it does hurt a little. Well, lady, as you mentioned, I also encountered an interesting fact around World War II. It was in a deep dive that I did for the "Casual Friday" episode. So Casual Fridays is from Season 5, Episode 26. In it, Michael has made Pam and Ryan salespeople, and the rest of the sales staff is getting upset. So, Dwight calls a secret meeting of the sales staff in the warehouse. He does this in a very unconventional way that led me on a deep dive into invisible ink.
Angela [00:51:10] Fascinating. Fascinating!
Jenna [00:51:12] And very moving.
Angela [00:51:14] Very moving, harrowing, amazing. Survival, fantastic story.
Jenna [00:51:21] Alright, let's listen.
audio cue [00:51:22] [musical sting]
Angela [00:51:29] Dwight is gonna notice this special treatment that Michael is giving them. It's time for him to pass out a secret memo with Invisible Ink.
Jenna [00:51:39] Yes. Where did he get the invisible ink? You might like to know. He says it's urine.
Angela [00:51:44] Yeah, I'm guessing his urine.
Jenna [00:51:46] Yes. He's very frustrated because people don't know how to reveal the invisible urine message.
Angela [00:51:53] Right. They're not savvy to the invisible ink thing.
Jenna [00:51:57] Well, this got me wondering.
Angela [00:51:59] Oh no.
Jenna [00:52:00] I Googled, can you use urine as invisible ink?
Angela [00:52:05] Really and truly at the end of this podcast, I want to print our search history and put it in a frame.
Jenna [00:52:14] [laughing] Please do! Well, I'll have you know that, yes, urine can be used as invisible ink and I discovered the most fascinating story of people using urine as invisible ink and I'm going to share it with you now.
Angela [00:52:33] Oh, okay. I'm reclining and getting my cup of tea. I'm settling in.
Jenna [00:52:38] Alright. During During World War II, there were a group of Polish prisoners who were taken to a Nazi death camp and they used their urine as invisible ink to write letters detailing the horrific experiences that were going on at the camp. They were a young group of young Polish girls and women who had been part of the Polish underground resistance to the Nazi regime. They were captured, they were imprisoned. This group were called the "Rabbits of Ravensbrook" because (and this is horrible) they were subjected to extreme medical experiments, like rabbits. That's why they got this nickname.
Angela [00:53:28] [sounds of discomfort]
Jenna [00:53:29] However, they were allowed to write letters to their families back home once a month, but the letters were heavily censored. One of these women remembered that when she was a child, her and her brother had read this series of books where people were writing messages in invisible ink. So they used their urine to write these secret messages and due to a reaction with the paper, the urine loses its color and becomes invisible, but then if you heat it up, it reveals what was written. In her first letter to her brother, she wrote about these books that they read as kids and he figured out the code and knew how to reveal the hidden messages.
Angela [00:54:17] Oh my gosh.
Jenna [00:54:18] So they came up with this code with their families, which was if the hidden message were revealed, the families would send back a letter with a little piece of blue string. That's how they knew if their messages were being received. Eventually, the contents of these letters and the horrific details of the camp were broadcast on the radio, and the camp was liberated by the Red Army, and the four women who wrote the letters all survived. Their letters were used as evidence to prosecute the guards, and 77 years later, these letters can still be read because 27 of them are still readable and on display in a museum in Lublin.
Angela [00:55:02] Oh my gosh. That is an amazing story.
Jenna [00:55:06] Amazing.
Angela [00:55:07] I was completely riveted.
Jenna [00:55:10] I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it!
Angela [00:55:13] Yeah, I'm just sort of speechless at the gravity of that story and how it's amazing.
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Jenna [00:55:23] Yeah, I mean, just amazing, right?
Angela [00:55:27] Yeah.
Jenna [00:55:28] Well, we got a letter from Konrad F. from Lublin, Poland. He said, "Hello Office Ladies. I've started listening to your podcasts a few months ago while running, and today I listened to the Casual Friday episode. I was shocked because you were talking about the secret letters written using urine during World War II. I checked, and these letters really are on display in one of the museums in my city. I walked by this building probably like a thousand times, and I never knew that. Thanks for the constant entertainment, as well as all the random bits of information I learned through your podcast. I'm still amazed that my city was mentioned, even though it was in one of the weirdest contexts I could have ever imagined."
Angela [00:56:17] Wow!
Jenna [00:56:18] Yeah! I mean, I would love to see those letters. I feel like that would be so powerful.
