Why is Epstein's jacket all knotted up?

Remember the episode where this happened? No, you don't. There wasn't one.

Mystery girl Starlee Kine

Leave it to me to arrive at the depot after the train has already left. This week, I more or less accidentally discovered a marvelous new-ish podcast called Mystery Show, hosted by This American Life's ever-delightful Starlee Kine. (Her breakup story, entitled "Doctor Phil," is one of my favorite TAL pieces of all time.) Kine's new show, as the title might indicate, is devoted to solving mysteries. But these aren't true crime stories (murders, disappearances, etc.), and they aren't the great secrets of life and the universe (what killed the dinosaurs, does God exist). At least not yet.

 As of now, the show has gotten to the bottom of smaller, quirkier mysteries. An author, for instance, wanted to know why one of her unsuccessful books somehow wound up being toted around by Britney Spears. Another woman wanted to know the fate of a little video store which seemed to disappear overnight. One man wanted to know the origin of a novelty, custom-made belt buckle with a built-in miniature toaster.

And then there was, for me, the most intriguing of them all: Why did Aladdin Industries' Welcome Back, Kotter lunchbox from 1977 depict a scene in which Barbarino and Epstein seem to be fighting over a knotted-up jean jacket, since no such scene ever occurred on the program? Starlee Kine answers all of these queries with a surprising amount of compassion and detail.

All episodes of the podcast can be found here at the show's website. I blew through all six episodes in about a day and a half. The trouble is, by the time I finally found Mystery Show, its first season was already over. I don't know when Season Two is starting, but Kine insists that there are more mysteries in her future. I hope so.

Lunchboxes of my youth: fear comes with its own Thermos

As a child, I spent my lunchtimes staring at the coked-out visage of Ms. Carrie Fisher.

Springview Elementary: a chamber of horrors.

The onset of fall always brings back memories of my own elementary school days. Unfortunately, most of those memories suck, and I would rather repress them than relive them. No offense to my former classmates, who have grown into thoughtful and friendly adults, but you scared the living shit out of me when you were children. Kids can spot weakness in a second, and I was lousy with it. I made the bullies' job too easy by being such a tempting and passive victim. (Fun fact: one of my childhood tormentors eventually did some prison time, a fate I had secretly predicted for him years earlier.) What would I have done differently, knowing what I know now about the world and about human nature? Just about everything.

Back in the early-to-mid-1980s, though, I was as clueless as they come. I mean, I was alert enough to realize I was not getting along well with my classmates, but I had no idea why that was or what I could do to change the situation. Walking to Springview Elementary School in the morning, I felt like a condemned man walking the green mile. I would not have known the words "alienated" or "ostracized" in those days, but both of those adjectives applied themselves manifestly to me. There was no sadder day on the calendar than the last day of summer vacation. I still shudder to think about it. For most kids that age, lunch and recess provide a welcome relief from class. In my case, it was just the opposite. At least in class there were rules and some semblance of order. The playground and, especially, the lunchroom were consequence-free zones where all sorts of torture, mostly psychological but some physical, was either tolerated or ignored.

Despite all this, I still have some residual affection for lunchboxes. I might have been part of one of the last generations in this country who actually got to carry the metal ones to school with them. These were banned years ago because -- and this should come as no shock -- horrible, bratty children were using them as weapons. That's how much kids suck. A second-grader gets a beautiful metal lunchbox in his possession, and his first thought is, "I should just straight-up brain somebody with this thing. It looks like it could cause serious injury." So now, metal lunchboxes exist only as collectibles for sad grown-ups like me. I don't actually buy them, mind you, but on especially lonely nights I do browse through Ebay and see if I can find any of the lunchboxes I carried as a kid. In fact, I think I can trace my entire youth through those long-gone food containers with their matching Thermoses. Let's take a trip down Pointless Nostalgia Lane, shall we?

(Note: I do not currently possess any of these lunchboxes. These are all pictures I yoinked off the Internet. Even if I did still have these, they wouldn't be worth anything because I treated these lunchboxes as carelessly as I treated all my possessions in those days. I was a profoundly stupid child.)