Toothpaste.

Known for being dental.

Famous for being minty.

Nobody thinks much about it, so let's have some fun.

Let's find out why Toothpaste is secretly incredibly fascinating. Fascinating.

Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode. A podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt and I'm not alone. Jason Pargin is my guest today. Jason Pargin, my former colleague, my old pal, and one of my favorite authors, he is writing a couple of new novels all at once. I also highly recommend his latest novel, available to you

now. It's entitled Zoe Punches the Future in the Dick. It's available everywhere. It's available

now. It's written under the pen name David Wong, which he is retiring, but if your Google

leads you to that,

that you've got the right thing. You're doing it. Zoe punches the future in the dick is full of humor.

It's also full of big ideas all at once. If you like this kind of podcast that I hope does that,

you will love this type of novel that does it in a format that that is just so readable and so impressive, I gotta say.

Also, I've gathered all of our zip codes and used internet resources like native-land.ca

to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Kataba, Ino, and Shikori peoples.

Acknowledged Jason recorded this on the traditional land of the Shawnee,

Eastern Cherokee, and Saatsoyaha peoples,

and acknowledge that in all of our locations,

native people are very much still here.

That feels worth doing on each episode.

And today's episode is about toothpaste, which is a

substance you will use today. Also want to give a quick shout out to listener Mark Willard,

because I forgot he suggested this in the overall democratic process of listeners choosing topics

...