Speaker 1: Remember that time you had to rescue your friend from
a dungeon because they were being punished for having a
knot in their shoelaces. Pretty wild, wasn't it. Well, this
story is for you. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2: Helloll, story time truly not a glory time.
Speaker 1: I'm a standing You'll be fine.
Speaker 2: Follow the whole storyline.
Speaker 1: Hello, ol, story time make you live at least one time.
Well time. This is the story of the time Queen
Jigglywigs quit. Yeah, she just got up and left. No
one had even known that a queen could do that.
Speaker 2: That's it for me. I'm out of here. Y'all can
just go ahead and find yourselves a new queen here
because this queen is unqueening queen ou't y'all.
Speaker 1: The people of Kookbookia did not know how to go
out and find themselves a new queen. Something like this
had never happened before. They were still trying to understand
why a queen would even want to quit, had they
really been that bad to rule over? Normally, if a
king or queen were to step down, the throne would
go to the next of kin. But when Queen Jiggilywigs
left town, she brought her entire family with her. No child,
Am I will ever be queen? Nah uh, no way.
There are so many better jobs out there, especially jobs
that come with health insurance and a dental plan. So
the people of Koukbookia had to figure out how to
hire themselves a new queen. Great news, everyone, I think
we just found our next queen. We're flying one in
from a different castle up state. This queen comes with
eight years of queen boss experience and at her last job,
she got the Millanno's pizza chain to open a new
location right inside her castle, a move that went over
really well with all of the knights anyway. She seemed
super queen tasktic on our video call, and that's really
what this castle needs right now, someone who can put
the queen back and queen. Anticipation and excitement began to
build in Kokbookia. Every one was very excited for the
arrival of the new Queen. They rolled out the red
carpet and everything. Though it was the smoothest rollout, the
red carpet leading up to the castle door was pretty
lumpy and the new queen almost took a tumble. So sorry,
your majesty, we don't do a ton of red carpet
rollouts around here. I'll see to it that my carpet
team gets a little more practice before the next time.
Never mind the carpet, the queen said, with a wave
of her hand, I'd like a tour of the castle
at once. Almost every person in Koukbukia had shown up
at the castle gates to witness the arrival of their
new queen. This was a really big day for them.
It was like meeting someone who was Instagram famous. Costa
and his two brothers, Xander and Nko, looked on from
where they were standing in the crowd. These three brothers
thought it was pretty special that their own father was
the first person to greet the new queen and lead
her on a tour.
Speaker 3: Of the castle.
Speaker 1: None of the other dad's got to do anything quite
that important. All Simon Larrabie's dad got to do was
help roll out the red carpet and look how well
that had gone. While the tour was taking place, the
people waiting outside the castle began to talk. They were
all itching to know what the new queen was like
and what sorts of changes she would make. Would she
help bring a pizza ria to their castle too. I
really hope she plans on putting a candy shop in there.
Nico told his brothers, Yeah, agreed, Xander. A candy shop
and maybe one of those food horse and buggies that
they can drive right into the castle. Maybe it could
serve jelly donuts, and none of those donuts with the
weird lemon filling. Ugh Costa had been lost in thought.
What about an in castle store that sells whoopy cushions.
Speaker 3: Both of his brothers looked at him.
Speaker 1: Funny, It's just that I can't find my whoopy cushion anywhere,
and I'm worried I might need to buy a new one, right,
answered Nico with as much enthusiasm as a sleepy sloth.
Because a whoopy cushion store makes sense. I'm sure the
Queen will get right on that, brother. What the Queen
actually got right on were two things, her bedroom closet
and the castle's dungeon. The tour had mostly gone well,
with plenty of things to admire about the castle. It was,
after all, a castle loaded with all sorts of great
a castle. He thinks, things like turrets, spiral staircases, and
chambers with four post curtain beds, all the goodies you
would expect to find in a castle. But that closet
in the Queen's new bedroom was not very big, definitely
not a proper walking closet. And without a proper walking closet,
how did anyone expect her to display her large collection
of shoes? Did they think she was just going to
shove them all under her bed like some kind of monster.
But while Costa, Xander, and Nico's dad agreed that the
closet left much to be desired, it was her comment
about the dungeon that really came as a surprise. What
is this place? You call this a dungeon? Is this
a joke? Look how small it is. Even a queen
b would insist on having a dungeon bigger than this.
The size of the dungeon had never been a problem before,
your majesty, I think you'll find the dungeon is plenty big.
Rather than spending all that money on making the dungeon bigger,
why not consider a whoopy cushions. A few weeks ago,
I ran over my son's whoope cushion using my medieval lawnmower,
and I still haven't told him. Now, this guy thought
the new Queen was the type of person to gladly
welcome people's bad ideas.
