An Old Timey Podcast - 60: An Iron Rod Through the Head (Patreon Bonus)

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

Here’s a true story: In 1848, an iron rod shot through a man’s head. It smashed up under his cheekbone and came out the top of his skull. Ready for the wild part? Despite the fact that the iron rod destroyed much of his brain’s left frontal lobe, he survived. Phineas Gage’s story baffled the medical community. His injury became one of the most talked-about medical events of the 19th century.Remember, kids, history hoes always cite their sources! For this episode, Norm pulled from: Caulfield, Margo. “Cavendish Historical Society News: Phineas Gage Walking Tour.” Cavendish Historical Society News (blog), May 16, 2013. https://cavendishhistoricalsocietynews.blogspot.com/2013/05/phineas-gage-walking-tour.html. MacMillan, Malcom. An Odd Kind of Fame: Stories of Phineas Gage. MIT Press, 2002. “The Case of Phineas Gage (1823 - 1860) · Beyond the Bone Box,” n.d. https://collections.countway.harvard.edu/onview/exhibits/show/beyond-the-bone-box/the-case-of-phineas-gage. The University of Akron, Ohio. “Anniversary at Cavendish,” n.d. https://www.uakron.edu/gage/anniversary.dot. Twomey, Steve. “Phineas Gage: Neuroscience’s Most Famous Patient.” Smithsonian Magazine, n.d. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/phineas-gage-neurosciences-most-famous-patient-11390067/.

Well, howdy folks. It's your favorite non-threatening boy, Normie C. here. And his wife. Oh, you're just my wife. You don't have a name. I was kind of thinking about the Jetsons. You know how it was like, Jane, his wife. Yeah, she grabs his wall and goes shopping. Is that how it goes? Yeah. God, what a sexist stupid. I hate that I referenced it, and yet here we are.

Let's talk about something that's not sexist, Kristen. Okay. We're putting out our favorite bonus episodes in the month of June. We're pretty sure. No sexism is involved. This week we have one of my favorite bonus episodes that I've done, an iron rod through the head. A fella named Phineas Gage gets into a horrible accident. I do want to pause you, Norm, and just explain.

I giggled more because you look so excited about an iron rod through the head, not because I find it funny that someone got an iron rod through the head. Folks, this story is a lot lighter than it sounds, I will say. It's an incredible tale of survival and how the kids. human brain works. We hope you enjoy it. And if you really enjoy it, maybe you'll consider supporting us on patreon.com slash old-timey podcast.

And we have a hell of a deal going on right now, Chris. Why don't you tell the fine folks all about it? Oh, my goodness. Get a load of this. If you sign up at the $10 level, that's the pig butter investor level. Pretty much the best thing going. You get 50% off this month. That gets you ad-free video episodes of this whole dang podcast,

plus all the bonus episodes, and yes, there will be a new one in June, plus monthly trivia, a card and stickers with our autographs. I'm sure there's more. Oh, the Discord, you're getting there too. You don't have to mention literally everything. It's okay. Just tell them they're getting a hell of a deal. That's right. You're getting a hell of a deal. And also, we miss you. Hope you enjoy this episode, and we'll see you in July. Bye. Bye. Here you, hear you. You are listening to an old-timey podcast. I'm Norris.

And I've been to Funky Town. It's Kristen Caruso. And on this bonus episode, I'll be talking about Phineas Gage. Who? Who? Wait, the railroad guy? With the who, with the who. Norman. Yeah. Have you done it?

Done what? Is this the railroad guy? It's the railroad guy. Mm. Mm. I'm very excited. How are you feeling? I'm very excited.

I'm very excited. Yeah, I don't want to reveal too much right away. Hmm. But, yeah, I have been obsessed with this story ever since I learned about it at the Glor Psychiatric Museum in St. Joseph, Missouri. If you go there and you shout, an old-timey podcast sent me, you'll get nothing. They'll say, who? They'll say, huh? What?

They'll say, have you been to Funky Town? Everyone, I'm not trying to brag, but some of you may know that there is a club. Up in the club In Kansas City In South Kansas City It's called Funky Town Been around for a long, long time And it is funky in there

I've wanted to go for a solid 15 years This man right here Staring at me right now Has never wanted to go with me No Guess what Bitches Kristen went with Kyla

And they're little friends And they went to Funky Town Ashton and Caitlin Friends of the Pod Yeah they are little though. They are little pint-sized friends, but I'm just trying to brag to you. I went to Funky town. It was glorious. They had a great time. And I was their Uber. I dropped them off, picked them up, took them home. You were very happy to not attend Funky Town. Yeah, yeah. I just stopped my scene.

You're not that funky. I don't dance. I don't drink. Listen. It wasn't my scene. But I'm glad they had a great time and I'm glad I was able to transport you, take you to Funky Town. Okay, Norm, I hate to put the pressure on you. What? But you've got to tell this story because guess what? What? Our cousin, well, you already know this. Our cousin is getting married tomorrow.

We've got the rehearsal dinner tonight. I mean, we got a bang, bang, boom. We don't actually have to do anything. We just have to eat, so. We got to show up and eat, okay? If we don't show up and eat, Madeline and Mason, can not get married. Do you want that blood on your hands?

Why would there be blood? I don't know. It could happen. For every minute Kristen and Norman are late. Someone dies. That could actually be a pretty interesting movie. It actually would be kind of weird, though, that they would start murdering people because a guest was late.

Just to really teach people about the importance of being punctual. Exactly. Like, this is a movie for your friend with ADHD time blindness. This is how you really teach them. Yeah. A lot of good lessons. I mean, we were talking today about like, if you hire somebody to do something for you, and they're like, yeah, I'll be there Tuesday at 12.30 p.m. Sure. And they just like, don't show up. Or they text you three hours later and say, hey, I'm on my way.

Uh-huh. And we're like, well, you know, we're busy now. You can't come over. And they're just like, oh, okay. And we talked about, why don't they ever apologize? Why don't people be like, I'm sorry, I'm late? The thing I've tried to figure out is like, in that scenario, which happened today, why did I feel like I needed to apologize to them? We had scheduled someone to come over and do some work on the house and... It didn't happen. It didn't happen. Kristen felt bad for them because they didn't show up.

And I was like, no, they're the way this works. Anyway, a lot to unpack. We are a mess, folks It's true You know what I realize We haven't done lately What? We haven't had a mistakes

The Shame segment Oh, we should Because we messed up on Linda Evans We did? Yeah How Okay, well everyone, Not to brag

But you know, Norman got his Wonderful eBay find Linda Evans Well hang on, hang on Hold on If we're doing a segment Oh Mistakes

Of shame How'd we fuck this up? Well, people are saying, okay, so we were making fun of Linda Evans in that ad says, I believe in Crystal Light because I believe in me. Yeah. And I thought that was the most hilarious thing in the world. I still do. It's funny, yeah. But people have come forward and said, well, Linda, our dear friend Linda, was playing a character named Crystal something or other. Yeah.

And so that's probably what that means. Oh, from that show, Dynasty. That's the one. I'm too young and hot Before our time Yeah Well we apologize This has been another exciting segment of

Mistakes I get goosebumps every time Every time we fuck up I get goosebumps You're like it's happened again All right are you ready for Phineas Gage? Yes Kristen You recently covered the history of lobotomies

It's true And boy was that fun No it wasn't It's not true. Just a quick refresher for those hos who maybe haven't listened yet. A lobotomy was a surgical procedure that severed connections in the brain between the frontal lobe and the rest of the brain. Certain doctors— Kristen, are you okay?

No, I'm about to pass out. Certain doctors thought that by doing this, the brain would create new pathways to the frontal lobe, and that would cure conditions like schizophrenia, depression, OCD, anxiety, and running on spite in crystal light. There's nothing wrong with me. That reminds it. We got to make a hoodie. Runs on spite and crystal light. Yeah, or like a towel.

A towel. Well, you know, when we went to the Royals game, they gave us a branded towel. Yeah. And I was like, oh, maybe we could do old-timey towels. That seems strange to me. No. Oh, I'm sorry. History hose, way in.

Would you like a little hand towel, old-timey hand towel? You know what? Yeah, actually, please do weigh in. I feel very confident. A little branded hand towel. I feel very confident in how that pole's going to pan out. Okay. Imagine you have a guest come over to your house and they're washing their hands and they look at the towel and it says runs on spite and crystal light.

