It’s Exper-Taco-Tease-Day!

Bring. Can you remember that Pink Floyd album where they have a sound of a long distance call at the end? Yes. Message from Mr. Floyd. Hello, is it you I'm looking for? I love Pink Floyd. Bring. Message from Mr. Floyd. We're working on our sound montage, right? Yeah, that's right. My thinking is if we just add a little something to the recording each time we meet, then eventually we'll have a masterful, modern sound collage that we can put out, you know, as a standalone product. You know, that would also be very good for our website. We, you know, we need a sound cloud.

I don't really know what a sound cloud is. Oh, Danno, all the businesses have them, you walk into their lobby and they have a sound cloud on the wall, a silent wall painting, but it's called a sound cloud. Is it all right just to call it a painting? No, it's a sound cloud. All right. It is the words that matter the most to this business are the biggest painted words on the wall. And then other words of various intensities and fonts and boldnesses. So it represents the sounds without actually being the sounds. Well, it's the words they say the most. You know, that makes me wonder, don't get me wrong.

I do want to focus in on our sound collage project, but I feel like it's not really ready yet. So can we just put it on the back burner? Sure, sure, yeah. Okay, you mentioned modern businesses with things on the wall. Yeah. And Claire, I'm a little embarrassed at how little we have on the wall. When people visit our offices, I feel like we're an old world, old school company. We've got a brick front to our business. Right, yeah, with mortar, actual mortar. Brick and mortar. Expertise is actually carved in stone, not a sound cloud. Is there anything we can do to update our motif in the office to make it more interesting to visitors?

I think it's great that you finally are willing to come out of the 1890s. Yeah. Don't get me wrong. I like the antiquated decor and sort of the Victorian feel. It suits my attire. It suits my vest with lapels, my spattered ashes that I wear over my shoes. But I'm just, I'm thinking of the guests. Right. You know, sometimes there's a little bit of a Jack the Ripper vibe that I think makes some of the ladies uncomfortable. Well, I know how to make ladies comfortable. Do you now? I do. And I can say it in one word and then sum it up in 20. Okay. Alcohol. We need to have a bespoke cocktail that is everything that expertise is, means, and wants to be.

I love that idea. There's nothing I like more than tipsy ladies around the office. Yes. And I think a wonderful way to both kind of update the feel of the place and keep the ladies drinking, what if we just put booze in the water cooler? We would label it clearly. It would be clear booze. It could be clear booze or Claire Booth. Claire Booth in the corner, serving clear booze to the ladies. Dana, we've stepped back into the 1890s and we've got to stay on task. We're trying to modernize our office. So having anything to do with Claire Booth Luce, I think speaks of olden times.

When Claire Booth drinks alcohol, you've got Claire Booth Luce. Congratulations. All right. So wonderful idea. Where do we go with that? It feels a little old-fashioned to serve an old-fashioned, but is there something we could do to update the drink service in our offices? I think first of all, the student is to create the bespoke cocktail and to think about like what cocktail expresses who we are. What's the most expert of the alcohols? A true expert would probably work from mash hops and grain and just go from there. Is that an expert or an Appalachian? Are you saying that Appalachians can't be experts?

Yeah, I am saying that. Yeah, definitely. All three of the cousins I've married have been experts. Let me tell you that. I think it should have rye because quite often our guests are quite rye. Right, right. Spelled differently, but pronounced the same. I am a little worried about having two words that are so similar to each other because once folks start drinking, they're gonna mix those words up. Oh, okay, good call, good call. It can get so confusing so quickly when people start replacing homonyms with homonyms. For example, right there. It sounded like I was saying two words that were each homonyms of each other, but it was really just one word said twice.

Do you know why this idea might be the perfect idea for us? Because people love to drink. And I'm trying to be thematic and on mission for us, Dano. And people who come to our office are going to be experts. And so an expert would make their own expert drink. Oh. So you're letting people come from their own place of expertise and make their own concoction rather than us saying, this is the expertise drink. You drink this now. Yes, I've been to parties like that where they foist a certain drink upon you and force you to drink it one after another. Wait, what?

Have you never been to a foist and force party? I went to a Vickers and Tarts party once, but I've never been to a foist and force. Hang on, what's a Vickers and Tarts party? You know what a Vickers and Tarts party is. I do not. Where everyone at the party is dressed either as a Vicker or a Tart. Which were you? Yes. Is that a real thing? Oh, that's absolutely a real thing. I'm honestly shocked that you've never heard of a Vickers and Tarts party. It sounds like right up your alley, except not really because in actuality, it's really sort of off-putting and weird.

And that to me is the definition of a party. Well, do you think that we achieved our modernizing our offices today? Would it be fun to do a Taco Tuesday? So it always felt like there was a party atmosphere around the place when people showed up. I think that would be great. I'm not sure that we should force people to eat tacos. I mean, I feel like you would be foisting tacos. Well, it's a foist and force party. Oh, okay, then absolutely. Foist and force Tuesday. Mexican style. All right, so Taco Tuesday is on. Yeah, yeah. Mix your own drink is on. Make your own expertise cocktail.