Speaker 3: He couldn't have been more wrong.
Speaker 1: Did you just suggest a store that exclusively sells a
children's toy that makes inappropriate and rude bathroom noises whenever
someone sits on it? Because if you did, you'll have
plenty of time to think about how much of a
brain feart idea that was while sitting in our much
too small dungeon guards. The guards opened the dungeon doors
and threw Costa, Xander, and Nico's dad in. The boys
then had to explain all of this to their mother
when they got home.
Speaker 2: Oh, what does your father do this time? Boys? Did?
He upset the queen by telling her that walking closets
are a waste of both space and money. Because that's
easy for him to say. He practically just wears the
same pair of pants every day. No, Mom, said Costa,
he didn't do anything to deserve being thrown in a dungeon.
Normally you have to do something pretty bad to get
yourself locked up. Their mom thought back on the time
their neighbor Steve, had gotten himself thrown in the dungeon
for playing ding dong ditch at the castle. The guards
hadn't taken kindly to someone knocking on the door and
then running away. Don't worry, mom, we have a plan
to get Dad out. Nico and Xander weren't aware of
any such plan, because no such plan existed. You can't
just break someone out of a dungeon, Costa, Nico told
his brother after Yeah, agreed, Xander, unless you're some kind
of professional dungeon breaker outer, which none of us are.
That was true, but it also gave Costa an idea.
Who are you calling?
Speaker 3: Costa?
Speaker 2: Shit?
Speaker 1: Keep it down, it's ringing? Yeah, Hi, is this the
number for the dungeon breakout guy?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: He just got himself thrown in the dungeon? How does
the dungeon breakout guy get thrown in the dungeon?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: You're not supposed to break people out of the dungeon.
It's against the law. Yeah, But who's gonna help us
break out out of the dungeon? Then Betty Gooberroni came
to mind. If anyone should be able to break into
a dungeon, it was probably this lady. She was the
most strong and fearless person they knew. She'd once lifted
a dragon over her head and carried it off to
another village after it overtoasted her toast with its fiery breath.
I know you were only trying to be helpful, dragon,
but that was too much. Brown toast good, black toast bad.
But Betty Gooberouni, they found out, was not available either.
She too had been thrown into the dungeon. Oh Man,
not Betty goober Rooney. What did she even do? They
eventually got word on the street that Betty Gooberroni had
eaten a bagel. Apparently the Queen did not approve of
people eating bagels, especially begels with extra cream cheese. Paul
Small's wasn't available to help either. He was now in
the dungeon for saying pretty please. According to the Queen,
there was nothing pretty about the word please. Even their
friend from school, the kid who was always up for.
Speaker 3: Anything, had gotten thrown into the dungeon.
Speaker 1: Walking around with his shoelaces untied had led to his punishment.
Speaker 2: This is ridiculous, complained Nico. The Queen is locking people
up for the worst possible reasons.
Speaker 1: Xander couldn't agree more. Exactly, having loose shoelaces is no
reason to throw someone in a dungeon. My shoelaces are
always coming untied. Are they gonna throw me in the dungeon?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: I never should have switched from Valcrow. More and more,
the three brothers kept hearing of other silly things. People
were being punished for smiling with the wrong kind of smile,
not blowing on hot food before putting it in their mouth,
forgetting to reset the clock on their medieval microwave after
a power outage, taking too long to give someone a
shout out on their show. And here I thought this
new queen was going to be nice, grumbled Costa. Maybe
the three of us are going to have to do
something without anyone else's help. And by three of us,
I mean you two, Xander, and Nico didn't know anything
about breaking people out of dungeon's certainly wasn't a subject
taught in school. Look, Fellas, why don't I go talk
to the queen myself?
Speaker 3: Offered Nico.
Speaker 1: She needs to hear that this is not how we
do things here in Kokbookia. The dungeon is for serious things,
not for people who like dipping their cookies in a
glass of milk. Before Nico could even speak with the Queen.
He got hauled off to the dungeon because the zipper
on his pants were left down. When his brothers found
out about that, they sort of just shrugged it off. Well, yeah,
of course they're gonna toss you in a dungeon if
your fly is down, said Costa. You've got to remember
to zip up after you pee. In this case, the
punishment is totally fair. If Nico didn't want to do
the time, he shouldn't have done the crime. But whether
or not, Nico deserved it be in the dungeon for
forgetting to zip up his pants, Xander and Costa were
willing to rescue him too. This time it was Xander's turn.
He avoided the Queen and went straight to the dungeon.