And they look, that is hilarious. What a cute little novelty in your half bath. Anyway. So for some patients, a lobotomy definitely did solve those issues. But it came with some pretty serious side effects, Kristen, as we learned in your episode. some people's personalities changed significantly. Some people exhibited childlike behaviors. Some people suffered memory loss.

Many people had to relearn basic functions like how to walk or use the bathroom. And of course, some patients straight up died. Yeah. Lobotomies fell out of favor in the 1960s after the medical community decided that medicine and therapy and watching kitchen nightmares were much better and much safer ways to treat mental health conditions. Kitchen Nightmares played such a crucial role in curing depression. Watch the Amy's Baking Company episode and tell me you don't feel better at the end. I can't believe that watching Kitchen Nightmares makes you feel better.

To me, it spikes my anxiety. Why? Because it's bad, disgusting restaurants. So that's number one. I want to pretend that disgusting restaurants don't exist because I want to continue eating in restaurants. And then number two, some very tall British man, is yelling at everyone all the time. No, thank you.

My favorite thing about kitchen nightmares is I'll be sitting there eating like Easy Mac watching. And then he'll be like, oh, this food is frozen. And I'm like, geez, that's gross. And I'm like eating Easy Mac. I would never. That's ridiculous. It's all fresh and organic Easy Mac for me. So at the time, the idea that a physical surgery could cure depression or melancholy.

It wasn't that radical of an idea. because doctors understood that the frontal lobe affected things like emotions, personalities, social understandings, etc. Are you just stealing my episode? Yeah. Okay. And I'm not giving any credit to you. All right. Great.

I learned all this from some podcast. Huh. Some dumb podcast. I'm not sure what it was called. So, Kristen, you might be wondering, how did doctors figure out that the frontal lobe controlled those things? We can trace it back to the mid-1800s when a somewhat ordinary man named Phineas Gage suffered. an unordinary injury. I don't want to spoil the story, so we're just going to jump into it.

Spoil the story. You're about to tell us the story. Yeah, but I didn't want to tell you right away in the first page. You're just going to tease us. Okay, here we go. So today I'm going to tell you all about Mr. Phineas Gage, his horrific accident and how it changed the medical world. Or did it? Maybe.

Oh. We'll see. I got to say, it's real odd to be. be told such a serious story from a man wearing such an unsurious sweatshirt. Excuse me? Why are you hating on my Bucky's hoodie? It's just un-serious. It is comfy, cozy. I do have a picture of you shaking the hand of the Bucky's statue in Texas. Oh, what a moment that was. It was a big moment for all of us. On my way to my grandfather's funeral. Oh. I mean, we were. Okay. Don't you remember? I remember it now. Thank you very much, Norm. I'm sorry for bringing that up.

It's fine. I mean, that's reality. That's where we're going. That's the reality. Yeah. You got to shake Bucky's hand and we paid our respects. All right. Imagine you're at the doctor's office waiting for the doctor to walk in and he walks in with this Bucky's hoodie. And he says, I'm Dr. Nelson. Nice to meet you.

No. No? Here's the thing. This happened. I believe it was in Florida. A little fucking twirp, like a teenager. posed as a gynecologist did all these exams. Do you remember this?

Yeah. But like they showed pictures and it's like, well, you know, if I were in that position, I wouldn't be like, hey, you look too baby-faced. I'd just be like, oh, God, I got a really young doctor. But if someone comes in in a Bucky's sweatshirt and shorts, I'm like, no way. You're not a doctor. Really? Absolutely.

Man, so judgmental. Maybe his lab coat was in the wash. All he had was the Bucky's hoodie. I don't trust. You're too quick to judge. I don't trust a doctor whose only option, aside from the lab coat, is a Bucky's sweatshirt. Oh, you think he should have some other dress clothes? Yeah, I think.

Maybe came in a nice button up. Even just a T-shirt. You don't have just a plain white tea you could throw on, Doc? Yeah. What about a Tommy Bahama? Hawaiian shirt? God, that'd be too casual. Too cash?

Yeah. Can you imagine a doctor wearing a whole? Hawaiian shirt is like, well, your ovarian cysts are back. Well, I got bad news for you. Let me take off my Oakley's and read the chart. And he just lets him down because he's got the little thing. He's got the little strap that holds him to his neck. I can't read this x-ray with my Oakley's on.

It might actually lessen the blow, really. Yeah, it might be a humorous event in your life. Uh-huh. You'll be telling all your friends about that doctor's appointment. Wow, this is a hell of a bonus episode. I was going to say, we are never making it to the rehearsal dinner at this rate. I love it. Okay, before I start, I want to give a special shout out to Malcolm McMillan.

He is the author of The Book You See Behind Me. It's called an odd kind of fame, Stories of Phineas Gage. He wrote like the definitive book on this guy. It's where I got a lot of my information from. So, are you ready? I'm ready. Let's travel back in time. Dooloo.

Do loo. Oh my gosh. We're in the state of New Hampshire in the early 1800s. And let's meet a young boy named Phineas Gage. Well, we'll do our best anyway because we really don't know much about his early life. Most likely, Phineas Gage was born on July 9, 1823 in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Like most people at that time, the Gage family were farmers. And Phineas grew up plowing fields, raising livestock, taking care of horses, doing cute little TikToks and Instagram reels.

Norman, we know he did not do that. Oh, you caught me. You caught me because it hadn't been invented yet. They didn't even have electricity. How are they going to charge those phones? So Phineas probably attended school. We don't have any evidence or proof. But the literacy rate was very high in Lebanon, New Hampshire.

And Gage was able to read and write. So, probably do. go to school. In the 1840s, Finneyus Gage became a fully grown boy, and he decided to leave the farm and get a job, working on the railroads all the live-long day. During this time, the United States was a country on the move. Railroads were popping up across the nation, connecting people like never before. And New England was no exception. People in small towns could hop on a train and head to major cities like Boston and New York. And Phineas Gage was one of the many people constructing these railroads.

So he got a job working for the Rutland and Burlington Railroad. At the time, they were building railroads across the state of Vermont. The Green Mountain State. You ever been? Have I been? I think I've driven through Vermont. Wow. Yeah.

Sorry. Just a drive-through, huh? I'm afraid so. Don't you know Vermont is home to the man, the myth, the legend. Bernie Sanders? Isn't that nice? What is that? That was Bernie Sanders.

Isn't that nice? I did know that. Yeah, he makes it pretty clear that he's the senator from Vermont. Okay, I have a funny Bernie Sanders story, and I... You do? Well, I do. It's not about, it's not like I met Bernie Sanders, but it just reminded me of this story. Okay, let's hear it.

So back in 2016, when, like, Bernie Sanders was, like, a legit candidate for president. Yep. One of my buddies did a little sketch on YouTube for April Fool's, where, he like put on a Bernie Sanders wig and he was like ranting and raven about how high the price of video games had become. Okay. He's like, too expensive, blah, da, you know. Yeah. And so I thought that was hilarious.

Uh-huh. And I saw him later and we came up with this other bit where it's Bernie Sanders and he does a let's play video on like some old-ass video game console like the MagnaVox Odyssey or something. but the whole time it's him trying to figure out how to hook up the Magnavox Odyssey to the TV and he's just complaining the whole time. I feel like if I saw it, I'd enjoy it. It'd be funny. Yes. He never made it.

Damn him. Do you want to call him out now? Yeah, Adam. Full name. Full name. No. I'm not going to docks, my friend. I can tell you're not a professional wrestler.

Let me tell you something. There we go. We came up with that Bernie Sanders bid and you didn't make it, you little punk-ass bitch. There we go. There we go. No, I'm just kidding at him. Boy. Okay, let's get back to our story.

This is before Bernie Sanders' time. Okay. Yeah, Bernie was still in diapers in the 1840s. Just kidding. No, he wasn't born yet. You don't have to say just kidding. I know. I'm over-explaining.

It's a problem I have. Finnius Gage got work on the Rutland and Burlington Railroad in the nearby town of Cavendish, Vermont. It was named after Lord Cavendish. Get this, Kristen. He is the great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather of King Charles III, the current king of the United Kingdom. Yeah, Lord Cavendish. Weird, okay.

Yeah, I thought that was interesting. It's also weird to call him King Charles III because my whole life he was Prince Charles, you know. Yeah. Really got to rewire my brain. Sounds like you need a lobotomy. Hey, that's not funny. So Cavendish is about 30 miles from Lebanon, New Hampshire, which was Phineas's hometown, and he was hired as a foreman. His job was to delegate tasks to his crew, record times for bookkeeping, pay everyone.