Let's keep it kind of sounding classy. What if we have some expertise totalers? Well, you know, we could make a bespoke herbal tea. I think that's the thing. If we clearly demarcate, you know, this side is for drinking, this side is for non-drinkers. This side is for foisting, this side is for forcing. Is there enough of a difference between foisting and forcing? Oh gosh, yes, yeah, yeah. A lot of it is the hand movements. The gestures? Yeah, and we could actually have that up on our wall. We've been saying, what can we have on our wall? We could explain the hand gesture differences between foisting and forcing.

Oh, so that would be like our sound cloud. Yes, a really nice painted instructional graph. As a child, I loved to go to a grocery store that had a live parrot in a cage. Would that feel welcoming? Would that make the place fun, fancy, unusual? I like the idea of it, but my great aunt had a parrot and he seemed to pick up mostly the naughty words. Your great aunt, that's shocking to me. So she was a tart more than a vicar. She was spicy. She was a spicy lady. That would be great for Taco Tuesday. Having a spicy lady and her foul-mouthed parrot in the corner for Taco Tuesdays.

Now this is modernizing an office. And I'm seeing sort of a, you know, the person who stands out on the corner to wave passing cars in. Oh yeah. I'm picturing your spicy aunt with her foul-mouthed parrot just out in kind of a traditional Mexican costume. Is she Mexican by any chance? Well, you know, no. Because I don't want to do any cultural appropriation. She is Scottish. She's deeply, deeply Scottish. Deeply Scottish. So we'll put her out there in her Scottish wear and it will confuse a lot of people, but there must be sort of a Scottish equivalent of tacos.

I mean, she'll look like Mrs. Doubtfire out there with a parrot on her shoulder. And to be honest, people won't know what she's saying, so it won't matter that she's swearing. Because her accent is so thick they'll be driving by too quick. Like that. Wow. Wow. Yeah, she taught me well. That made me think of old bastard McTavish. Ah. Oh, if I could just get to you. Oh, cross the street on your own two feet. Hop to one, to the left, to the right. Cross the street. So it's taken us a while to figure all this out, but I feel like we've got a pretty good plan of attack just to sort of make the place feel welcoming.

We've been thinking really about the guests, but I like the idea of opening it up to the public too. Maybe as a moneymaker, you know? Oh, for like a tour or? Just as a fun place to be, a place to hang out. Oh, to buy a taco and a cocktail? Yeah, yeah, I'm really looking at it. Yeah, I'm really looking at it from a moneymaking perspective. You sound like we're kind of opening a restaurant. What makes it a restaurant, Claire? Are you saying just because we have food and drinks and a spicy Scottish woman serving tacos? And places to sit and be served. But while a podcast is either being recorded or about to be recorded or just having been recorded.

So the emphasis is still on the podcast, but there's a leavening with the tacos and the Scottishness. Oh, unleavened tacos. That sounds very multicultural. Yes, yes. So there are elements that are restaurant-like. No, but I think you're right. As long as there is a podcast happening. Yeah. Okay, let's try it. What do we call it? Expertise Day? Expert Taco Tease Day? Expert Taco Tease Day. Yeah. Claire, thank you for being so open-minded about all that. I know it kind of flies in the face of our mission statement, but I think part of our mission is to stay open-minded and always try new things.

So you've added a line to our mission statement? I've replaced our mission statement. It just now says, stay open-minded and try new things. But I mean, the whole point of having a mission statement is to remain true to what your mission was from the very beginning. If you keep changing your mission statement, you really don't. I think we didn't realize that our mission was to always be changing. So ABC. ABC, baby, always be changing. On Expert Tease Taco Day. Tease Taco Tease Day. Tease. We need to get that up on the wall in our sound cloud because I'm gonna forget the name almost every time I try to say it.

Yeah, but let's not paint over our mission statement. Oh, no, no, no. Okay. Well, in the name of change, I think we do need to paint over our mission statement. Gosh, I just, I don't think you understand the point of a mission statement. It's like, would you say that the Declaration of Independence is America's mission statement? I think that's beautifully put, yes. I would too. And their mission is the pursuit, aiming towards a more perfect continent, nation, land, place. People. Brotherhood. Noun, a more perfect noun. A more perfect noun. And so that's built in, that change is built in.

They're not saying it is perfect in the way we've said it now. 250 years ago is right. We're saying it's built into the system that the system must be flexible enough to go from podcast to tacos to parrots. Exactly. And that sentence is never changed. The sentence that says we can change? Yes. Then they don't say, oh, you know what? We never change. That's our new mission statement. But that is built into the idea of change that we could decide to never change. Never change. Yes, because the mission statement says you can change. You know what, Clarence? Yeah. I'm gonna go right back to my high school.

I had probably 25 friends right in my yearbook. Diano, never change. I feel like that's impacted me to this day. They also said stay cool, which I feel like has impacted me. And have a great summer, which has impacted me less, but I use some of that summertime to really change. Wow, Diano. So you have stayed true to your life's mission statement. I've stayed cool. Yeah, never changed. Hello, this is United States calling. Are we reaching? See, it's hanging up. And it's a man answering.