But that's as far as his plan went, because up
until this point he hadn't even known what a dungeon
looked like. Ah Man, so many bars everywhere. They're not
even the breakable or bendy kind of bars either. It
didn't take long for the dungeon guards to notice Xander, Hey,
kids aren't supposed to be poking around down here. We're
gonna have to report you to the queen.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: If Daniel empty Box had gotten thrown into the dungeon
for being too old to sing Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star.
Then Xander wasn't liking his chances. After being caught trying
to free a bunch of prisoners by bending metal bars
with his bare hands, Xander looked the.
Speaker 3: Guard in the eye. I'm not down here. You're down here.
Speaker 1: You might think I'm down here, but I'm actually up there,
because sometimes in life, we're all a little down here
and a little up there. Xander had seen people use
mind tricks like this before. Without saying a word. The
guard opened one of the dungeon doors in motion towards Xander. Sir,
are you opening the door right now because you're about
to lock me up? Or because you're gonna let me
bring everyone home? Because, after all, aren't we all just
a little in and out of the dungeon. Sometimes we're
in it, sometimes.
Speaker 3: We're out of it.
Speaker 2: It's more of a state of mind.
Speaker 3: Wouldn't you say?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: All right? Well, I tried.
Speaker 1: Costa was now the only brother who wasn't locked up,
and since it all came down to him, he was
gonna need a really good plan in order to swipe
the dungeon key from one of the guards, Costa decided
he would need to distract the guards by having one
of them step on a whoope cushion.
Speaker 3: The whoopy cushion.
Speaker 1: Would then let out a sound that would have the
guards asking.
Speaker 3: Hey, who farted was that you?
Speaker 2: No, it wasn't me.
Speaker 1: Are you sure it wasn't you?
Speaker 3: It wasn't me, Maybe it was wrong.
Speaker 2: Hey, don't go pointing the finger at me.
Speaker 3: I've never ever tooted.
Speaker 1: Then, while the guards were wasting time arguing, Costa would
swoop in and nab the key. But of course Costa
still couldn't find his whoopy cushion, and there still weren't
any whoopy cushion stores, so Costa was left with no
choice but to switch to operation tippy toes. A few
prisoners took notice as Costa carefully snuck down into the dungeon.
He was real smooth. This guy barely made a sound,
just how one needs to be when sneaking up on
a dungeon guard. Costa was now right behind the guard
who had a key clip to his belt.
Speaker 3: He was ready to make his move.
Speaker 1: Dentnene Dent. The guard turned around at once, Hey, who
made that sound. All of the prisoners who had been
watching hung their heads. Why had this kid done that? Sorry, guys,
I just needed a little bit of action seene music
to pump myself up for the big move. It's always
more exciting when they play some music in the movies,
and you know it always works out for them. Now,
Costa needed to pump himself up to outrun the guards,
so he kind of just did it again, Dente dent din.
The prisoners began shouting stop thinking you're in some kind
of action movie and just run, you, silly boy, even
as brothers were.
Speaker 3: Yelling for him to hurry.
Speaker 2: All right, all right, I'm running the way now. See.
It's just that some of us need some action music
when we're being chased.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: Costa ran as fast as he could until he could
no longer hear the guards behind him. Yeah, that's what
I'm talking about, dent. Costa had narrowly escaped, becoming the
latest prisoner, but instead of looking for someplace to hide,
he did what seemed like his most foolish act yet.
He went straight to the queen. Like, seriously, Costa, who
does that?
Speaker 3: Boy?
Speaker 1: If you're here to ask me to release one of
your friends from the dungeon, then you better think again.
All of those people deserve to be there, especially the
kid walking around with a zipper down Costa noticed the
queen staring in a mustard stain on his shirt, and
she didn't strike him as the type who would be
cool with that.
Speaker 3: He had to think fast.
Speaker 1: Hey, did you know the baker down the road sometimes
eats more donus than he sells? He blurted out, does
he now interesting? The Queen was no longer looking at
the She was demanding one of her henchmen bring her
the baker. Costa felt bad, knowing what was in store
for the baker, but this seemed like his only way out.
As he slept away, he saw two guards dragging the
baker toward the castle, acting like he hadn't just shoved
an entire doughnut in his mouth. At home, Costa put
on a fresh shirt before sitting down to eat his dinner,
his dad's dinner, Xander's dinner, and Nico's dinner.
Speaker 3: Good thing, it was taco night.
Speaker 1: You know, Mom, you don't have to keep putting food
on plates for people who have been thrown in the dungeon.