He just kind of managed everybody. Sure. And as a foreman, Phineas Gage was paid more than his coworkers, and that meant he was able to rent a room at a tavern in Cavendish, Vermont. I got money. Ooh. I love that song. It's a good song. So Alfinia's Gage was, you know, counting all of his money.

Yeah. The rest of his crew, they had to camp out in little shanty towns by the railroad in like tents or like poorly constructed huts. Okay. You know, when you said he had money and so therefore he got to rent a room, I was like, wow, I was expecting something a little, I don't know, flashier than that. But compared to sleeping in a tent, that's flashier. Yeah, exactly. He had a room above a tavern. He was bowling. All right. He was fly, no lie. So sometimes that inequality, it created some tense working conditions. Well, yeah, you've got a roof over your head. Yeah. I hate you now. These guys got to go into the bush and take a dump. Yeah. Wipe with leaves, maybe. I mean, hopefully you don't get the leaves of three. You got to leave them be. poison ivy on your butthole. I mean, it's happened to people.

Yeah, that would be horrible. Yeah, it'd be the worst. And, you know, I don't think I'd get a lot done on the railroad the next day. I'm just saying. I got to call out. Yeah. And I'm guessing their sick leave policy is not that great. It's not great, no.

So, yeah, there's tense working conditions, especially if the foreman was an asshole. Yeah. Or he sucked. At the time, it was not uncommon to read news stories of workers like rioting. against foreman's. But by all accounts, Phineas Gage was very well liked by his men. He never showed up to work in his Gucci socks.

Think of how jealous that would have made everybody. I'm thinking about it right now. I am thinking about what it would take to make people jealous back then. I don't know, but I had no idea Gucci socks were a thing. I wrote that as a joke, and then I googled Gucci socks.

They are real. $220 for a pair of Gucci socks. Of course Gucci socks are real. That's insane. Well, I agree. I'm not buying them. You know what I wear? What? Puma socks from Costco.

Ten pairs, 15 bucks. I'm still wearing the same socks I bought 12 years ago. This is a weird thing to brag about. Oh. Look at this. There's a hole in the bottom of it. Oh, is there? There isn't. Yes, there is. I'm looking. Oh, there is. Oh, shit. I'll toss this one. As I find the holes, I toss them. Yeah. He's got a really good system.

I do. If there's a hole, it goes. Thank you for being patrons, by the way. Maybe Norm will get some new socks. Yes, thank you. Appreciate it. Finneus Gage was described as a, quote, efficient and capable foreman. He was smart, shrewd, energetic, persistent, a real blue-collar guy. He came up with plans. He stuck to him. He got the job done, Kristen. Okay. Finius Gage was also very sexy. I was going to say, was there a Mrs. Finnis Gage?

You know, someone to share that one bedroom? Not yet. Okay. He's kind of short, but then again, who wasn't? Everybody? I mean, you've got to adjust height for inflation. That's true. We need a height inflation calculator.

Yeah. And, hey, we love our short kings and queens on this podcast. Finius Gage was about five feet six inches tall, about 150 pounds. And he was described as, quote, a perfectly healthy, strong and active young man, possessing an iron frame, muscular system unusually well developed, and had scarcely a day's illness from his childhood. Who described him this way? His doctor.

Oh, was the doctor masturbating furiously in a beaver hoodie while he wrote that? You know what? We don't know. Oh, okay. But we can definitely assume he was. And that's okay when we're doing history. Sure, sure. The Rutland and Burlington Railroad line was one mile. south of Cavendish.

It cut through some hills and some mountains. And that meant they needed to blast some rocks and boulders to clear a path. And that was what Phineas Gage and his crew were doing. So how do you do that in the 1840s? Was it like of those cartoons where they place a giant red T&T box and detonate it with one of those dynamite plungers? Yes. No. Oh.

Kristen. Well, maybe they did that, but that's not what they were doing. Okay. Okay. So here's what they would do. They would drill deep holes into the rock, sometimes up to 12 feet deep. And this was before power tools. Sometimes it took a whole day to drill a hole in the rock.

That sounds terrible. It's hard work. And then they would fill that hole with a layer of explosive powder and then a long fuse. And then on top of that layer of explosive powder, they would pack in sand and clay using a long iron rod. And they did this so that when the explosion went off, it wouldn't travel out of the hole. It would actually explode into the rock. And it would make the explosion way more effective. This was a very dangerous job, and it took a lot of skill.

You had to make sure there was enough explosive powder. You had to pack everything in real tight. And you want your best and most capable boys pulling off that job. Capable boys like Phineas Gage. He was a pro at setting explosives. Gage even had his own custom iron tamping rod made by a local blacksmith. It was three feet seven inches long, weighed about 14 pounds. It was about 1.25 inches in diameter.

So just imagine like a broom handle. Yeah, yeah. You know, on one end of this rod, it was flat. So that's what Phineas used to pack down all the powder and sand and the clay. But the other end actually had a pointed tip, which was kind of unusual because most tamping rods at that time. They were flat on both ends. Okay. But his tamping rod, it almost looked like a javelin. And I was really curious why one end was pointed. And I couldn't find an answer. Are you saying he stuck it up his butt?

No. Why are you looking at the camera like that? I'm looking at the camera like that because I feel like we're leading up to some dumb joke. What is it? No, no joke. Oh, really? No, I seriously don't know. There's no joke, I swear. So you're actually asking for ideas? Well, so my best guess was that it was pointed so he could use it kind of like a chisel to like clear out the drilled hole. Mm-hmm. But, or maybe he just like poked people he didn't like. Or maybe it was better to grip, you know?

What I mean better to grip? The pointed end? Yeah. Well, that would hurt your hand. Why would you want to grip it there? Well, it's not that pointy. It's not a blade. As you'll soon learn, it was real pointy.

This is what he gets through the head. Sorry, folks. Okay. All right. Warning. This next part of the story, it's going to get gross. Oh, my God. How long is it going to be gross?

Quite a while. She's fast forward, 20 minutes. Okay. You ready? Yeah. On September 13th, 1848, at around 4.30 p.m., Phineas Gage was preparing an explosion in some rock. his men had just finished drilling one of those long assholes and now Gage was hunched over the hole

filling it with powder packing it down with his iron tamping rod and suddenly he got distracted by his crew behind them they were loading some rock into a cart so Gage turned his head to the right over his shoulder like this to talk to him I'm not really sure what he told them

but maybe he said something like Hey don't screw around you screw around too much Something like that. What's that from? That's the shop teacher from South Park. Mr. Adler, he's like one of my favorite characters. Okay.

And as he talked to his crew, he kept packing the explosive powder into the hole with the flat end of his iron rod. And then Phineas Gage's iron tamping rod had struck some rock, which ignited a spark and set off the explosive powder. Oh. That three foot seven inch iron tamping rod rocket. out of the top of the drilled hole and it went completely through Phineas Gage's head. Oh, God.

Keep going. Don't pause. I'm allowing you to process. Finius Gage was thrown onto his back and he started convulsing. That iron tamping rod landed 80 feet behind him, covered in blood and brains. Workers quickly rushed over to help him. Wait, so it went through?

It went completely through his head. Okay, keep going, Norman. Okay. So workers rushed over to help Phineas, and they saw that he had two large holes in his head. One was on his left cheek, and the other was at the top of his head, kind of like front and center. But eventually Phineas Gage stopped convulsing. And then he started speaking. Oh, my God. In fact, he never lost consciousness. It was incredible. He was covered in burns, blood, brain matter. He had two holes. holes in his head, but he needed a doctor ASAP. Yes. If you didn't know.

Holy shit. So a couple of workers picked him up and they helped him into a nearby ox cart and they took off for Cavendish. And along the way, Phineas Gage took out his little time book and he wrote a little entry in it.

You know, he's off the clock now, Kristen. What'd he write? We don't know. Oh, my God. But witnesses said he scribbled something in the time book. Yeah. So he was taking it back to the local tavern in Cavendish where he was renting a room. Two of his men helped him up the steps and they sat him on a chair on the porch.

