Latest / The Daily Sarcast / March 27th, 2026: Sharpies, Tofu And Finding My Passport
Transcript
- 0:00Today's episode is brought to you by A watched pot never boils,
- 0:04just like a watched phone never rings.
- 0:07What's your message to Congress? Fire them all. My flight leaves in 16 minutes.
- 0:13A guy in line for security at the airport being interviewed by Fox after waiting
- 0:17over 5 hours in line for security and still not gonna make his flight.
- 0:22Insert theme song here. This is the Daily Starcast. I give you the news and
- 0:26maybe a laugh. I'm Lindsay Vernick, and it's March 27, 2026.
- 0:31Yesterday was so beautiful, right? Well, it turns out it's not going to be that
- 0:35nice again until next week.
- 0:37Hope you enjoyed it while it lasted. In real news, Trump got his cabinet together
- 0:42to talk about Iran, inflation, you know, some light global crisis stuff,
- 0:47and then somehow spent a chunk of the meeting passionately reviewing Sharpies.
- 0:52Specifically, he went full Yelp.
- 0:56Lame past presidents were signing bills with $1,000 pens that didn't work and had no ink.
- 1:03But here's the reality check. Those pens were from AT Cross,
- 1:07and they actually cost more like $100 to $300.
- 1:11So not exactly the cost of some people's rent.
- 1:15Meanwhile, Trump is loyal to Sharpie, which he says is better,
- 1:18cheaper, and more business-minded.
- 1:20His version of a good pen is about $5 and branded like a limited edition merch drop.
- 1:26Why this man is more focused on pens
- 1:29than like i don't know the lives of hundreds
- 1:32of millions of people i don't even
- 1:35you know what actually it's not beyond me anymore nothing
- 1:38you i don't think anything could surprise us at this point but the weirdest
- 1:43part about all the sharpie stuff is while he's pitching these markers like he's
- 1:48on qvc the stock of noel brands the company that make Sharpies actually dropped
- 1:54after the meeting, which is honestly impressive.
- 1:57People don't even want to use the same pens as this guy.
- 2:01In more depressing news, Savannah Guthrie spoke out for the first time since
- 2:05her 84-year-old mother, Nancy, was abducted from her home near Tucson almost two months ago.
- 2:11She says that this is a likely kidnapping for ransom and that two notes demanding
- 2:16Bitcoin payments are probably real.
- 2:18So to recap, there was a masked man with a gun who was caught on camera outside
- 2:22the house and the back doors were left open.
- 2:25Her mom's phone purse, everything was still inside.
- 2:28Even the doorbell camera was ripped off. The family has been begging for proof
- 2:32of life and says they're willing to pay.
- 2:35At one point, one of the notes even suggested Nancy might already be dead,
- 2:39and the family said they would still pay just to get her back or at least get some answers.
- 2:45There's now a million dollar reward, but after more than 50 days,
- 2:49there haven't been any major developments.
- 2:52And then there's this part, which makes the whole thing feel even stranger.
- 2:56The ransom notes weren't directly sent to the family.
- 3:00They were sent to media outlets like TMZ, which is not exactly how this whole
- 3:04ransom situation works.
- 3:06The messages demanded Bitcoin, but there's still no clear proof of life.
- 3:11So now this isn't just a kidnapping for ransom. It's a case that's not behaving like one.
- 3:17And the part that really hits is that Savannah says that she feels guilty.
- 3:22Like, her public profile may have made her mother a target.
- 3:26And that is so brutal. Because that's not something you can prove,
- 3:30but it's definitely something that you will carry with you.
- 3:34It's all so, so tragic. And at this point, her and her family,
- 3:39as well as the rest of the world, just want to know what happened to her and where she is.
- 3:43And hopefully we'll find out soon.
- 3:46In today's news that feels made up, but unfortunately, like all news these days, is not.
- 3:51A truck carrying 40,000 pounds of tofu crashed into a ravine in a small town
- 3:57in Missouri and then just sat there for three weeks because of an insurance issue.
- 4:03So instead of being cleaned up immediately, 20 tons of tofu were left outside
- 4:08marinating in nature like the world's worst meal prep.
