Having worked together for so long (and having been married for even longer), Jen and Kent know each other really, really well. We share a sense of humor and a lot of in-jokes. Sometimes it seems like we share a single brain. This makes it much easier to write together, and it has led to a sort of verbal shorthand that we understand just fine, but that outsiders find incomprehensible. It’s almost like we’re talking in code!

What a natural transition that was into today’s topic!

In our chain story, there are a ridiculous number of ridiculous codes employed by our protagonist and his cohorts. Many of his allies and enemies attended the same spy school he did, The Hopscotch Academy, so it makes sense that they would have learned the same espionage techniques. What doesn’t make sense is the variety and absurdity of many of them. In addition to the standard spoken signal phrases, signs, and countersigns, there are:

• codes hidden in tattoos
• various forms of choreographed arm movements
• using nearby people’s bodies to form the shapes of ancient runes
• various licking codes, employed during kissing, but also to hands
• bubble codes for underwater use
• spoken Morse code
• various unspoken forms of Morse code involving thrusting and squeezing, for use in sexual situations
• flavored lipstick, to tell you which dialect of a code to use
• thumb rubbing
• the Stevedore’s Code, involving luggage
• the Washerwoman’s Code uses various colors of clothing to pass messages
• the Haberdasher’s Code utilizes pocket squares and handkerchiefs
• the Confectioner’s Code involves candy bars and their wrappers
• the Mexican Painter’s Code uses eyebrow movements
• the Acrobat’s Code involves finger wiggling waves, for some reason
• the Luchador’s Code utilizes wrestling masks
• the Pianist’s Code involves musical notes
• toe snuffling, and the order in which the toes are snuffled
• toespelling, in which one contorts one’s toes and presses them into another’s soles
• the Soothsayer’s code involves nontraditional usage of tarot cards
• the Bog-Roll cypher involves messages written on toilet paper, passed between dance partners
• the Glassblower’s code utilizes glassblowing terms
• the Shadow Puppeteer’s Cypher makes heavy use of middle fingers
• the Fossil cypher involves, for some reason, aerial photography
• the Make Everything Sound Dirty Code does just what it says on the tin. That’s what she said. Name of your sex tape.
• the Limbo Code was outlawed by the academy, but is known by our protagonist and John
• Contra-Buffoon is when your actions are so clumsy they go around the horn and become subtle again

Jen and Kent don’t know how the vast majority of these codes work, but they make regular use of a few of them. Can you guess which?