And then riders were dispatched looking for any doctor that could come help him. At 5 p.m., about 30 minutes after the accident, the first doctor arrived. It was Dr. Edward Higginson Williams. He lived in Proctorville, which was about five miles from Cavendish. Dr. Williams said he walked onto the porch and he saw Phineas Gage sitting in a chair. with two large holes in his head, covered in blood. And then Phineas Gage turned to him and said, Doctor, here is business enough for you.

Dr. Williams began his examination. It did not look good, Kristen. So right under his left cheekbone, feel right here? See what I'm feeling? There's a hole. And it's about the diameter of that iron rod, 1.25 inches. It went all the way behind his left eye.

Oh, my God. and up through the top of his head in the front center area. Kind of like where a unicorn's horn, you might imagine that would be. The hole at the top of his head was larger. The skull had been shattered right there. Dear God. Dr. Williams described it like an inverted funnel. So there was like ripped skin and bone fragments, you know, pointing up.

And when he looked inside, Dr. Williams could see Phineas Gage's brain. Holy shit. It was pulsating. So naturally, Dr. Williams' first question was... What the fuck! Is that the parrot? Yeah. Oh, I got to play that again.

What the fuck! Folks, that is my favorite YouTube video I've ever seen. Just a parrot cursing. This guy does a magic trick for his parrot, and that's not the parrot. Which is what I say whenever I see magic tricks. How did they do that? What? So yeah, Dr. Williams was like, what the fuck happened?

Yeah. And Phineas Gade. told him everything in great detail. How the fuck was even talking to him right now? This is the wildest thing. Yeah. So initially, Dr. Williams, he just didn't believe him. Well, you have to believe.

He was like, there's no way a man could survive something like that. But dude, you're looking right at him. You're looking at his brain. You of all people should know that, in fact, a man can survive this kind of thing. Well, maybe he was like that parrot. What the fuck? He thought it was a magic trick. So at the time, the medical community believed that any individual,

injury to the brain was instant death. Sure. Yet here was Phineas Gage alive, talking, recalled everything perfectly. One of the workers who drove Gage into town, he backed up the story. In fact, they even had the iron tamping rod still. And look, it's covered in blood and brain goo. Meanwhile, Phineas Gage stood up, vomited. It caused, quote, half a teacup full of brain to fall on the floor.

Oh, that is the nastiest sentence I've ever heard. Yeah, that's why I had to include it. Dr. Williams was not prepared to treat Phineas Gage. He did not have the experience to touch this wound. Who did? No one did it this time. Dr. Williams was from Procterville. Small town, baby. Yeah.

Treat a hole in the head? Try that in a small town. You can't do it. In fact, Dr. Williams, due to a lack of work, he also worked on the railroad as a side hustle. Oh, dear God. So he needed some backup. And at 6 p.m., about one and a half hours after the accident, the backup arrived. It was a fella named Dr. John Martin Harlow.

Dr. Harlow was a young doctor. He was about 29 years old, but he had graduated from the prestigious Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. Never heard of it. It's now known as Thomas Jefferson University. And he had a thriving practice in Cavendish. Of course, I don't think he saw anything like this in medical school. No, no one had. But Dr. Harlow took action.

He immediately said, let's get him up to his room. Incredibly, Phineas Gage stood up by himself, walked upstairs by himself, and then sat on his bed. Dr. Harlow examined the wound and, yeah, it was bad. That hole went completely through his head. Part of his left frontal lobe was missing. The right frontal lobe looked completely intact, though. But time was of the essence. Dr. Harlow needed to stop the bleeding first.

He described the scene as, quote, literally one gore of blood. He shaved Phineas' scalp. He cleaned the wound. And then he started removing all the loose bits of skin and bone and brain. What he did next is really gross. Are you ready? I am not ready for any of this, but go ahead. Okay.

So Dr. Harlow wanted to make sure there was no more loose bone fragments in the wound. So he stuck one finger in the top of the hole, one finger at the bottom of the hole. No, you did not. And he started digging. No. And eventually his two fingers met in the middle of Gage's head. See, this is, to me, this is how it gets even worse. Because, like, if I have that happen to me and I'm still talking, still moving around, I don't know, bandage me up so I don't lose my brains by the teacup.

But don't go feeling around in there. Yeah, but you got to remove all the loose bone because that's going to cause complications later. Yes. You know what will also cause complication? What? Some dude with his bare hands hasn't washed him in a fortnight digging around in my face. And in a fortnight we dug in Phineas's hole. Look, he just had one of those little bag of Doritos before he arrived, okay?

So he just licked up. Imagine he walks up to the tavern. licking his fingers. Oh, what seems to be the problem here? Holy shit. Whoa. Whoa. Let me get my hands on that.

So he removed all the loose bone fragments. And then he decided to put back the large skull fragments back into place. Kind of like puzzle pieces. Yeah. Little hat. Isn't it so satisfying when you're doing a puzzle and you find that perfect piece? Norman, we're talking about a skull. And I'm about to throw up teacups worth of vomit.

And I'm going to throw them. at you because you deserve it for telling us this gross story in very gross detail. Look, this is what happened, okay? Okay. And then Dr. Harlow pulled the scalp back together as much as possible, and he held it in place with some adhesive straps. Okay. And then next, he put some dressing on top of the wound, nice lemon vinegarette.

I knew you're disgusting. No, it was like a medical dressing. Yeah, we know, we know. A thousand island. This might sting a little. Phineas. And then he added a nightcap for protection. Yeah.

So the hole in the cheek, Dr. Harlow kind of left that one alone. He cleaned it up, but he left the wound open because he saw it as like a natural drainage hole. Oh, okay. Meanwhile, Phineas kept swallowing blood and brain goo and kept vomiting it all up. By 10 p.m., his wounds had been patched up, and he was in stable condition. Okay. He still had all of his senses. He could smell, he could hear, he could feel.

His right eye was perfectly fine. His left eye was swollen shut, but if he lifted his eyelids, he could see out of that left eye. Dr. Harlow ordered Phineas Gage to stay in bed and keep his head elevated. Privately, Dr. Harlow thought Phineas Gage would die in a few days. Sure. Finius Gage thought he'd be back at work in a few days. Oh, my God. All they could do now was wait.

and see. You okay over there? No. It's okay. I think the worst stuff is over. I hope so. The next morning, Phineas Gage's mother, Hannah, and his uncle arrived from Lebanon, New Hampshire, and Phineas recognized them both. So that was good. His memory seemed completely fine, but the adrenaline from his accident had finally worn off and who he was in a lot of pain. Yeah. His whole head was very swollen. And then the next day, Phineas got worse. His pulse shot up.

Dr. Harlow said he was delirious. He only had a few moments of clarity. Dr. Harlow diagnosed him with inflammation. A more modern diagnosis would be infection. But it's 1848, Kristen. Germs had not been invented yet. That's right. So how do you treat inflammation back in old timey times?

Well, you got to purge that bod every six hours. Dr. Harlow gave Phineas Gage some purgatives, aka laxatives. He wanted Gage to poop. So he's got a headache unlike anyone has ever experienced on earth. He's swallowing blood and brains, and now he's going to be shitting himself. He needs to poop, yep. I actually found that pretty interesting because my sister is a nurse practitioner, my sister Randy. she is always ranting and raving about how wonderful pooping is for you.

So whenever she has a patient who's like, oh, I don't feel good, you know, I want some medicine, blah, blah, blah, blah. Randy's first question is always, when was your last bowel movement? And she's always encouraging her patients, try to poop. Make sure you poop. And I guess pooping solves a lot of problems in your body. Okay. I don't imagine Randy would say that to a guy who had a spike through his head. though. I feel like...

Hey, Phineas, when was your last battle movement? You know what your problem is, buddy? You need to take a dump. You just haven't pooped yet. Well, the next day, Phineas's pulse was down. So that was good, but he still hadn't taken a dump. Dr. Harlow was like, I need to see some nuggies. Oh, so he gave Phineas more purgatives, and then Dr. Harlow inspected the wound again.

And there was some sort of, like, nasty dungies. discharged coming out of the top of his head. Yeah, because someone dug their nasty fingers in it. It kind of looked like a fungus. Oh, no. I got a joke for you. Mushroom walks into a bar. Bartender says, we don't serve your kind around here.

And the mushroom says, why not? I'm a fungi. You think that's the way to lighten this disgusting story? I'm trying my best, baby. So anyway, Dr. Harlow cleaned up all that fungus. He redressed the wound. and for the swelling, Dr. Harlow was able to get a hold of something pretty fancy for that time. Ice. Oh, okay.