They're probably getting dungeon tacos instead. But don't worry, I'm
sure they'll still like your tacos better. After his fourth
plate of dessert, Costa went back to speak with the Queen,
this time wearing a clean shirt. So as I was
trying to tell you before, the Queen didn't let Costa finish.
Now she was looking at his belly poking out from
under his shirt.
Speaker 3: Boy, why is.
Speaker 1: Your belly sticking out like that? You didn't eat three
extra meals that your mother had set aside for people
who had been tossed in the dungeon? Did you a
crime like that was surely land a person in the
dungeon as well as Costa slowly began turning himself around.
He said, you know, I hear the mailman delivers his
own mail before delivering yours. He then bolted out of there, singing, dentneh.
Speaker 3: The queen began waving her arms through the air.
Speaker 2: Hey, come back here, you extra food eating criminal.
Speaker 1: He was sure glad the queen didn't recognize him the
next day when he returned wearing a fake mustache, But
like before, the Queen noticed something else that she didn't like,
and once again Costa had to give someone else's name up.
Jeanie Matthews feeds her pie crust to her dog. Harold
Baker plays with his kid's toys when they're not home.
The groundskeeper still gets his mommy to do his laundry.
Pretty soon, there wasn't anyone left for Costa to tell on.
Everyone was in the dungeon, everyone except Costa, that is.
The Queen personally escorted him to the dungeon herself, whereupon
entry Costa was steve some pretty angry looks from many
of the prisoners they knew who had told on the
mailman and the baker and Jeanie Matthews. You must have
thought you were being so clever telling on others to
get yourself off the hook. You know, I never forgot
about that mustard stain on your shirt. I was just
waiting until you had no one left to tell on.
The Queen motioned for one of the guards to unlock
the dungeon door for Costa, and you go prisoner. But
Costa didn't go in. You can't do your majesty.
Speaker 2: Look for yourself.
Speaker 1: The dungeon is full. There was no way Costa could
squeeze in, even if you tried well huffed the Queen.
This just proves exactly what I've been saying all along.
We need a bigger dungeon. As soon as the new
dungeon is complete, we'll have plenty of room for you too.
A slight smirk appeared on Costa's face. You might have
a hard time getting anyone to build you that new
dungeon when I helped you lock up all of the builders.
Cheryl Greasy is the best builder around, But I told
you she cheats and makes her gravy using a package
that she buys at the store. You threw her in
the dungeon, too bad, though I hear Cheryl Greasy builds
a pretty fine closet. The Queen's tone completely changed.
Speaker 2: But if I let prisoners out to build a new dungeon,
then the dungeon won't be full anymore, and then people
won't believe we actually need a new dungeon. And if
they don't believe we need a new dungeon, they won't
believe I need a new walk in closet either.
Speaker 3: Costa was trying to understand the logic here.
Speaker 1: Uh, your majesty, were you just locking up people to
prove to everyone that the dungeon was too small. Is
that why you were picking on people with untied shoelaces
and mustard stains on their shirts, because you wanted to
crowd the dungeon. The Queen shifted uncomfortably. I only really
cared about getting a new closet, but I thought people
would think I was silly if that was the only
thing I asked for. I thought I needed to first
push for something a little more serious, like a dungeon.
Cheryl Greasy spoke up and told the Queen that she
could start working on her new closet as early as tomorrow.
No one cared if that's all the Queen wanted, especially
if they didn't have to stay locked up anymore. And
the money you're saving by not having to build a
new dungeon could be put towards something else, like a
new whoopee cushion store suggested Costa, but this only led
to a huge argument among the prisoners over which store
or restaurant the castle needed. Most things got quite heated,
and at one point the new queen started to understand
why the last queen had quit, But in the end
it was her who had the final say, and she
decided to go with a shoe store, which worked out
well given she was about to get a new closet.
Speaker 3: Everyone agreed on one.
Speaker 1: Thing, though, the Castle dungeon was just fine as it was,
especially when only used for prisoners who actually deserved to
be in a dungeon, like dads who lose their kids,
whoope cushions and never bother to tell them the end.
That's the story, And here is your question of the week.
What is something you did today that you'd be surprised
to get punished for? Thanks to cost Xander and Nico,
and shout out to the following listeners. Meghan and Bradford
from Chakarta, Theo from Silver Spring, Maryland, Ala from Frederick
and New Brunswick, Vienna from Miami, Florida, Zoe and Zada
Miller from Kennesaw, Georgia, Harper Lee Hutchinson from Nottingham, England,
a Zon from New Delhi, India, Mila from Portland, Oregon.
And Noah and Jordan from Glendale, California. Thanks so much
for listening and I'll catchia on the next one.