AI Summary
5 min readCasey Wants to Believe
In 2020, Casey, a librarian at a small liberal arts college, was scrolling through a list of unidentified buttons for his remote internship at the Busy Beaver Button Museum in Chicago. His job was to research obscure buttons and write up their histories. Then his eye caught a word you don't typically encounter in a work setting: diarrhea. The button read, "Ask me about our new diarrhea-inducing chili cheese fries." Casey claimed it immediately. He had the restaurant name—Big Chubb Chat's Downhome Ranch Style Kitchen—and an address in Custer City, Oklahoma. It should have been Googleable. It wasn't. Google returned nothing. The address didn't exist. Custer City has a population of 367. Casey searched newspaper archives, contacted the local historical society, and eventually hit a dead end. Four years later, he was still thinking about it. His brother made him a poster, like the one from The X-Files, but instead of a UFO, it showed the diarrhea button. Casey submitted the mystery to the podcast Hyperfixed.
The Button That Was Made to Be Found
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:00) **Show Intro & Host Return** - Alex Goldman returns to host a new show, Hyperfixed, a problem-solving podcast that expands beyond tech support.
- 2 (02:33) **Casey's Problem: The Diarrhea Button** - Librarian Casey presents his favorite unsolved mystery: a button reading "Ask me about our new diarrhea-inducing chili cheese fries."
- 3 (07:25) **The Dead End** - Casey's research into the button's origin hits a wall; the restaurant and address appear to be fictional.
- 4 (10:49) **The X-Files Poster** - Casey's brother makes him a parody "I Want to Believe" poster featuring the diarrhea button, cementing its status as an unsolved mystery.
- 5 (13:42) **First Lead: The Busy Beaver Museum** - Producer Emma calls the Busy Beaver Button Museum to trace the button's origin.
- 6 (15:37) **The Anti-Climax & Renewed Curiosity** - The easy answer feels like a letdown, but Emma pushes for more details.
- 7 (17:34) **The Button Maker Revealed** - Emma reconnects with Kristen and gets the full story from the button's creator, Nick Raleigh.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
If you would like to join at the $60 yearly level and receive your very own Big Chub Chet's button, you can do so here:https://hyperfixedpod.com/buttonThere are a limited number so get them before they're gone!
Casey has been chasing the origin of a very specific piece of ephemera for almost 15 years. He came to us for help.
LINKS:Busy Beaver Button MuseumThe Button in Question (Spoilers! don't look until the episode is done!)
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