This Carson Daly Moment Is Plucked Directly From Your Nightmares

This morning on Today, Popsugar's Brandi Milloy was on air to show Savannah Guthrie some new, fun ways to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The recipes looked quite tasty. They had all these fun, unexpected ingredients, like strawberries, bananas, and chocolate chips.

What a delight. Like dessert, but, a sandwich. Things were going well. The sandwiches looked quite delicious — so delicious, in fact, Guthrie had her fellow anchors in a separate part of the studio sampling them.

And this is where it all got too real for me. Guthrie asked her colleagues how everything was tasting, and we got a glimpse of Carson Daly's reaction.

Yes, Daly has melted chocolate on his face. And no one is telling him. They just keep eating.

The cameras cut back to Guthrie and Milloy, who are dipping one of their peanut butter concoctions in an egg mixture. But now Matt Lauer and his buddies are laughing at Daly, who must have realized he has chocolate on his face, and is trying to discreetly wipe it off. But already the crew is starting to crack. Look at Natalie Morales, trying to hold in her smirk like a kid at church.

Do you know why Lauer is so pleased with himself? Because he just made a dad joke about how Daly looks like Charlie Chaplin.

And Guthrie starts to pick up that there's some kind of inside joke happening over in the other part of the studio. And she's all, "Hey what are you guys giggling about?" She delivers a knowing look.

In a fit of laughter, they explain Daly has chocolate on his face. It's hilarious, Guthrie!

Just look at him.

Now do you see why Lauer's Chaplin joke landed so well? They'll be repeating that one at the water cooler for days. And at this point, it becomes clear to Guthrie that the segment is no longer about recipes; everyone's too invested in whether or not Daly will manage to get the chocolate off his face.

Literally the camera just focused on Daly's attempts to clean up while Guthrie and Milloy talked about peanut butter treats in the background.

What is he supposed to do? Aggressive swipes with a perfectly lovely cloth napkin don't seem to be working. He has no choice. He's gotta dab it in his glass of water.

What is he supposed to drink now? And it doesn't even seem that the water — an allegedly universal solvent — is helping him.

Look at the fear in his eyes as he slowly realizes that this moment is familiar to him — that he's had anxiety dreams about it. And now it's arrived.

Finally, he eradicates his target. The segment can continue, but Guthrie's like, well we're out of time because Caron Daly's situation got out of control. So we may never truly know if we've correctly made the berry peanut butter french toast or whatever it's called. But what we do know — and what is arguably the more valuable lesson here — is that your parents have raised you on a lie. If you have food in your teeth or some sandwich debris on your face, no one will tell you. They will let you sit there until you figure it out, and laugh as you try to stabilize the situation. Your mom may have said things like, "Oh, honey. No one cares! They only care what they look like." And yet here we are. Here we are.