Angela [00:56:25] Yeah. It would, and I'm so glad they're preserved.
Jenna [00:56:29] Yes. Well, in revisiting this subject of invisible ink, I found that there are a lot of organic (as they are called) substances that can be used as invisible ink. So urine is considered an organic invisible ink and others are lemon juice, milk, and a sugar water solution. So, like urine, all of these are revealed through applying heat.
Angela [00:57:00] Does the milk get smelly?
Jenna [00:57:02] I don't know, I'm not sure. Another organic invisible ink is a candle. Like, I watched a video with a guy who tested different organic invisible inks.
Angela [00:57:15] So do you write with the wax and then take the wax off?
Jenna [00:57:19] Well, he used a birthday candle, so he didn't melt the wax or anything. He just sort of used it kind of like when you write on an Easter egg with a clear crayon and then you put it in the colored water and then it reveals the design. It was kind of that.
Angela [00:57:35] Got it.
Jenna [00:57:36] Because the wax is not revealed through heat, it's revealed through putting a colored substance on top.
Angela [00:57:43] Like batik, that's how they make batik.
Jenna [00:57:48] Yes, exactly. I actually watched him try all of these. This was a fascinating video. I just love that someone, this guy, he was like, "I'm gonna spend my day testing various organic invisible ink methods."
Angela [00:58:06] I love that you watched his video. I love that I watched a video, that was an hour long, on the Green Man throughout carvings on churches all the way to King Charles. His coronation invite had the Green Man on it.
Jenna [00:58:22] Lady, this is a whole other dive.
Angela [00:58:24] I know, I know.
Jenna [00:58:25] I love curiosity.
Angela [00:58:26] I do too. So what else did you watch?
Jenna [00:58:29] Well, the milk was really good because it totally disappeared into the paper. He wrote things in all these organic materials and then he let them dry. The milk, you could not see any evidence that there was anything on this paper.
Angela [00:58:48] That's fascinating.
Jenna [00:58:48] At all. So that was really fascinating. It really disappeared into the paper, and then he revealed it with heat. So I'm just saying Dwight did not need to use his urine. He probably could have just gotten some milk from the fridge.
Angela [00:59:03] Or from his cows on the farm.
Jenna [00:59:05] I mean, yes. He did not to give everyone notes with his urine on them.
Angela [00:59:10] Mm-hmm.
Jenna [00:59:12] But before we go, I thought maybe I could write my own invisible message and reveal it today on Office Ladies.
Angela [00:59:24] Is that why you - She brought in a little tripod and had to set up her phone and was doing all this business and I was like, "Where are you filming?" And she was like, "You'll see."
Jenna [00:59:33] It's gonna be the reveal of my invisible message. I used my urine as invisible ink.
Angela [00:59:46] No, Jenna! Wait, wait, what?!
Jenna [00:59:48] Yeah.
Angela [00:59:49] What?! Wait, I have so many questions. You peed in a cup?
Jenna [00:59:53] I did.
Angela [00:59:54] And then you put it in a writing device?
Jenna [00:59:59] Like the guy in the video, I used a Q-tip. I dipped a Q tip into my cup of urine, and I wrote a secret message, to be revealed today.
Angela [01:00:09] I really hope this ends up in "People" magazine.
Jenna [01:00:13] [laughing] Of course it will. You know that they do me dirty all the time. This will be the thing, of all the things I've shared on the podcast.
Angela [01:00:23] They'll lead with your age, and they'll have
Jenna [01:00:24] A horrible photo of me.
Angela [01:00:26] It'll be like, "Jenna Fischer writes with her own urine, after which she peed and didn't wash her hands."
Sam [01:00:35] That's exactly what I was going to say.
Jenna [01:00:37] I know, I did wash my hands. Okay, so hopefully you can't read it. I'm gonna hold it up now and I wanna see if you can tell me what I wrote. So I wrote "Office Ladies" in Sharpie. Can you read between the lines?
Sam [01:00:51] No.
Angela [01:00:51] No, I see nothing, truly. You have to show that to the camera, right?
Jenna [01:00:57] I'll show that to the Camera. It does take a while. I did a test urine message.
Angela [01:01:03] Did you? Hold up, hold up. She was throwing shade at the Green Sleeves guy for writing a song about heartbreak. "Who has the time?" And you did two urine writing tests.
Sam [01:01:19] We don't know that it's too. This could be test number 40, number 50. Who knows?
