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I had a pretty tough time coming up with funny episode titles for the podcast this week. You know I love me some clever wordplay, and I love it when Luke and I come up with a good, punny zinger to slug the show. It’s such a point of pride, in fact, that I’ve taken to publishing yearly round-ups of my favorite show titles. This week, though, I struggled. Most of the show titles were not exactly puns, but something resembling puns that don’t quite pay off. On today’s episode, for example, Luke and I discussed an Australian bunny mascot that found himself in trouble for shoving a youngster. I titled the show, “Silly Rabbit, Don’t Push The Kids.” Which is…close to a play on words, but not really? (If the story had been about kids kicking the mascot, we could have called the show “Silly Rabbit, Kicks Are For Kids”, and THAT would have been better.) But it’s not today’s show that’s causing me the most distress. It’s Tuesday’s show, entitled In Media Res, that had me tossing and turning last night. Just so you know, that is not a play on words at all. It’s not even trying to be clever or a joke. “In media res” is just a term in storytelling that means “in the middle of things.” If a book or a movie begins in the middle of a fight scene, or in the middle of a conversation, or in the middle of a pie-eating contest, you would say it begins “in media res.” I don’t know exactly why this concept came up during Tuesday’s show. I was trying to describe something that I recently watched or read, but I just couldn’t think of the term off the top of my head. So Luke and I floundered around a bit and talked about “in media res” for too long. Then, for lack of a better show title (and because I was in a hurry to get the podcast posted before Matlock began), I just named the show “In Media Res” and was done with it. Fast-forward to yesterday. I’m puttering around the house, washing dishes, vacuuming floors, and mindlessly reflecting on the random stuff Luke and I have been talking about on the show this week: air shows, baseball games, Roku boxes, extension cords, Pez dispensers…. Wait! Pez dispensers?! PEZ dispensers? It hit me like a bolt of lightning. I froze, mid-vacuum, my Dyson V11 still whirring in my now frozen hand…”res” rhymes with “Pez”… TUESDAY’S SHOW TITLE SHOULD HAVE BEEN “IN MEDIA PEZ.” Dear reader, I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t seriously contemplate going into the system and changing the name of the show retroactively. I literally imagined a random listener opening up their podcast app on Thursday afternoon, looking down at the list of shows, and saying “I swear that show title was less funny yesterday….” But I didn’t do that. When I commit to something, I commit to it, whether it’s a bad show title, a bad menu choice at a diner, or the decision to read an unabridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo from start to finish. (I’m now 90% through the book, by the way. At this rate, I’ll definitely finish it in under three years.)
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