PODCAST · comedy
Knee Deep
by Jeff Bender
Welcome to Knee Deep, a five-minute story in a cup. It’s light, not too deep, with just enough of the tide washing in to reset your day and help you get back on your feet. Wade in with me. Hear a funny tale, or my observations on life under the surface. I’m Jeff Bender, author and artist, thinker of Knee Deep thoughts. So, you’ve rushed out of the house and spilt your coffee down the front of your shirt. The news cycle is heavy, the traffic's honking and, well, you just want to stick your feet in the sand and chill. Relax with a fresh story each week! Wade in... without being overwhelmed.
Episodes
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A Belly Full of Faith: The Tectonic Force that Holds Us
Walking among the weathered boulders of the Arizonadesert, one sees a delicate relationship they have with their center of gravity. The exact point of balance is a reminder that our core convictions are not formed by a mathematical relationship, but our own internal Rock that keep us tightly...
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Objects in the Mirror are Actually Larger than My Car
Most of the things we desire in life are completely without merit. They serve only to boost a low self-esteem, or fulfill a temporary craving, usually one with food, or as it turns out, with Fiat 500’s. So, when I saw a small green Fiat, my childhood dream of being a cartoon superhero immediately...
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Soggy by Six, Summit and Champagne by Seven: My Guide to the Ultimate Triathlon
A record-breaking swim, extraordinary climb and bike tourall in one day. An unsurpassable athletic event. A sports feat that would stretch the body beyond its human capabilities. They said it couldn’t be done, but with a few typos and the right connecting flights, I decided I could make it happen...
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Pulling the Plug on Perfectionism
It only took a couple of chaotic knock-knock jokes withmy granddaughter to remind me that life’s best moments are never scripted. Breaking free of our perfectionism, we usher in a whole lot of beautiful messes, and random bloopers. Welcome loyal listeners to season five of Knee Deep!
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Audit at Eighty Mile per Hour
It turns out the IRS doesn't accept "the wind ate my tax returns" as a valid excuse for an extension. I watched my financial history scatter across the highway like confetti, proving once and for all that all my deductions are literally for the birds.
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2026 No-Undertow Word Tour: Sammy Surfer Returns
Every year now since our surfing friend Sammy pushed offthe shore to find his footing, his world tour has eventually brought him back to us. While he dodges the great forces of nature on his surfboard, he took a few minutes from his Into-the-Void World Tour to talk to us in this…
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Wherever You Spam, There You Are
I always thought the function of being notified ofincoming spam was to let me know there is someone suspicious calling, but I never thought in a million years that person would be me. Sad America, it’s true, we are our own worst spam-enemy.
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Too Many Stinkin' Jeffs!
Noise, growth, and color…the glorious trifecta of Spring.Acceleration is in the air, and my new theory of Re-Jeffing is revving into action and gaining momentum. Is there too much of anything springy this time of year? Not on your life, or your honeysuckle vine either…
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The Geometry of a Jump Shot
On paper, it looked like Duke had it in the hoop, but when you take the X-factor out of an equation, you get a kind of basketball madness that anyone can win at the buzzer. I was trying to make that UConn shot in my dreams, but the math wasn’t adding up and I couldn’t score to save my life.
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Our Toad Never Made the Cut on Wild Kingdom
Walt Disney had an answer for everything when it came to animals, except he couldn't teach our new pet, a toad, when to hold its tongue and back off.
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I Killed a Moose in My Living Room
Alone in the Arctic. Starving. Cold. Lonely. As long as we had our couch, our TV and each other, there'd be no tapping out.
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In the Midst of Our Drift with Mr. Machine
In the middle of Winter, we find ourselves in a spot where our balance is shaky. We are in the in-between, the part that is drifting and loose as we wait for new beginnings. A toy robot, Mr. Machine, shows us what is happening in that space, and he stands ready to kick things into gear in the…
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Bracing for Anywhere Between Three and Twenty-Seven Inches of Snow
We get our share of snow dustings here in EvanspatchIndiana, little false starts, but the real stuff does crazy things to us whenit comes. It changes our DNA. We return to some primordial state. We shift into anxiety mode and believe it is our responsibility to add to the general sense of panic…
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Showing the World Hoosier Daddy
Everyone loves a dark horse. IU’s winning football season has swept everyone off their couches into the winning zone of state pride. We buried our heads in some infertile turf over the last five decades, waiting and hoping for a winning season, and we are ready to show the world Hoosier Daddy.
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2026, The Year of the Dogs Bollocks
What is up with the word “sick” anyway? I’m sorry but there was not a chance on God’s green earth that I was going to adopt that word when I had an entire history of awesome words to choose from. Yet, 2026 needed a different slant. Maybe it was time I abandoned my favorite exclamations for...
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First, We Have to Get Small
Sometimes we have to get very small to become available for the season of Christmas. If we don’t, we may miss that first hint of magic that is in the air and a small miracle that is within our grasp.
