What is a foot fungus’ favorite chip?

Free-toes!

Welcome back to Foot Fungus Facts Incorporated! As of writing this issue, I have finished finals, meaning I now have an entire summer of FUNGAL FREEDOM!!!

What does that mean? It means I no longer have to:

• spend hours trying to lengthen my essays with cleverly placed adjectives

• manage to read fifty pages of the assigned reading, then realize I read the wrong fifty pages

• cram for a peanut-butter-themed test I forgot to study for

• all the other annoying things found at school

It really is a great time for Mr. Hamster!

Now, many of you may be wondering: what happens now that school is out? How do I keep my feet healthy during the summer? How can I plan my vacation so that I don’t have to worry about foot fungus? I hope you were wondering that, because we’re sure going to talk about that today at Foot Fungus Facts Incorporated!

And if you aren’t wondering that…get ready to learn anyway¹ !

[[ Theme song: How to Talk to Your Cat About Gun Safety: And Abstinence, Drugs, Satanism, and Other Dangers That Threaten Their Nine Lives—SPONSOR LINK!!! ]]

¹ This is starting to sound dangerously like schoolwork!

What is Summer?

Summer is a time where you get to not have to worry about school and go on vacation, provided you don’t have a job or summer classes! Unfortunately, it is quite common to get a summer job, summer classes, or even both. According to a study in 2017, 41% of students ages 16-19 were enrolled in summer school. 36.6% of teens have a paying job for at least part of the summer. This means that 62.59% of students have either a summer job or a summer class, meaning only 37.41% of students actually get to enjoy summer¹ .

It gets worse. Despite all this furious working, summer remains detrimental to a student’s learning! According to horizoneducationcenters.org, students lose on average about a month’s worth of education throughout the summer. It is even worse for 3rd-5th graders, who lose about 20% of reading gains and 27% of math gains. Summer is actually quite detrimental to education!

Despite these detriments, half of Americans still feel sad when they think about summer ending. 52% say they will miss warm weather, and 45% will miss wearing fewer layer(s) of clothing. This was followed by summery fruit, barbecues, and eating ice cream² . 16% of people also say that they will miss the scent of seafood³ . To gather in misery, 63% of Americans end the summer by seeing their family and friends one last time before the holidays.

¹Calculating the Probability of the Union of Two Events | Statistics and Probability | Study.com

² Advertising the new, “HAMSTER CREAM”!!! It’s like ice cream, except it’s warm instead of cold! According to my one consumer, shortly before his untimely death, “It’s everything I expected from eating poisonous sludge, except for the boiling. I think I’m going to throw up.” Be the second consumer! Buy your hamster cream today by calling 1-81-VOMITING!

³40% of Americans say summer is the season they look forward to the most - digitalhub US (swnsdigital.com)

FOOT FUNGUS IN SUMMER

Like pretty much everything mentioned in Foot Fungus Facts Incorporated, summer does have risks that you should be aware of for foot fungus. The first thing you should know is that summer is hot, providing easy growth for foot fungus. You will also sweat more, giving a moist environment. Make sure and change socks, and watch what shoes you wear.

There is one other thing you should be aware of during the summer if you want to stay uninfected: vacation. You aren’t the only one going on vacation. Other people are going on vacation, too. And like any spot where lots of people go, there will be many opportunities for the spread of foot fungus! Especially dangerous are beaches and swimming pools, since people will walk through those areas with bare feet often, spreading spores left and right. To avoid this, wear flip flops or similar shoes when possible to avoid direct contact with the ground. This is especially true in showers, where many people stand barefoot for a long time. No, the water does not wash away the fungus. Sorry.

One way to help with this issue is to try less common vacation spots where there would be less people to spread foot fungus. For instance, instead of visiting, say, Disney World, you could try visiting Azerbaijan, The Land of Fire!

Azerbaijan is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and West Asia, and isn’t nearly as ominous as the picture above. It gets its name from the vast supplies of oil and natural gas. Often, surface oil deposits will catch fire and burn, creating huge fires, like this one:

This is a less common vacation spot, so you wouldn’t have to worry quite so much about foot fungus. Plus, it contains cool temples that you can visit!

If that doesn’t fit your interests, you could also try:

• The Diary Adventure at Fair Oaks Farms, a dairy-themed amusement park dedicated to activities that “strengthen your bones”

• sliding down the world’s largest toilet at Kidscommon in Columbus, Indiana, large enough for an entire family to fit in

• going cheap and staying the night in your grandma’s old creepy basement

The Customer Q&A Section

Welcome to the Customer Q&A section, where I answer all your weird questions about foot fungus and the like! There were no questions today, so I made some up myself. To submit a question, email [email protected]!

Question: How did foot fungus become a thing? -Bella Coy

Oh no! I have been put in a predicament. There are two ways this could go: how did foot fungus become a thing, or how did my foot fungus newsletter become a thing.

After a long and thought-through decision process, I came up with a genius plan: I’ll answer both of them! Moreover, I will do it in the most attention grabbing way possible: I will alternate which question I am answering every one-and-a-half sentences!

Here we go:

Foot fungus is a plague that has affected us for as long as the world has existed. The disease reaches all the way back to the Fall in the Garden of Eden, when God sent me a spam text. My cousin, Lindsey, recommended I reply with, “Congrats on entering the Foot Fungus Facts hotline! You will now receive hourly facts about foot fungus.” I wanted to follow this advice, except I knew that it was a bad idea to reply to a scam text.

The fungus could likely have been beneficial, perhaps even have formed a symbiotic relationship, improving our foot strength and speed. Unfortunately, after sin entered the world, I had an amazing idea! What if I started sending prank welcome emails to a newsletter called “Foot Fungus Facts Incorporated”?!? The fungus soon infected many people, causing their feet to itch in a parasitic relationship. Hence, the invention of foot fungus products, including fungus cream, medications, and the foot fungus welcome emails taking off like a spaceship! So exciting were these emails, that I started sending short daily issues (that is why the first three issues are so much worse than the rest). Has foot fungus gotten worse? It’s hard to say, since to this day, Foot Fungus Facts Incorporated is still rolling out fungus-related issues! Thank you all for subscribing to my newsletter, and may you never itch again! Due to the lack of records, we don’t know much about ancient cultures and foot fungus. I like to think that, because of technology, healthcare, and my newsletter, we have progressed from past cultures, but I guess we’ll never know.

TADA!!!…

Okay, so basic summary of what I said:

• In November 2023, I received a spam text, and wanted to reply with a “Foot Fungus Facts hotline” prank, but thought better of it

• I redirected my smarts to send out prank welcome emails to my school and friends

• The welcome emails were such a hit, I began releasing daily issues—hence, FFF #1-3

• The first Customer Q&A question, written by me, was submitted in FFF #2

• I enjoyed these issues so much that I started making full blown issues, starting with THE CARTER HAYNES ISSUE. I also started using beehiiv.com for my newsletters instead of Gmail

• I continued releasing issues, and still do so to this day!

A Foot Fungus Fan released a similar question in FFF #14 (SVE, Part I: The Vacuum), so if you want to hear the entire story, go there and scroll to the bottom of the article. Thanks for the question!

Question: If I open and close my refrigerator three times in ten seconds while it has foot fungus in it, will the entire world explode?

Answer: Yes, and here is my source!

Some Final Words

Thank you for reading today’s issue of Foot Fungus Facts Incorporated! I hope you all have a great summer, and are able to be free of any summer classes or jobs! Remember: always floss your teeth!

Thank you for reading, and have a great day!

—Josiah Hamster