Vegard prioritises his family

Vegard begins by holding his eyes open with his fingers, and rolling his eyes under his lower lids, in an effort to keep them moistened.

He eventually gets bored and starts performing an old Ylvis-bit, pretending to speak a language without actually knowing it.

He thinks that he's speaking "pretty good nonsense-Finnish" to Olli, and manages to accidentally come up with the Finnish word for Christmas, "joulua".

He hypothesises that the task isn't so much about not blinking, as it is about tolerating the situation.

As time passes, he calls his wife to ask what time their son's first hip-hop dance performance starts, that evening. As it starts at 17:45, he begins to get visibly worried about the timeframe, and tries to negotiate with Olli about how long he should go on for.

After more time elapses, Vegard apologises, stating that he needs to go, as "sometimes, you just have to prioritise family".

He leaves the lab while uttering another string of fake-Finnish, "palvaaksii malaksij" (thus coining the episode title).

Having kept his eyes open for 37 minutes, he earns second place.

(Written by Nic Greyson and proofread by Karl Craven)

(Illustrations collected by Nic Greyson and adjusted by David Fuller)