New England was kind of the epicenter for ice in the United States during the 1800s. Future topic. I actually found it very interesting. I was going to say, it sounds boring as hell, but all right. Well, I wanted to know, like, huh, how did he get ice during this time? And so I just, like, found the history of ice in the United States. Classic Normie C. It was interesting. On September 17th, 1848, four days after the accident,

Phineas Gage finally took that dump. Hooray! And it did seem to help. He was now rational. He recognized people who came to visit him. He still had some of that fungal discharge on top of his head, but the wound on his cheek looked way better. But as Paula Abdul famously said, do you remember that music video? No.

Oh, my God. It was my favorite music video as a kid. Why? Well, so it's Paula Abdul with this like cartoon cat named MC Scat Cat. Okay. And they're like dancing and, you know, bebopping and singing to each other. I loved it as a kid. And then I like watched it recently.

Uh-huh. And I was like, oh, so I think this cat's trying to fuck Paula Abdul. Oh. I like looked at it in a new light. Ew. And I know how you feel about cartoon characters. No, sorry, not cartoon characters. animals trying to get with humans.

Yeah, it's always a human woman. It's always very gross. Well, that's exactly what was happening in this music video. Still a great music video. Oh, yeah, nothing wrong with it. It's a good-ass song. The next few days were rough. Phineas Gage was very hot, dehydrated, dry mouth, shortness of breath.

He became delirious again. He talked to himself repeatedly. He was giving fake orders to his railroad crew. And Dr. Harlow was worried there was some sort of blockage in his head that had gotten infected. Mm-hmm. So he took a metallic probe. Oh, God. And he passed it all the way through Gage's head.

There's no blockage. Uh-huh. Luckily. In one of his rare moments of clarity, Phineas Gage now believed he would die. All Dr. Harlow could do was redress the wound, give him more purgatives, and put more ice on his head. Are we just loading this man up with laxatives? Every day.

Dr. Harlow wants to make sure he is pooping. Okay. I mean, that was the treatment at the time. All right. You know? I just, you know, I just feel like it's one of those things. I just think of like, you know, when you take like half an edible and you wait, but you don't wait long enough.

You're like, I don't feel a thing. And so then you take the other half and like too soon later, you're like, oh. So you're thinking if he takes too many laxes. Yes. He's going to clog whatever outhouse is at this tavern. I'm just thinking Steph's going to shoot out every hole and he has some new holes. So I'm worried about him. Do you remember when back in Elizabeth City, you were hanging out with my buddy Danny?

And he was like, yeah, meet me at this bar. And you walked into the bar and he was like, we have to leave the bar right now. Yes. Because somebody in the men's restroom or actually, I think it was just like a all-inclusive restroom like anybody could use it. Somebody had like, all-inclusive. And they had the buffet line in there. It was disgusting.

Free drinks. Somebody had just like shit everywhere. Yes. And he said there was blood as well. Somebody like blew the fuck up in there. Yeah, it was an asplosion is the medical term. Yeah. And Danny was like, we have to leave this bar right now.

Well, it was funny because, yeah, Elizabeth. city there were like three bars and we wanted to go to one of them yeah and so i i do remember and i i can still see his face he was always so animated and stuff but he was like pale and so and he was just like we have to leave we have to go we can't we can't go here we can't go here can't i was i was not there i don't know where i was but maybe you were the guy who blew it up no i was out of town and no i was out of town i was out of town i was out of town i was out of town i was out of I definitely didn't go into the all-inclusive restroom, eat up all the food. Now I'm thinking about all-inclusive restrooms.

You meant gender-inclusive, right? I did. Yeah. I prefer all-inclusive. What if you're sitting on the toilet in the all-inclusive restroom and you're like, I think I want to massage now. And these arms, these arms come out of the wall behind you and they start. Are they human arms? Yeah.

Well, how else are you going to get a massage and it starts? No. I mean, I'm just saying like, you're. Surely there could be like a massage chair. I'm thinking, well... I just don't want to be the person whose job it is to massage someone who's on a toilet. Two birds, one stone. What the...

I'm using the bathroom and I'm getting a massage. Please move on with your disgusting story. Okay, so over the next few days, Phineas Gage recovered. He took more dumps, got some good sleep. By September 23rd, 10 days after his accident, Phineas Gage was feeling much better. He was no longer delirious. He appeared much stronger.

Was he eating? Yeah, he was eating. Interestingly, though, he could no longer see out of that swollen left eye. I always thought that was so interesting. When the accident first happened, he could see. Yeah. And then 10 days later, he can't see out of it anymore. So I'm just like, I wonder how that happens.

Yeah. I wonder if the nerve, like, dies. Who knows? Kind of how, like, with a snake, if you, like, cut its head off, like, the body will still, like, move around. Sorry, it's the only example I could think of. I don't mean to traumatize you. How about a chicken? Okay, there we go.

A chicken. You cut its head off and the body will be like running around and stuff. That would be so weird to witness. Okay, anyhow. Dr. Harlow cleaned up the top of his head again, applied a new adhesive strap, brought the scalp closer together. It was healing. And at this point, Dr. Harlow believed, holy shit, I think he might actually recover from this injury. He might survive.

But Kristen, what does Paula Abdul-Bel? say. For the next 10 days, Phineas Gage regressed. He was in a, quote, semi-comatose state. He rarely spoke, and if he did, it was in monosyllables. Yes, no, what? Sure. Don't.

His pulse was all over the place. There's more of that fungal discharge coming out of his head. An abscess formed on his head. Dr. Harlow had to drain that. During these 10 days, Phineas Gage is friends and family, they weren't feeling too good about his chances. And they urged Dr. Harlow, hey, stop treating him. You're only prolonging this. He's going to die. In fact, they had brought his funeral clothes to the tavern. As you would. They had arranged for a local cabinet maker

to start building his coffin. Yeah. They were fully prepared for him to die. But Dr. Harlow was not going to give up. He believed that he had to deal with this fungus. It kept popping up. And he thought that was the reason he kept regressing. Three times a day, he redressed the wound, and then he applied nitrate of silver, which was like a disinfectant at the time. Oh, okay. And of course, he kept giving Phineas more purgatives. But by October 11th, 1848, about a month after the accident, Phineas Gage seemed to be on the mend. There was still a little discharge, but it was way less. His swelling was going down. And then with some of the same, assistance he was able to get out of bed and he sat in a chair across the room for a few minutes.

But then Dr. Harlow, he wasn't prepared for what he noticed next. And that was some of the psychological changes Phineas Gage was going through. As I mentioned before, his memory seemed perfectly fine. He recognized everybody. He recalled the details of his accident perfectly. But Dr. Harlow noted that Gage seemed kind of childlike. He was very irritable. He threw tantrums when he like couldn't get out of bed. He like kept wanting to go home to New Hampshire. He couldn't do basic math anymore. Dr. Harlow also said that he seemed to have lost sense of value. So he tested this by offering Phineas $1,000 for some rocks that Gage had collected from a nearby river when he was working. He liked to collect rocks. Adjusted for inflation, Dr. Harlow was offering

Phineas Gage $40,000 for some rocks. And Phineas was like, no, I don't want to sell my rocks. It was a rare instance of a doctor actively monitoring and recording mental changes from a traumatic brain injury. This is the beginnings of neuropsychology. This is really fascinating. I mean, and the fact that the doctor thought to ask him that question? Yes. Yeah, it's pretty incredible.

His notes are something to read. Three weeks later on November 8th, Phineas Gage seemed to be out of the woods. He could finally get out of bed without any help. He was walking up and down the stairs of the tavern. He was hanging out on the porch. He slept well. He no longer felt pain. He had a healthy appetite.

And yes, Kristen, he was pooping on the reg. I did not ask. I know you were curious. By the way, Ashton, who went with me to Funky Town, her favorite thing on the soundboard. It's that little firehouse. And you know what? That is a reason. I threw it into this script because I was like, Ashton enjoyed it so much.

I'm going to make sure I include it when we talk about him pooping. Ashton has two little boys, but you probably already knew that. I'm just glad it brings her so much joy. So Dr. Harlow was thrilled that he was recovering, but he was also really cautious. He was like, look, take it easy. I'm glad you're recovering, but hey, I have to go out of town for about a week on some business. I can't keep an eye on you while I'm gone. So please just don't leave the tavern.

