The 14th issue of Foot Fungus Facts Incorporated is here, fresh with new words, letters, and .pngs¹ ! In the last issue, I was asked a peculiar question: would I like to write a newsletter about socks and vacuums getting foot fungus and coming to life? The idea excited me, but there were multiple issues with writing such a newsletter. I did, however, hint that I might be interested in writing a single issue about the topic.

This is that issue.

I’m not going to be doing a creative short story work, as I feel like that would betray the newsletter format of my issues. I will, however, be giving a detailed study of vacuums, socks, and how these objects relate to the world of foot fungus. It is my hope that this issue will further integrate socks and vacuums into your life, and that you will achieve an appreciation for these objects unknown to mankind.

Let us begin SVE² , Part I: The Vacuum!

[[ Theme song: 10 hours of vacuuming sounds (YT link) ]]

¹ And some .jpgs

² It stands for, “Socks, Vacuums, Etc”

A Fungal Challenge (a slight tangent)

In the last issue, I promised a special reward for whoever listened to the special song first. I got a total of two listens, one from Izzy Bates and another from my Dad, Matthew Main. The competition was actually very close. Here are the scores:

Izzy Bates: Saturday, 8:02 AM

Matthew Main: Saturday, 8:33 AM

Marcus Miles: Thursday, 1:26 PM

Clearly it was close, but even more clearly, Izzy was the winner. Here are the prizes:

Izzy Bates: First place reward + hamster.png

Matthew Main: unsubscribe.png

Marcus Miles: happy_goat.jpg

The First Place Reward was an entire section about the winner, so without further ado, here is a section about Izzy Bates!

Izzy Bates

Unfortunately, my knowledge about Izzy Bates is quite limited, and I must use logical deduction to fill my many gaps in knowledge about this individual. Here is what my existing knowledge mixed like a smoothie with my logical deduction gives me:

1. Izzy Bates likes toothpaste

I concluded this from the fact that she has white teeth. If she has white teeth, then she brushes her teeth, an action she wouldn’t dare perform if she disliked toothpaste. Otherwise, her teeth would be brown. Or black.

2. Uh…uh……….

Okay, so turns out, I didn’t even know her as well as I thought I did, so I performed a short interview with the customer over email, and got some answers. Here are the results:

Question 1: Have you ever had foot fungus?
Answer: no

Question 2: What are your views on giving mini time bombs to little children?
Answer: It’s not a good idea because they don’t know how to properly handle mini time bombs

Question 3: You’ve been given an elephant with foot fungus and can’t give it away or sell it. What would you do with it?
Answer: I would give the elephant the mini time bombs that I didn’t give to the children

Question 4: How many soccer balls would it take to fill your kitchen?
Answer: Maybe 40?

I hope you now know everything you needed to know about Izzy Bates! Now, let’s get vacuuming.

What is a Vacuum?

A vacuum is a tool to get rid of dust and other annoying stuff usually found on the floor, such as your pet gerbil. These can range wildly in price, going from $100-$1500. There are five main types of vacuums¹ :

1. Upright Vacuums

This is the most common type of vacuum. It is really nice for carpet, and is pretty heavy duty. The only issue is that they can be quite noisy, not to mention bulky and heavy (and quite hard to use on stairs).

2. Canister Vacuums

These vacuums are light sticks that seem really light and maneuverable…until you realize that they are attached to a heavy, bulky thing that looks like a gas tank. These are supposed to be better for stairs and getting in hard places, but I really couldn’t imagine it being worth it. They weigh 15-26 pounds…

3. Stick Vacuums

I personally think these vacuums are really cool. While they aren’t exactly suitable for vacuuming the entire house, they are extremely easy to pull out and use for a spill or a small room (and only weigh 5-10 pounds!). They are also very convenient to store.

Unfortunately, I haven’t ever seen one of these in person.

4. Handheld Vacuums

This one’s a new one for me. These vacuums are made for getting specific spots and areas where there is a mess. They are by far the lightest of the vacuums on this list…1-5 pounds! The only issue is, they are practically useless when it comes to vacuuming the house. If you are deciding on a single vacuum cleaner, I would recommend a different type than this one.