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Dixie Cups and the Pale Green Jar
Having your tonsils removed may be the first time we realized we don’t get to keep everything we get. Even so, I thought Show and Tell might delay the process, even celebrate it, when I brought what had been removed from my throat to school in a jar.
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Dispatch from an Uncomfortable Astronaut
It stands to reason that the phrases “antique show” and“space technology” probably shouldn’t be used in the same sentence. Be that as it may, when a vintage astronaut suit I found turned into a wardrobe malfunction, I was calling Houston to tell them I had a problem.
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Down by the Low and Cool
The loud and the brash may tell us that we have much to fear. Yet just down the block the church bells chime softly, reminding us that hope is alive and singing. We can hear it if we open our front door and let it in.
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From Expressway to Distressway, and Beyond
Here in the Midwest, we don’t like a lot of change. We arein the middle, not on the edge. We like variety, but we like our constants more. So, when our cross-town highway started to go sideways this summer we began to retreat to our alternative roads, the ones less travelled…
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Water Under the (tallest) Bridge
Fear of heights in this country is pretty common – like sixout of every ten people, but what about fear of heights and tall bridges and really large people and semi-trucks and losing your pants in public, and…?
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Your Signature Ride
“I like you the most when… Always stay sweet…Remember mewhen you are famous.” Usually we read these messages on yearbooks this time as school closes and summer begins. I saw them all flash by meon a pink Cadillac recently and began to think the message for my future might be in for a long ride...
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It's All a Blur to Me
There’s all kinds of great sayings out there about thedifference between having good sight and good vision. One is physical of course, the other touches on our dreams and goals. Yet, when you have to wear bifocals, good sight and a healthy vision can overlap like in this story, and become an...
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Goodnight from Beetle Street
The smallest spaces are the universes we stop to peerinto. They are made from beetles and Hosta and partly watched TV shows. Try this on: “You go ahead of me, I’m in no hurry,” and watch a slow walk become a new universe appear before your eyes.
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Par For the Course (or horse)
When my father passed away last week I imagined him finally meeting all of his golf heroes in Heaven's pro shop who would help him fine tune his chip shot and putting game. While I never matched his par as a golfer when I was a kid, as his caddy I did manage to come up with a few trick shots of…
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In a Garden, It's the Work You Don't See that Matters
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? Well,don’t follow the lines in that poem or you may come up empty handed this gardening season. Underneath that soil, there's a lot that is not contrary at all, and a lot of hard work we don't see that reaps a harvest of a lasting and special...
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The Boss in the Background
What we see in our life here on earth are but smallsnapshots of the greater vision that God has planned for us. We can look into each other’s eyes, but the bigger picture of the depths of our souls and character are known only by the One who made us. My father, 102, is seeing the bigger picture…
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Choose Two Puppets and... NEUTRAL PLEASE!
They are among the least, the lost and the lonely – those puppets propped up at local car washes. They are supposedly there for children, but the looks on their faces tell another story. We grown-ups may be the only upper hand they have in this world, but with a steady line of clear coats and…
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Ten Reasons Why Ducks are in My Will
We officially kick off the new green and greenery of the season when our seasonal pet mallards, Maude and Claude drop in like a couple of duck bombs out of nowhere. They are like long lost relatives that remind us that, regardless of the duck bills and paddle feet, we are just who we are, part of…
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My Covenant with a Crocus
You are seeking something aren't you? What is it? A person you miss, a goal left unmet? Around there are signs all around you in the woods that may point to answers, to friends at a picnic, to goodnight kisses and flowers that are ready to bloom in the Spring...
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In The Midst of Our Drift
Winter sits heavy like a spoon mired in oatmeal, unmoving,bland and monotonous. For those of us in the middle, in the midst of our drift, we approach the drudgery of winter as if we may have to eat oatmeal for months. Eventually, we begin to reflect, renew our senses, and pay homage to the...
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Stark Waving Mad and So Am I
Be careful where you wave your hand. In an attempt to create an antiseptic experience, we have abdicated the public restroom and replaced it with a giant motion detector that controls us like a Jetson cartoon. Perhaps we should wash our hands of all modern appliances, leave them for the younger...
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Coming Down On the Side of...So What?
We are coming down on the side of so what, a side where apathy and awareness are mixed in a blender and drunk like a protein shake. It’s a side we all may all be seeking – we just don’t know it yet...
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Turning Fires Into Faces
Fires. Loss. Desperation. The onion we call life has peeled back another pungent layer that makes our eyes water. The faces we see in California are in pain, and our land is ablaze. It is our country we watch, and perhaps we recognize in each face something we recognize in our own.
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Where Men and Mountain Meet
During this last ice storm, I lost some of my desire to plummet down a ski slope at breakneck speed, and zoom into a rustic log cabin wrapped in a bright cellophane outfit. That is because I recently had a front row seat to a real-life, amazing assault on Mt. Everest, right here at home.