You can hang on on the porch, go up and down the stairs all you want, but don't go into town and just rest until I get back. Yeah. So Dr. Harlow left, and a week later, he returned, and Phineas Gage was sick. Again, he had a fever. He was constipated, hot, dehydrated, vomiting, restless. And then Dr. Harlow found out that Phineas Gage had disobeyed his orders. He'd been out into town every single day. And just the previous day, when it was like super cold and rainy outside,

Phineas Gage had wandered into town without a codon. So Dr. Harlow had to treat Phineas Gage again. This time he drained his blood, about 16 ounces. I know that seems kind of weird, but that was a common treatment at the time for fever and inflammation. And he definitely had a fever. But a week later, Finius Gage was, quote, feeling better in every respect. Dr. Harlow reported that the large skull fragments he had put back had united firmly with the rest of the skull. And finally, on November 25, 1848, two months and 12 days after his accident, Phineas Gage took a carriage ride home to Lebanon, New Hampshire.

He had survived. I will never forgive you for telling me such a disgusting story. We're not done. Okay. This story's not over, baby. Well, but it seems like the gross medical stuff is. Yeah, it pretty much is. Okay.

Dr. Harlow couldn't believe it. For years, the medical community believed just even the slightest injury to your brain was certain death. And here, Phineas Gage had an almost four-foot iron rod shot through his head, and he survived. How would behave? What is that from? It's from, uh, what are they called? group X, you know, 55. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. My IQ. So if you look at the cover of this, I'll show you, Kristen, it's a picture of Phineas Gage's skull, and that is the rod that shot through his real skull. That's his real skull. Wow. Isn't that crazy that shot through his head? Well, it's wild that we have his skull. Yeah, and I'll tell you how we have his skull.

Great. But there's more to this story, Kristen. So Dr. Harle had some theories as to why Gage was able to survive such a horrific injury. So number one, Phineas Gage was very sexy. He was young. He was 25 years old when the accident happened. Yeah, that'll help. He was in excellent shape.

So his body was able to recover. Number two, the shape of Gage's custom iron tamping rod. That pointed end along with the smooth. of the rod, it just shot through his head very fast. And that actually helped because it limited damage and compression of the brain. Yeah. It's kind of like how if somebody gets shot with a bullet, it's usually better if there's an exit wound. Oh, okay.

You don't want the bullet lodged in there. You don't want it to travel slowly. You're in and out. Okay. Number three. Dr. Harlow believed the frontal lobe was, quote, best fitted of any to sustain the injury. So at the time there were sort of two schools of thought about the brain. One school said everything is equally important in the brain.

And that's why there was that thought of, hey, if you injure any part of your brain, you're just done so. Yeah. And then that other school said, well, certain parts of the brain do certain things. So Dr. Harlow was more about the latter. And thank goodness, vital parts of the brain were not damaged in this accident. Number four, that lower entry wound on the cheek, that was a natural drainage point. and it did really help keep the wound clear and clean and was able to heal nicely

because it was able to drain all the nasty stuff out. Wow. Okay. So Dr. Harlow thought this was a huge breakthrough in the medical field, and he needed more people to know about this story. And a few newspapers did report on the accident. I mean, how could you not? Yeah. It's definitely more interesting than high school gym renovations on schedule.

Wow, Norm, thanks a lot. I wrote that article. Did you? Many times, I bet. Many times. But specifically, Dr. Harlow thought Phineas Gage's accident, his recovery, his apparent change in behavior were really important. So in December of 1848, he submitted an article for publication in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. It was entitled Passage of an Iron Rod Through the Head.

In it, Dr. Harlow wrote, I think this case presents one fact of great. interest to the practical surgeon and taken as a whole is exceedingly interesting to the enlightened physiologist and intellectual philosopher. Kristen, how do you think the medical community reacted to this story? Honestly, this story is so wild to me. I would assume that whoever was telling it to me was full of shit. Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding. Yeah, right? You're right. Everyone was very skeptical. Yeah. Many doctors thought this was a my uncle works at Nintendo situation. What?

Didn't you have a kid in, when you were growing up, wasn't there a kid in your class or school who swore, oh, my uncle works at Nintendo, I have the new Mario game, and in this game, Mario has a gun, you know, like made up wild story. You didn't have one of those kids? I mean, sure. Every class has some kid who's got all kinds of crazy connections. Yeah, my dad owns a dealership, you know. Sure, sure. So, yeah, other doctors are like, yeah, right.

bullshit iron rod through the head my aunt Fanny The Buffalo Medical Journal wrote Is there any ground to suspect that the medical attendant

may have deceived himself as to the passage of the rod through the head But one doctor was very intrigued by this story It was Dr. Henry Jacob Bigelow A professor at Harvard

Medical School Dr. Bigelow was kind of a smarty pants He got into Harvard at the age of 15 Good Lord. He studied medicine at both Harvard and Dartmouth. And Dr. Bigelow had recently made a big splash in the medical field.

He wrote an article for the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal suggesting, hey, here's a crazy idea. When we perform surgery, what if we have the patient inhale some ether and it knocks them out? And then maybe during the surgery they won't feel any pain or they won't even remember the procedure? Yeah. So yeah, that was a huge. huge breakthrough in the medical field. God bless that man. Yeah, right? I think recently this journal had like a 200 year anniversary and they had their readers vote on like the most important article ever published. Yeah. That was chosen as number one. I believe it. So yeah,

huge deal. Dr. Bigelow read Dr. Harlow's article about Phineas Age and perhaps he saw it as that next big breakthrough. So he wrote to Dr. Harlow and he wanted more details. He was like, we need witness statements to say this happened. I need to see all your examination notes. And hey, maybe you could send me that iron tamping rod that shot through Phineas Gage's head. We'd love to examine it. Yeah. And Dr. Harlow was like, yeah, sure. So he started gathering witness statements about the accident and he started sending him his notes. And then in April of 1849, about six months after this accident, Phineas Gage returned to Cavendish for Vermont, and he visited Dr. Harlow.

Dr. Harlow said Phineas looked good. He stood tall. He walked steady. His left eye was permanently shut now. Sure. In fact, the left side of his face was partially paralyzed. On top of his head, there was a depression about two inches by two inches wide. You're supposed to sing that word, but we'll allow it this time.

He had a depression, about two inches by two inches. And Dr. Harlow noted that sometimes you could see the brain. kind of pulsate under the skin. Yeah, but oh my God, wear a hat. He had hair. His hair was growing back. I know, but still, wouldn't you want to protect it better than that? Yeah.

I'd wear a helmet at all times. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe you could spray some flex seal right on there. Slap it right on there. So physically, for the most part, Phineas Gage seemed to have made a full recovery. Dr. Harlow then asked, hey, how are you feeling? Mm-hmm.

And Phineas said, I don't feel any more pain. but I have a quote, queer feeling that I can't really describe. He just felt off. It's also possible that during this meeting, and I say possible because we aren't really sure, Dr. Harlow told Phineas Gage about Dr. Bigelow and how he wanted to learn more about this accident. And Phineas Gage must have agreed to help because they did send his iron tamping rod to Dr. Bigelow. In May of 1849, Dr. Bigelow presented the rod at a meeter. meeting of the Boston Society for Medical Improvement, and it was a huge hit. Wow. Wow. People were very interested now. Yeah. Meanwhile, Phineas Gage was feeling good enough to work again, and he wanted his job back

as a foreman on the railroad. But when he talked to his bosses, they said no. And when asked why, they were like, he just wasn't the same person. Yeah. Before Phineas Gage was decisive, he was persistent. He was easy to get along with, easy to work with. He did math. He could do math.

But now he seemed really impatient. He was indecisive. He could never seem to stick to a plan. And he would come up with these ideas and then he would immediately say, no, I'm going to do something else. He was stubborn. Now he was difficult to work with. And Dr. Harlow commented that the balance between his intellectual faculties and animal propensities

seemed to have been destroyed. To a complete stranger, no one would notice anything strange about Phineas Gage. But to those who knew him, he was, quote, no longer Gage. With no railroad work available,

Phineas Gage went back to the family farm in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Wait, he couldn't even have worked as just a worker? Mm-mm. Oh, like, could not be employed at all. Well, we don't, we're not really sure.