Jenna [01:01:22] Here's the thing, guys...
Angela [01:01:24] You did have some free time.
Jenna [01:01:26] I wanted it to work, you know? And I was like, "Oh, what is the best way to reveal the message?" Because you reveal it with heat. This guy had a blowtorch, like, the kind of thing that you put on top of creme brulee. I don't have that.
Angela [01:01:41] So you brought in a candle and a lighter? I see that you brought it in.
Jenna [01:01:45] Yeah, because this was the best. Some suggestions are that you can use a light bulb. I didn't even try that because that just seemed like, come on. And then I did one and I ironed it. That did not work.
Angela [01:02:04] Lady, you put so much time into this. Oh my god. Was your family witnessing all of this trial and error?
Sam [01:02:09] Her family hasn't seen her in three weeks.
Jenna [01:02:12] I'm like Jim with his pranks on Dwight. I used my flat iron. I tried to flat iron it.
Angela [01:02:19] Nothing?
Jenna [01:02:20] No, it wouldn't be revealed. Then I used just a lighter underneath the paper and I set the paper on fire.
Angela [01:02:27] I was gonna say. How did you do that without burning it?
Jenna [01:02:31] It's very difficult. So then I had to be in the cup again and I had a write a whole second invisible message and I was able to get it to reveal itself using a candle. So that's what I brought today. And everyone, we will have to speed up our reaction to this because it's gonna take a minute.
Angela [01:02:53] Okay, make sure you hit record on your phone. Okay, Jenna is lighting the candle. I'll do color commentary.
Jenna [01:03:02] Going to be a lot of commentary. Now I just have to try not to set the paper on fire, as I did a home.
Angela [01:03:09] I will point out there are water sprinklers over our heads. We could get doused.
Sam [01:03:14] Yes. I think I see a D or a C.
Jenna [01:03:19] Yes.
Sam [01:03:20] Oh wait D-E.
Angela [01:03:22] D E, okay we have a D and an E, everybody.
Sam [01:03:27] I can see the second E. You can see it.
Angela [01:03:29] D-E-E.
Jenna [01:03:31] Okay, I think you're starting to see it.
Angela [01:03:32] I can see it.
Sam [01:03:33] "Deep dive," yeah.
Jenna [01:03:34] Okay, so after eight long minutes, my message has been revealed. Ready for the reveal, everyone? Here it is.
Angela [01:03:45] Alright. "Office Ladies, deep dives."
Sam [01:03:48] That's awesome.
Jenna [01:03:49] Yeah.
Angela [01:03:51] Way to go, lady.
Jenna [01:03:52] Thank you. I have a question for you guys.
Angela [01:03:56] Yes.
Jenna [01:03:57] I think it kind of smells
Angela [01:04:00] It smells like burnt urine. That's what it smells like. I thought of it immediately. I was like, "This smells like if you took pee and lit it on fire."
Sam [01:04:13] Is that not what you were going for?
Jenna [01:04:14] No, that's I think one of the downsides. Anyway, everyone, I guess just word of warning if you do it. But then I guess if you use milk, does it smell like sour milk? Maybe.
Angela [01:04:26] Maybe.
Jenna [01:04:27] Something to try.
Angela [01:04:28] Jenna, you have your next assignment.
Jenna [01:04:31] Alright, well everyone, thank you for joining us today. We hope you enjoyed our best of Office Ladies deep dives, dare I say, part one?
Angela [01:04:42] Oooooooooooooooh
Jenna [01:04:44] Will there be another such episode?
Angela [01:04:47] We do love to Google. That was super fun. I loved it. And thank you to everyone who wrote in and thank you Joshua S from Los Angeles for talking about it for two years. It finally happened, babe!
Jenna [01:04:59] It did. And it was a great episode. You were right.
Angela [01:05:02] Alright, we'll see you guys next time.
Jenna [01:05:04] See you then.
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Jenna [00:00:17] Thank you for listening to Office Ladies.
Angela [00:00:19] Office Ladies is a presentation of Audacy and is produced by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey.
Jenna [00:00:24] Our senior producer is Matt Beagle And our audio engineer is Sam Kieffer.
Angela [00:00:32] Audacy's executive producer is Leah Reis-Dennis.
Jenna [00:00:35] Office Ladies was mixed and mastered by Bill Schultz.
Angela [00:00:37] Our theme song is "Rubber Tree" by Creed Bratton.