5. THE ROBOT VACUUM CLEANER

This one is definitely the most fun vacuum on the list! Supposedly, you could program it to vacuum throughout the week and do all the vacuuming for you at about the same price! Unfortunately, these vacuums are unable to do all the vacuuming for you—at least, for now. They get stuck quite often, and won’t get all the places. In addition, the vacuuming-ness of the robot vacuum cleaner just doesn’t compete with an upright. Similar to the handheld and stick, this vacuum is not a replacement for a full upright vacuum, and shouldn’t be your first vacuum purchase.

¹ This doesn’t include the non-primary forms of vacuums, including Plasma Vacuums, Root Beer Vacuums, and Murder Vacuums

Foot Fungus Comes into Play

“Mr. Hamster, Mr. Hamster,” your brain might buzz, “What would happen if I vacuumed up foot fungus with my vacuum?” That is a valid concern! Assuming you have a traditional bagged upright vacuum cleaner, here is what would happen:

1. The fan would attempt to such up the foot fungus. If that suction is not enough, the brushes would hopefully dislodge the fungus/spores and allow it to go up the vacuum. That is, of course, assuming you want the foot fungus to go up the vacuum.

2. While the air goes through the vacuum and out the exhaust port at the top, the dirt and other undesirable substances would go into the bag. From here, it would depend on how much foot fungus you got off. If you happened to vacuum small, invisible spores, it would probably go with the air and out the exhaust port, spraying the spores into the air and potentially infecting anyone nearby. If, say, you put it to your foot and got off some dead skin, it goes into the bag¹ . Go to step 3.

3. When you empty your vacuum bag into the trash, this is the fungus’ last chance to escape. Unfortunately, emptying a bag into a trash can often causes dust and whatnot to fly into the air. This would possibly hurl the spores into the atmosphere. However, it is much more likely that the spores will promptly disappear, never to be scratched again! That is, until the bag breaks on the way to the curb…

¹ Of course, there’s also the possibility that the foot fungus chunk would be so large, it would jam up the vacuum. One such instance would be if, instead of vacuuming just the foot fungus, you vacuumed up your entire foot!

The Customer Q&A Section

Question: Can you get foot fungus on your hands? -Moly Colgan

Answer: Technically, yes. Foot fungus isn’t limited to feet, though feet do provide an excellent habitat for fungus. Foot fungus can actually infect any parts of the body, and is quite capable of spreading from your feet to your hands. I’m pretty sure this information was in the welcome email, provided that thing is still functioning.

The one problem: feet are what make foot fungus foot fungus. If it infected your hands, it would be hand fungus.

So there you have the classic response. Technically yes, technically no. To make you feel better, here is a picture of hand fungus (eerrrr, foot fungus on the hands):

Question: What inspired you to write the foot fungus issues? -A Foot Fungus Fan

Answer: It all began with a spam text¹ :

Having seen the text and showed it to Jackson and Lindsey, my cousins, I mentioned I really wanted to respond with something weird, and Lindsey said I should reply with “Congrats on entering the Foot Fungus Facts hotline! You will now receive hourly facts about foot fungus”. I liked the idea!…except I knew that replying would let the scammer know that I was a real phone number, and would thus spam me more.

I then thought of an idea. What if I started sending people prank “welcome emails” to a newsletter called “Foot Fungus Facts Incorporated”? Starting with my girlfriend and then getting students from my grade to sign up, I began sending out welcome emails to a newletter called FFF Inc. The welcome email was such a hit that I began writing issues to compliment the welcome email! It started off as a daily thing I wrote as a simple email via gmail.com, but that quickly got challenging as my audience continued to grow, so I looked up newsletter platforms and landed on beehiiv.com. My first issue written through beehiiv was THE CARTER HAYNES ISSUE (FFF #4), written in honor of Carter Haynes, the first one to have submitted a question to the Q&A! I continued to write FFF issues, and am now on the 14th issue! I definitely did not expect FFF to grow into what it is now, but I am very thankful it has come as far as it has.

¹ In retrospect, it could also have been a user of Verizon’s Text to Landline feature who simply entered the incorrect number, but whatever

Some Final Words

Thank you for reading today’s issue of Foot Fungus Facts Incorporated! As you saw, this was Part I of a series called SVE. This series will be continued in the next issue, where I will discuss socks and their relation to foot fungus. Thank you for reading, and have a great day!

-Josiah Hamster