Okay. I do know that during this time, time, he was much weaker. So he couldn't work as long. And, you know, working on the railroad, it's all day. And so I think that's why he wanted to be a foreman again, because it was much less physically demanding to be a foreman. But his employer sought, I don't think you can handle that job again. But then an opportunity came up. Dr. Henry Bigelow of Harvard was like, hey, that iron tamping rod, it was super popular at our last meeting. And so now I want to present you and your injury at our November meeting. All expenses paid. So Phineas Gage was like, sure. So he went to Boston.

And he was there for about two months. And during this time, Dr. Bigelow and others, they measured his skull. They examined the wound. They took a plaster cast of his head. And then in November of 1849, Dr. Bigelow presented Phineas Gage at the Boston Society for Medical Improvement. Phineas Gage had a tough act to follow. Before his appearance, the society was examining a stalagmite that someone found in New York that was, quote, remarkable for its resemblance to a penis. I'm about to bust. That would be a tough act to follow. So they're just sitting around looking at this dog trying to be professional.

Yeah. Well, it looks like a dick. It really does look like a dick. Man, imagine if there had been two balls. All right, here's Phineas Gage. Oh, damn it, okay. What does dick look like? Yeah, I thought that was hilarious.

Yeah. Some of the stuff they must have looked at, these medical societies. Do you ever learn in school the difference between stalagmite and stalactite? The only reason I can keep them straight is stalagites hang tight to the ceiling. Hang tight. Yeah, exactly. I always remember that fact. from science class.

Before Phineas Gage left Boston, Dr. Bigelow asked if he'd be willing to donate the iron tamping rod to the medical college. And Phineas was like, okay. Dr. Bigelow was thrilled. What a momentous occasion. He was so excited. He even put an inscription on the rod.

And here's what it said. This is the bar that was shot through the head of Mr. Finna Lewis Gage at Cavendish, Vermont, September 14th, 1848, he fully recovered from the injury and deposited this bar in the Museum of the Medical College, Harvard University. Wow, they carved a lot of stuff into that thing. They couldn't even get his name right? Yeah, so Dr. Bigelow got his name wrong, and he also got the date of the accident wrong. Oh, I didn't even catch that. Okay.

Kind of cringe. Yeah. And it's an iron rod. It's not like you can take that back. Yeah. In July of 1850, Dr. Begolo took. all of those witness statements, the examination notes, and more, and he wrote up a new article for the American Journal of the Medical Sciences. It was entitled, Dr. Harlow's case of Recovery from the Passage of an Iron Bar Through the Head. Great movie title. Yeah, so snappy.

So in that article basically made all the other doctors go, okay, so this actually happened, because Dr. Bigelow was a very well-respected physician. As for Phineas Gage, sadly, there were little factual details about the remainder of his life. Most of what we know comes from the writings of Dr. John Harlow, and most of it was secondhand information after Gage had already passed away. And this led to a lot of wild rumors and stories about Phineas Gage, specifically people really exaggerated how much the accident changed him. They said things like,

Gage was now a monster, he was a psychopath, he couldn't function, He became a vagrant, a circus attraction. He couldn't hold a job. He was a drifter. He was a drunk. He abused and abandoned his wife and children.

Phineas Gage never married and he never had children. One story even claimed he still had the iron rod stuck in his head. Oh, Lord. Okay. The truth is, Phineas Gage lived a pretty normal life after his accident. Was he different? Yes. But he hadn't changed as much as people think.

Professor Malcolm McMillan, who wrote an odd kind of fame, he talked about how he had learned about Phineas Gage while getting his degree. And then when he wanted to teach his students about Phineas Gage, he was shocked at how little information there was about him and how a lot of it was just nonsense, which led him to write this book. And I mean, you would think like a landmark medical case like this, it would be covered very extensively. And we'd have like detailed notes about his psychological changes. We really don't. So the rest of this story, I've done my best to separate fact from fiction. So, he did we go. Oh, okay.

So at some point after his visit to Boston, Phineas Gage decided that he could capitalize on this horrific injury. Hell, all these doctors were doing it. Sure. Why not do it myself and make some money? So Phineas Gage went back to Harvard and he took his iron tamping rod back. Oh. And it would not leave it. his side for the rest of his life. From there, Phineas Gage presented himself as sort of a living

exhibit all across the northeast. An advertisement in a Vermont newspaper described an event at the Union House. Come see Phineas Gage, the person who had a crowbar blown through his head. Admission was 12.5 cents. About five bucks. All right. And it was a double feature, Kristen, because you also got to see General Washburn. He was a little person, described. back then as a dwarf who weighed only 48 pounds, sang songs, and played the violin. Okay. For a brief time, Phineas Gage joined Barnum's American Museum in New York City, run by P.T. Barnum. I wondered if he would do the circus circuit.

Well, this wasn't a circus. I know. It's a museum, but it's... Now, before that famous circus, P.T. Barnum had a museum that contained a zoo, wax figures, a theater, and what they called at the time a freak show, which showed off people with unusual physical ailments. For example, wow, a black woman with two albino children. What? Just like a black woman and they found two white kids? Two albino kids, yeah.

They're going to have to do better than that. Josephine Clofolia, the bearded lady. How thick was the beard? Because I get some neck hairs. I feel like I could go... Look up. Okay. Look up the Swiss bearded lady.

Hold on. The Swiss bearded lady, okay? It was full beard. Oh yeah, that is full. Yep. My neck hairs don't have shit on Josephine. Yeah, so don't feel bad about your little neckhairs. Wow, well, now I'm...

Now I can't stop looking. Okay. Sorry, go on. What else? The most popular attraction at the museum was Charles. Stratton. He went by the name General Tom Thumb. Okay. Stratton was a little person who, thanks to his parents, joined the museum at the age of five. He imitated famous historical figures like Napoleon or mythological heroes like Hercules. He smoked cigars. He drank wine. Wow.

How old was he? I mean, he joined when he was five, but they said by seven he was drinking wine and smoking cigars. Oh, God. This will be a future topic. He had quite a life. I'm sure he did. Yeah. And actually, from what I read, P.T. Barnum paid him quite handsomely, and he is like one

of the richest dudes in New England for a time. Wow. He had a yacht, mansion. Okay, yeah, I'm going to need to know more about him. Yeah. Very interesting. Anyway, at Barnum's Museum, Phineas Gage was advertised as the only living man with a hole in the top of his head. So Gage would show off the iron rod that shot through his head,

and for 10 cents extra, you could take a gander at his wound. Sometimes you could see that brain pulsate under his skin. But Phineas Gage wasn't a very popular attraction. For one, the wound had completely healed. Right. So there's really not much to see anymore. Living exhibit work was kind of unsteady, so Phineas had to find a regular job, and he wasn't able to work the railroads anymore. but from his experience working on farms, he was able to get a job working in a horse stable and running a stagecoach service at the Dartmouth Hotel in Hanover, New Hampshire.

In August of 1852, about 18 months after he got that job, Phineas Gage got a new job. He was a long-distance stagecoach driver in beautiful Chile. Oh. So he drove people between the port town of Valparaiso and Santiago, which was the capital of Chile. Phineas Gage's time in Chile was mostly a mystery. He worked there for about seven years.

But in June of 1859, his health took a turn for the worse, and so he decided to move back to the United States. By now, his mom and his sister were living in San Francisco, so that's where he went. His mother, Hannah, said that he was very imaginative. He loved to entertain his nieces and nephews with wild stories. He loved animals. He collected trinkets and souvenirs. His most prize possession was, of course, his iron tamping rod. Yeah.

In California, Gage was able to find a job working at a farm in Santa Clara, but it didn't last long. He kind of bounced around jobs. According to Dr. Harlow, he was, quote, always finding something which did not suit him in every place he tried. In February of 1860, Phineas Gage suffered a severe seizure while eating dinner due to complications from his injury. How old was he at this point? Let's see.

