It was a plain white insulated box, tightly sealed, no hint of its contents. We drove north a hundred miles to our clandestine destination, there to make the exchange.
We met the North Dakotan operatives at a nondescript Dairy Queen in downtown Crookston. I quietly slid the box across the table. I accepted a bowl of ice cream. Mission accomplished.
We told no one the contents of the box. It was whisked away to undergo detailed analysis by scientists at the University of North Dakota. I won’t reveal what it is, even under torture. There’s no way you can make me tell. Try your worst!
Perhaps you’re wondering how big the box is. It is slightly too small to contain a human head, unless the head were first chopped up and macerated.
Perhaps you wonder if it would pass a taste test…not recommended.
How about the smell? I can tell you it is completely odorless.
What if you held the contents in your hand — bad idea. -20°C is rather uncomfortable.
Maybe you could pester me with questions later this afternoon? It will avail you nought. I have been trained to resist even the most ruthless interrogations.
Spiders.
“What’s in the box,” you’ll cry. I will stand stony-faced.
chigau (違う)! Hush!
Apparently Trump has never heard of the “Blizzard” dessert that Dairy Queen introduced in 1985. So his people can’t tell if it could have been that stuff.
I’m more curious about what kind of ice cream you got in return?
-A very small ark of the covenant?
What does he have in his boxes, my precious. He mussst tell us, my precious.
The daily special at the Crookston DQ is
every single day.
I would have gone for the Dilly Bar in either butterscotch or cherry.
Why would one deliver spiders at -20 C? Perhaps it was DNA samples for sequencing.
If PZ had waited for winter, he wouldn’t have needed the insulated box.
Dry ice?
@14, dry ice is around -78 C, so possibly, given one doesn’t place it in direct contact with samples.
Were I to make a guess, I’d guess macerated spiders for microbiome culturing, specifically their gut flora and fauna.
Soon enough, we’ll know more about the microbiome of spider’s guts than we do about our own, which is also a current area of active research. Ironic, as such was postulated as being a medical product in science fiction back in the ’60’s and ’70’s.
Oh, OT, but entertaining… Trump made a bunch of campaign promises, one being flying cars.
As if they’d do any better in the air, given how many can’t drive worth a damn here on the ground…
The frozen corpses of the spiders you murdered a few days ago.
Would you tell me for a Klondike Bar?
Worst. Secrete Keeper. Ever.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/07/04/it-is-a-good-day-to-get-some-work-done/
I can’t be the only one who went here…PZ even hints it @7:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8VG-J78keKk
That box seems big enough to contain all gods humanity has ever believed in. So, I’d say its contents is ZILCH.
If it’s slightly too small to contain a human head, then it’s still big enough to contain a human brain, esp. the type of human brain I’m considering, one belonging to a moronic, bigoted right-winger, which is being taken a way for analysis to figure out how it works or why it doesn’t work, however you want to view the question.
If this were an episode of Fargo it could be something arachnoid. Did the contact look anything like William H Macy, perchance?
@22- seversky
If he looked like Macy and hailed from Chicago he could be Chief of Emergency Medicine/Surgery Morgenstern or the notorious Gallagher. If the former maybe the box contained Dr Carter’s replacement kidney. If the latter who knows what scheme Frank is up to now with the box contents. PZ might want to call The Alibi Room and ask for Kev. Maybe it was a liver transplant again.
Consider yourself lucky that the secret is out. Otherwise we might have had to resort to – “the comfy chair!”
Or the boo box.