Well, folks, it’s been a long week, but the count is finally in: Instead Of, the podcast, is 176 episodes long. That’s right! Your three favorite hosts are hangin’ it up, hangin’ it down, and hangin’ it on a towel rack, respectively. We’re not kidding: this one, right here, is the very last one. Join us, each and every one of you Dear Listeners, as we bid you farewell the only way we know how: graphic descriptions of Neopets having sex. In this, the final one, we explode a roving invisible volcano, Mike and Josh finally consummate their long-simmering romance, and we leave you with a classic final twist: Tapan has a job. May the world remember us by the trail of saliva-drenched microphones we left behind.Pairings: bitter regret; innocence, lost; cautious optimism

Instead Of

The New Happy Days

Hey, uh, "boo," and stuff. It's the last week in Spooktaboobular October, but if you're anything like your three favorite podcast hosts, you're feeling definitively anti-spooky this year. Instead, this week Josh plays pinball with human lives, Tapan installs dunk horns on his many basketball hoops, and Mike nurtures his burgeoning nudism.Pairings: low expectations; wing buckets; hog fodder

The Gamut of Life

In the strictly non-sexual holodeck here at Instead Of HQ, almost anything goes. The number two thing we use it for is fashion shows. Look! Here comes Josh down the runway with a sultry strut, sporting his signature crotch-top bodyromper in a very jazzy print. And there's Tapan, hand on his hip, beret on his head, John Silver cigarette dangling from his lips. Mike? We sort of... lost him to the holodeck. He's been living in there for months, downing hole-ales at the fantasy pub and rearranging knick-knacks at his new place in Falkreath.Pairings: cool proximity; full Bacchus; a ProMax pocket protector

British Politician or Swedish Beatnik?

As the old saying goes, the road to Bob Dole's grave is paved with gingersnaps. This week on Instead Of, we learn that Bob Dole is alive, though our cherished 'snaps have crumbled for a grater cause. By the Untethered Horse, we solemnly swear that in this one, Josh adds bitters to his cheesecake, Mike becomes Fully Integrated with The Customer Service Matrix, and Tapan shows his son how it's (un)done.Pairings: legit_gasp.mp3; dubious claims about your Mayan heritage; catstronauts

The Clinching Joke

Dear Apple Podcasts, Boy did this week's Instead Of suck! The hosts—a fish hatcher, a sexy Tesla intern, and an autocratic iconoclast—do everything from slander the sex moves of the great and powerful Elon Musk to plot the defenestration of Mickey Mouse himself. This podcast must be stopped. No more pee trauma. No more mustache play. Enough is enough. 0 stars!Pairings: a massive Sunday load; warm, wet water; a free rag

The Wet Foot Trauma

Look, everybody makes mistakes. Some of us get fired for performance reasons eighteen months ago and justifiably hide it from our friends and family, while others do unspeakably monstrous things like play anthology TV series out of order. We're here to tell you: it's okay. First of all, there's probably a great Fargo recap vid. And second, you need to cut yourself some slack. Paste yourself some forgiveness. Now get back in that hallway, slam a Natural Light, and gaffe away, kid!Pairings: T-Rexas Toast; Water Drowns Water; girth glottals

Bagelsaurus by Josh

Pairings: apt segues; the sum of human wisdom; bravo cane!

The Two Socrateses

This week, it's movie night! First up in our triple feature is the latest MJH/Dave Chappelle vehicle, and let's just say: Executive Producer Josh Harrison is a dirty, no-good liar. Next up, Mike Bogart stars as Krunklestiltskin in the movie it took a cult to make: Cats II. Grounding out the night, it's the Ultimate Director's Cut of the 2004 cult classic Mr. 3000, where they digitally insert flashlights in everybody's hands in every scene.Pairings: tongue crunches; afterparty pregnancy; one libation, extra filth

Opt-In

Any wedding attendee will tell you that the best part of attending a wedding is making small talk with your fellow wedding attendees. Much like a grandparent using Zoom for the third time, in this one we struggle to comprehend virtual wedding etiquette, resulting in: an icebreaker about the random, unfeeling nature of the universe; a marriage between two hard places; and a bright future for the nom de fair.Pairings: dribbling taste; juggling scarves; a flirting trophy

