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The Story Collider

Mishaps: Stories about unintended mistakes

The Story Collider

Story Collider, Inc.

Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Performing Arts, Arts, Science

4.4818 Ratings

🗓️ 4 July 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this week’s episode, both of our storytellers share tales of well-intentioned choices gone wrong.

Part 1: In fourth grade, Ro Moran is thrilled to be trusted with the class pet iguana, Iggy, for the night. But by morning, something is very wrong.

Part 2: As an exchange student studying superconducting oxides, Karoline Mueller tries to save money by gold-coating a cheap crucible instead of using a solid gold one.

Ro is an award-winning empanada eater with a penchant for storytelling. His credits include Prose of Pie, Tiny Tales, Story Boom, Story Collider En Español, and producing the Westchester-based 'Say Word' show. He is most remembered for his groundbreaking trio with his 14yr and 3 yr old . They’ve since broken up due to ‘creative differences’. When Ro isn’t telling tales, he is a social justice warrior for human rights non profits.

Karoline is the youngest of 4 siblings. Growing up in Germany, the family interests included music, art, nature, and building things. From fairly young, there was no question in her mind but she would study music and teach private music lessons. Her plan got smashed in the audition process and she was not accepted into a conservatory program. It took her some time to recover from this huge disappointment. In a relatively random way, she stumbled on the book, Urban Systems in Crisis, by a biochemist and network thinker and was fascinated by this new way of solving problems. She was reminded of fun chemistry demonstrations and enrolled at the Saarland University in Chemistry. Despite low confidence in her English, Karoline pursued a semester abroad and came to the Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston. Delighted by the amazingly supportive mentorship at the center, she decided to return for her Ph.D. in Chemistry. She has been working there as researcher and student mentor ever since. Karoline’s passion for science outreach grew over the years and now she takes great pleasure in organizing presentations and demonstrations of superconductivity.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

A science story, huh?

0:04.0

Is NYU scientist the...

0:06.0

I felt it was so...

0:08.0

And I just thought, well...

0:10.0

It was that golden moment.

0:12.0

Because science was on my side.

0:15.0

Hey, everyone. Hey everyone, welcome to The Story Clatter, where true personal stories about science help us explore just how weird, wonderful, and deeply human this world can be.

0:33.6

I'm your host, Misha Gayevsky, and today's episode is all about those moments when things

0:38.0

don't quite go according to plan. Unintended mistakes, accidental chaos, real-life bloopers,

0:45.3

if you will. You know, the kind of moments that make you cringe at first but eventually

0:49.6

become your go-to party story, or the reason you can never show your face at that one grocery store again.

0:56.5

These stories are funny, heartfelt, a little mortifying, but if nothing else, deeply human.

1:02.8

I can't wait to share them with you. Let's dive in.

1:06.5

Our first story comes from Roe Moran, a social justice warrior for human rights, non-profits, and a storyteller.

1:13.3

His story was recorded last year at one of our go-to spots in New York, QED Astoria.

1:18.1

Here's Roe.

1:36.7

You guys remember a few years ago there was a video of planet Earth, but a little iguana that's running for its life from like a billion freaking snakes.

1:42.4

And every snake wants that guy dead.

1:46.6

And it's just barely making it

1:48.2

each time. It's just barely escaping their

1:50.0

jowls. And it's so frustrating to

1:52.1

watch and you really want the little guy

...

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