E4: Lobster Bob and the Sahara Desert

The Visitor's Table and the Sahara Desert
Scrubbing Squad: Hero Missions | Trading Post Thursday

NARRATOR: Boots on, radios crackling, orders received, the Scrubbing Squad is standing by. Ready for real-world missions, adventure, and fun. And there is one hero they cannot start without. You. Report for duty. Heroes start here.

UNCLE JAMIE: Hero HQ calling all heroes. This is Uncle Jamie. Fall in, heroes: today's mission is about to begin.

UNCLE JAMIE: Thursday, heroes, and Thursday means the Visitor's Table. Sgt. Peck has the post.

SGT. PECK: Thank you, Commander. Heroes, welcome to the Trading Post, and the visitor's chair is filled, because Thursday is the day our travelling member comes home to the table. Lobster Bob, Scenic Tours Guide, our Civilian Specialist. Today's card is the Sahara Desert, a Land Tour card: the Erg Chebbi dunes and the camel treks. And it is a Common: an everyday hero of the pack. On the front, a line of camels walking the crest of a dune the colour of honey. And at the foot of the card, the Passport Stamp. Lobster Bob, the table is yours.

LOBSTER BOB: Hola Mijo! Lobster Bob here. Thank you, Sergeant. The Sahara. I will give you the whole wonder in three true things. One: it is the largest hot desert on Earth, nearly as big as the whole United States, and it stretches across the top of Africa from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to the Red Sea. Two: most of it is not even sand. Only about a quarter of the Sahara is dunes; the rest is rock, gravel and mountains. But at Erg Chebbi, mijo, the sand wins.

Erg means a sea of sand, the tallest dunes there stand around one hundred and fifty metres, and the wind moves them, slowly, grain by grain, so the desert you visit is never quite the desert you left. Three: the camel's hump. It is not full of water. It is full of fat, a packed larder the camel can live on for weeks, and when the sand blows, a camel can close its own nostrils. The card says the camel has opinions about the correct speed. It is right, mijo. Those opinions are not negotiable.

SGT. PECK: A desert nearly the size of a country made mostly of rock, and the ships that cross it carry their lunch on their backs. Heroes, that goes on the clipboard.

SGT. PECK: And now, heroes, the reason Thursday exists. You know the slot-match rule: you call the slot, not the name, and whatever lives in that spot on the other card answers. I am dealing Auntie Ellie's card from Tuesday, the critical thinking card you already know. Lobster Bob holds the desert. Round one, I am the caller, and I call slot two: on Auntie Ellie's card, slot two is Health, sixty-five.

LOBSTER BOB: And on mine, slot two is the Sea Track, mijo: twenty. A desert card was never going to win a sea call. Sixty-five beats twenty. Round one to Hero HQ.

SGT. PECK: Round two, and the caller passes to the visitor.

LOBSTER BOB: Then watch closely, mijo. Slot five, the Mission Score, is on every card, and it is the fairest call there is. But I looked at my card first. My Mission Score says fifty-six, and Auntie Ellie's says sixty-three, so today the fair call would lose me the table. So I call slot one instead: the Land Track. Eighty.

SGT. PECK: And Auntie Ellie's card answers slot one: Education, thirty-eight. Eighty beats thirty-eight, the desert takes the round, and the table stands at one round each. Hear what just happened, heroes: same two cards, different call, different winner. That is the skill. And a new page for the clipboard: the visitor read his own card before he called. Slot five is the fairest call there is, and fair does not mean it always wins. Know your card, then call.

AUNTIE ELLIE: And that is the part worth keeping, heroes. Lobster Bob did not call the big number because it was big. He called it because he had looked first: at his card, at the other card, at what the moment asked. On Tuesday we called that critical thinking, step by step. Today you watched it win a round.

SGT. PECK: Trade wisdom for the week, heroes: a tin you are proud of. Not the fullest tin at the table, not the shiniest. The tin where every card means something to you. That is the whole game.

SGT. PECK: Heroes, your mission, straight from the card. If you are four, five or six: tonight, find Africa on a map or a globe, lay your finger flat across the very top of it, all the way across, and that is the Sahara found. Then tell a grown-up what a camel really keeps in its hump. If you are seven or older: retell all three desert facts in your own words to someone at home, because most grown-ups think the hump is full of water, and now you know better than they do. Then draw your own camel, give it a name, and decide its opinion about the correct speed.

PVT. ACE: Ace here, heroes. Ace Mode for tonight: if a whole camel feels like a lot to draw, draw just the hump, and tell the fat fact while you draw it. That counts, start to finish. Same mission. Your way.

LOBSTER BOB: The desert is very big, mijo, and the camel crosses it anyway, one unhurried step at a time. Walk your missions the same way.

SGT. PECK: Mission done? Tell a grown-up and tick Thursday's box on your Squad Mission Chart, free at scrubbingsquadpodcast.com. Back to HQ.

UNCLE JAMIE: Heroes, this is Uncle Jamie. Mission accepted?

AUNTIE ELLIE: Little missions. Big heroes. Heroes start here.

NARRATOR: Thank you for listening to the Scrubbing Squad Hero Missions Podcast. For free episode downloads, visit scrubbingsquadpodcast.com. Scrubbing Squad and Lobster Bob's Scenic Tours are the property of Mike J Midgley, operated under licence by Scrubbing Squad Limited. All rights reserved.

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