Scarf Juggling in Canada

Good evening, and welcome to the Instead Of NewsHour. Our top story tonight: Disturbing found footage of a turkey trot in Boston is raising new questions in the mysterious disappearance of local turkey Josh Harrison. In sports, superstar devoicalist Tapan Jani puts his unbeaten record on the line in the Devoice Challenge. And on the lighter side, renowned eccentric Mike Bogart will offer a reading from his new poem, "Where Do All the Turtles Go?"Pairings: a tasty Sorrento platter; defunct YouTube channels; 14:42 in Hell

Where Do All the Turtles Go?

Shakespeare once said, "That which we call a grape by any other name would taste as sweet." Much like that quotation, Shakespeare was way off. This week on Instead Of, we eat your organs during the ultimate single-mouth battle to the death: It's cherries vs. grapes. Mike vs. his fedora. Josh vs. gravity. Tapan vs. late-stage capitalism. Fasten your seatbelts, folks. We... don't remember how to drive.Pairings: finger divots; cat options; odds-defying vigilance

An Abundance of Lobsters and Pies

Here at ZipVan Winkle’s, we take all the waking stress out of moving. You know how, when you’re awake, moving sucks? That’s where we come in. ZipVan Winkle’s is built on the timeless idea that when you’re asleep, you don’t know what’s going on. With our patented Right Angle-Identifying technology, you can rest assured that we’ll never cut corners. And as experienced storm chasers, we’ll never conduct your move during a tornado (though our patent-pending hairpills mean you’ll never know the difference!). Move with ZipVan Winkle’s, and you’ll wake up in a brand new world™. Also in this one, Josh rends a fence limb-from-limb, Mike stipulates the hair you ate, and Tapan processes the full range of human experience.Pairings: ground-to-air troops; gawking dawdlers; a shallow gene pool

Handheld Concussion Machine

When it comes right down to it, folks, the thing about this week's episode is that it's hard to explain, right? It's even hard for us, and we've been studying it for years! But if you can give us a little of your time and attention for the next 45 minutes or so, you just might learn something new. So let's get started! Did you know that Josh wears the pants of his long-dead ancestors? As we like to say, more like "haute mature!" Now, if you can believe it, Tapan was one of the very first folks to ever spell a number. Amazing! We like to call him a true "pi-oneer." And finally we come to Mike, who's over here hard at work cultivating his cadence to captivate future Bogies.Pairings: a boring boorish boar burglar; boolean operators; 13 potato cubes or less

The Narc Receptor

There's no other way to say it: This week, your hosts shed all pretense and artifice, calmly throttling the life out of our cooler, younger selves as we make a dispassionate defense of the categorical imperative to maximize one's cribbage score against one's girlfriend. Seven years post-Gangnam Style, we here at Instead Of are of an age where being on a CSI show seems cool, and we're thriving. Tapan knows all the best pills to take, Mike's working on his dead will, and Josh plays every game like it might be his last, nice and friendly-like.Pairings: a next-rainbow-up mentality; clarity, finally; a pit rake PR machine

Better Mike than Never

If you're anything like us, and you've recently been on a drug-fueled stream-of-consciousness off-roadtrip with your best buds, you'll understand exactly what we mean when we say that Josh's body is not only a waterpark but also all seven layers of Hell. This week, we get our feet dirty (while they're not nailed down) and really connect with the Earth and all its luscious grasses. Along the way, we learn some important lessons: Jesus knew what he was talking about when it came to ROI on billboards; sometimes you need to wet your own carpet; and toasters are, amazingly, vertical ovens.Pairings: surprise piledrivers; curl accentuater; a cobbler fetish

Pfleugerism

A hypothetical podcast wherein three friends consider life's real headscratchers: What if instead of with hands, sign language meant communicating with cue cards? How much ranch dressing is too much…on a salad at Macho Man Randy Savage’s house? What are we all, like, even doing here? Think of us as the very best of the replies on AskReddit, because then we can think it too.

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Instead Of

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