- 4:12Residents say the smell hit them like a brick wall, which is super crazy because
- 4:18tofu is known for literally like not smelling like anything.
- 4:22Officials described it as worse than a dead animal Worse than a landfill in July.
- 4:29At one point, flash floods actually carried pieces of tofu into a nearby creek,
- 4:34spreading the situation like some kind of fermented crime scene.
- 4:38Crews now have to literally wade through water to pick up rogue tofu by hand.
- 4:44There's talk of bringing in ambiguous vehicles, which feels very dramatic,
- 4:48until you remember this is a tofu recovery mission.
- 4:52Local officials have lovingly nicknamed it the Jerome Tofu Monster.
- 4:57I guess they don't want to call it, we've lost control of the soy.
- 5:01Some people in town say they are no longer vegetarians because they can never
- 5:05eat tofu ever again. I don't blame them.
- 5:09And Lindsay life. My parents last night decided to book our family vacation for next January.
- 5:18My parents were not thrilled that they had to listen to me run around the house
- 5:22for about 10 to 20 minutes trying to find my passport because I literally cannot be more type B.
- 5:28They listened to me find my earring that I thought I lost the other day and my global entry card.
- 5:35And as I'm looking, I'm like, you guys, this vacation isn't so long from now.
- 5:40Like, I could have a baby by then, and it's actually that long that I have time
- 5:44to find a guy to have a baby with before this vacation.
- 5:48My parents didn't find that funny though.
- 5:51So then I go back actually to recording this podcast and then my parents call
- 5:56me back to ask like for my global entry number to put that into the like flight
- 6:01booking and obviously oh my god I lost my global entry card again.
- 6:07How am I supposed to find that? So then they have to listen to me again run
- 6:10around the house for 10 minutes and wondering where I just had it and I'm just
- 6:14as confused with my parents because I'm like I literally just had it in my hands.
- 6:19I swear on my life, it just disappeared.
- 6:21So anyway, I find the global entry car and then I hang up on them because I'm
- 6:26like, I got to go make a baby now. You got to commit to the bit, right?
- 6:30An MVP of this week, since I guess we're in travel mode today, is Clear.
- 6:36So Clear is the service that helps you skip part of
- 6:38the airport line by verifying your identity ahead of
- 6:41time oh and by the way this is actually not an
- 6:44ad so instead of waiting in the
- 6:47tsa line or even cheap pre-check you can
- 6:50go through a faster lane through clear where they
- 6:53confirm who you are using biometrics like your eyes or fingerprints
- 6:56and then move you along to screening and right now
- 6:59they're like having a really big moment because of
- 7:02all these airport delays and long tsa lines people are downloading the clear
- 7:06app in huge numbers hundreds of thousands of times in just a few weeks because
- 7:12people are tired of waiting and are willing to pay for time and sanity so clear
- 7:16gets mvp this week because they're solving a very real problem right now.
- 7:20There's very long lines, high stress, and airports are already pushing people
- 7:24to their limits and then some.
- 7:26They're not making travel perfect, but they're making it faster and a lot less
- 7:30painful, and people are actually making their flights because of it.
- 7:33Shaving off 20 to 30 minutes at the airport, as you know, is so important.
- 7:38They're taking something that is so universally frustrating right now and giving
- 7:42people a faster way through it.
- 7:43Even if it's costing people a little extra, they're doing it just so they can
- 7:47make their flight. And again, this was not sponsored.
- 7:50But it probably should be. Cooking tip of the day. Bone broth and ground beef
- 7:55seriously makes it so much more flavorful. It's wild.
- 7:58I have to stop remembering to say this at the end of recording the episode,
- 8:01but if you enjoy listening to this and know a friend who needs a little laugh
- 8:06in their life or loves the news but hates what's going on in the world,
- 8:10make sure to send this podcast because why not?
- 8:14Feedback, comments, questions, a nice Jewish boy looking for a date,
- 8:16email me at lindsay at thedailystarcast.com thanks so much for listening have
- 8:21a great weekend and i will talk to you guys on monday.