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Luck and Destiny: Two Ships that Pass in the Night
When we map out the new year of 2025, it helps to make some concrete decisions about what we believe in. Will we allow life to impose its will on us or will we be the captain of our ship this year? At the end of the day, will we look back and see that we let our destiny slip away as we waited for…
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Taking a Knee at Midfield
It was just a few days before Christmas and I was surrounded by thousands of other spectators at my first NFL football game. However, the last second field goals and end zone dances all paled by comparison when a special audible was called by our Quarterback at the end of the game.
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Fifteen Minutes of Pancake Fame
Hummmmm♪♪♪ “And so this is Christmas, and what have you made? Another huge pancake, fills up the whole plate.” …not exactly John Lennon, but I think he’d agree on this one. Pancakes warm the world over like a huge blanket on Christmas morning. I get my fifteen minutes of fame in the kitchen every...
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Yuletide Aisle Dis-Ease
The holiday season is creeping up on us like the second hand in a scary movie. No one hears the ticking until the camera zooms in on the Gothic clock and the last few seconds tick off in slow motion. Will we make it out of the holiday twilight zone before the clock strikes twelve? That all…
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And the Toys Were Hung By the Fireplace With Care
Toys change when they fall in the hands of a kid also because kids think like smaller versions of the toy inventor. My brother and I were no exceptions. We quickly bored of our new toys on Christmas morning, which offered irresistible, if not disturbing possibilities. However, someone unexpected...
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What You Bring to the Table This Thanksgiving
Whatever dish you are adding to the mix at the table may fall flat if bad manners are oozing off the edges. Time to ramp up the etiquette and leave our Viking nature at the door. Gratefulness has lots of looks and one of them is table manners!
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Either Way You Slice It: Part Two
A truck that is about to fall apart, the blankness of a highway, a horizon that never stop. The definition of dullness takes on a new meaning, and it wasn’t “pumpkin.” With loneliness comes introspection, and when my highway fog had pierced the core of my rudeness, whatever I thought was so...
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Either Way You Slice It
One of the great mysteries in the archives of Knee Deep history is the true identity of Mr. Pumpkin. As a leader of Pumpkin Nation, he appears to have set up housekeeping in a small diner in Montana on the Continental Divide, where a unifying magic is baked into every slice of completely neutral...
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Happy 102nd and Climbing, Dad!
The week brought all of us a new president, but the American flew even higher as my father turned 102 years old. His legacy lies sin his lifetime of service and a deep gratitude for the freedoms we enjoy in our country. Happy Birthday, and many more, Dad!
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It WAS Melba Peach, with the Crock Pot, on the Porch
What do the words Anonymous, New England Breeze and Market Kiwi have in common? Almost nothing as it turns out – unless you are trying to pick a paint color from the encyclopedic swatches at your local paint store. How are all those colors named, anyway? (And how do you land that job?) When I…
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Walk Softy and Carry a Big Jello Salad
We were told growing up that subjects like politics and religion were off limits in polite conversations, especially around voting time. Jell-O salad, a much more pliable topic at our house, nonetheless came out of the same mold it always had, and no election was going to change that.
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Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are!
Emily Dickinson said, “I am out with lanterns looking for myself.” Hopefully, we let the light shine on the areas that reveal the real us and keep the other wild animals in their cages. If and when that lantern dims, we need others to ask us, “Do I Know You?” We may ourselves be the ones that are...
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One Big Happy Swarm
Craziness, chaos and crisis, or levity and lightness? Where are we headed in the swarm? Perhaps, like me, a simple summer memory will inspire you to step away from the madness of the world and regain your buzzzzzz...
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The Unremarkable Diet of Dora Hubbard: Part Two
As Dora gains a national platform on the radio, the famed Dr. Adcock reveals Dora’s source of ignorant calories, a cosmic source that awakens Dora to the realization that her life at Trendy-Mart may be a lot more significant and…weighty… than her unremarkable diet.
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The Unremarkable Diet of Dora Hubbard
Apparently, everywhere around us there are unusual sources of energy are finding ways into our bodies. In this episode, a desperate young lady, Dora, may have discovered a way to control her diet in ways you will not believe.
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Welcome to Knee Deep, a five-minute story in a cup. It’s light, not too deep, with just enough of the tide washing in to reset your day and help you get back on your feet. Wade in with me. Hear a funny tale, or my observations on life under the surface. I’m Jeff Bender, author and artist, thinker of Knee Deep thoughts. So, you’ve rushed out of the house and spilt your coffee down the front of your shirt. The news cycle is heavy, the traffic's honking and, well, you just want to stick your feet in the sand and chill. Relax with a fresh story each week! Wade in... without being overwhelmed.
HOSTED BY
Jeff Bender
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Knee Deep have?
Knee Deep currently has 126 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Knee Deep about?
Welcome to Knee Deep, a five-minute story in a cup. It’s light, not too deep, with just enough of the tide washing in to reset your day and help you get back on your feet. Wade in with me. Hear a funny tale, or my observations on life under the surface. I’m Jeff Bender, author and artist, thinker...
How often does Knee Deep release new episodes?
Knee Deep publishes regularly with 126 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Knee Deep?
You can listen to Knee Deep on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Knee Deep?
Knee Deep is created and hosted by Jeff Bender.
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