1860, he was born in 1823, so 37. Several months later, in May of 1860, he had another seizure, and they just became more and more frequent. Yeah. Finally, on May 20th, 1860, Phineas Gage passed away. After his accident, most people thought Gage would die, but he managed to survive for almost 12 years. And that's really a testament to the treatment he received from Dr. John Harlow. Dr. Harlow had lost touch with Phineas Gage over the years. But in 1866, six years after his death,

he reconnected with Gage's mother, who told him the news that Phineas had died. Dr. Harlow was sad to hear the news. Finneus Gage was easily his most famous patient, and he'd always wondered what happened to him. I mean, yeah, you would. Dr. Harlow thought, maybe I could write a follow-up paper on Gage. And to make it even better, now that he's dead, I could actually examine his skull and see the damage. So Dr. Harlow convinced Gage's mother to let him exume Phineas' body, remove the skull, and study it, examine it. In June of 1868, 20 years after his first paper, Dr. John Harlow wrote a follow-up on Phineas Gage entitled

recovery from the passage of an iron bar through the head and presented it to the Massachusetts Medical Society. This paper highlighted pretty much the entire story, Gage's accident, his recovery, the various jobs he held, his death, and detailed drawings of his skull and its damage. But probably the most important contribution in that paper was for the first time,

Dr. Harlow noted the changes to Phineas Gage's psyche after the accident. It wasn't much. In fact, it's incredible how little detail there is about it, considering how often it is cited in modern textbooks. An estimated 60% of psychology textbooks mention the story of Phineas Gage. Are you serious? It's one of the most cited 19th century medical studies. Wow.

So, Kristen, I want your opinion. Why do you think that is? Was the story of Phineas Gage a breakthrough in the medical case? community, or was he just like a medical curiosity? Both. You know what I love to say. Both things can be true. Two things can be true.

I think it's both as well. Yeah. After presenting his paper and with permission from his family, Dr. Harlow donated Phineas Gage's skull and the iron tamping rod to the Warren Anatomical Museum at the Harvard University Medical School, where it is still on display today. It's one of their most popular items. On September 13th, 1998, the town of Cavendish, Vermont, commemorated the 150th anniversary of Phineas Gage's accident. They held walking tours where you could visit Dr. Harlow's house, the site of the tavern where Gage recovered, and you could even go...

That's really cool. I love it, yes. And you can even go to where the accident happened along the old railroad line. And these walking tours were so popular, they are now held annually every... year on September 13th. That is awesome. And during that 150th anniversary celebration, a collection of neurological societies held the John Martin Harlow Frontal Lobe Symposium.

It featured lectures on the latest discoveries in the field of neurology, specifically about the frontal lobe. And on display at the symposium was Phineas Gage's skull and the iron tamping rod, which were on loan from Harvard. And how could I forget, Kristen? There is a memorial plaque in the town of Cavendish detailing the Phineas Gage accident. But this story is not over. No?

No. I have one more extra titty-bitty that I absolutely loved, and I wanted to mention it. The Phineas Gage story, it's really important. It led to our understanding of how the brain works. But if you can believe it, for a long time, we had no idea what Phineas Gage looked like. No one took a picture? No one thought there were pictures. Oh.

The only reference was a plaster cast of his head. Okay. Which is still there at Harvard. Yeah. And that was kind of surprising considering, you know, there's evidence of him touring New England as like a living exhibit. Right. Well, he was literally part of a museum. Yeah, you'd think there'd be photos of him. Yeah.

There were some drawings of him, but not an actual photo. But then something pretty cool happened. So in Baltimore, Maryland, there's a couple named Jack and Beverly Wilgus. They love to collect vintage photographs. Okay. And one of their favorites was an old-timey photo of a very handsome disfigured man. It looked like he was holding some sort of pole. They thought it was a harpoon.

Yeah. And they found this photo in the 1970s, and they just loved it. It was on display in their home. And then in 2007, Beverly Wilgus joined a fun new site called Flickr, where you can share photos. Yeah. So she started uploading her favorites. And that included the disfigured man with the pole. So she scanned it.

She uploaded it. And it was titled One-Eyed Man with Harpoon. Oh, my God. So right away, she started getting emails. Yeah. And the first was from a whaler who said, that's not a harpoon. Right. Okay.

So she was like, huh, that's interesting. But then she got another email from a guy who was like, you know, this might be a photo of Phineas Gage. And if it is, it's the very first known photo of him. Yeah. So Beverly quickly did a Google search, like, who's Phineas Gage? Right. And she learned all about his story. And she learned that Harvard has had his skull and has that rod.

And so she sent a copy of the photo to Harvard. Uh-huh. Like, hey, is this Phineas Gage? and a librarian at Harvard, Jack Eckert, he pulled up the photo and he said he called it a wow moment. Yeah. Because he was like, this has to be Phineas Gage. Yeah. Everything matched.

He had the scars on his left cheek. He had the scar on the top of his head. His left eye was swollen shut. He was holding an iron tamping rod with a pointed end. No, that's him. I mean, how many people can match that description? Right, right. But they still had to verify.

Well, they analyzed the photo in detail, and guess what they saw on the rod. A little bit of brain. No. Oh, the inscription. Dr. Bigelow's inscription with the wrong date and the misspelled name, they could read it in the photo when they zoomed in. Wow. Super cool discovery. And amazingly, right after that photo was discovered, a descendant of Phineas Gage shared another photo of him.

Okay. Still posing with the iron rod. So these photos gave credence to those stories of him traveling around as a living exhibit. Because of course you're going to take promotional photos. Yeah. And, you know, maybe he sold them to attendees at his exhibit. Souvenirs, yeah. Exactly.

But these photos did another thing. They really helped dispel some of those wild stories about him, like how he was a disheveled drunk who couldn't hold a job. These photos show a handsome, confident, well-dressed, well-groomed guy. I'm about to bust. Please Google Phineas Gage. His beaver sweatshirt looked great. Finius Gage. I think he's a very handsome man.

Oh, he is hot as fuck. Hiddeus could get it. Kristen, calm down over there. That's a good-looking man. Yeah. My goodness. My goodness. Oh, now I'm looking at his skull.

Feel real weird about that. Don't want that. Yeah, he's... Yeah, but hey, the next time we're in Boston, can we please go look at that? Well, we've got to go on the tour, and we've got to go to Harvard to look at this thing. It's so cool.

Wow. Finius Gage is still a medical curiosity, even today. In 2012, neuroscientists at the University of California did a 3D scan of his skull, and they estimated the projection of the iron tamping rod through the brain. And they believe most of the damage was to Phineas Gage's left frontal lobe, which affects decision-making and emotional processing. And guess what? That matched up pretty well with how Dr. John Harlow described him more than 150 years ago. That's really cool. I mean, hats off to Dr. John Harlow for, number one, doing such a good job with the medical care, but also really listening to his patient and really paying attention and asking, I mean, I just keep going back to that question of, could I pay you $1,000 for those rocks? You've got to have some pretty good insight to even know, like, this is a question I should ask this person. It's going to reveal a lot. He was a very good doctor. And when he passed away, he left all of his fortune to charity.

That's good. And I think there's a library named after him in Massachusetts or wherever he was living at the time. Well, who cares about libraries? Yeah, exactly. Just full of bad ideas there. Anyway, that is the story of Phineas Gage. Okay, that was amazing. I loved the story of that couple collecting photos.

Yeah. To me, that's the antiques roadshow lover in me of just like, yeah, you can come across some stuff that everyone thinks has no value, but. That is huge. That is like, man, that's what brings tears to my eyes when something like that happens. Yeah. Because it's so cool. And like, just think that could have been lost forever. We maybe would have never known what Phineas Gage looked like.

And it's like, man, the power of the internet. Yeah. Somebody's like, look at this cool photo I have. It's like, oh, that's a very historically significant photo of a man we had no idea what he looked like. Honestly, it's hard for me to believe that a photo of a dude that hot was really going to get lost. He could have been front cover Threatening Boys Magazine. Oh, hell yeah, with that taping rod. Uh-huh.

Check out this hot iron rod. Okay. All right, sir. This is a family show. I'm about to bust. Norm, that was great. Thank you. I can't believe you were covering that well.

I was covering lobotomies and you didn't even say anything. So. You're such a coy boy. I learned about this story at the Glor Psychiatric Museum and I was fascinated by it. I was like, what? You've always been into it. An iron rod shot through this guy's head and he lived. And so I always wanted to cover it and I decided to cover it before I knew you were doing lobotomies.

And then when you're like, I'm doing a lobotomy episode. I was like, huh, what a coincidence. We are connected. Mm. Through the lobes. Through the frontal lobes. When we touch our frontal lobes, a glow comes out. It's very lovey.

Should we move on to the Discord? Because I did something kind of cool today. Oh, what did you do? Okay, I am loving, everyone, we're asking you questions in the Discord. And this month I asked about your pettiest return story. So I told the story about how you one time bought Kirkland Signature Beard. This was years ago. Yeah.

So Costco put out a beer called Kirkland Light. This was back when I was drinking. Yeah. And it was like 64 cans of Kirkland Light for 20 bucks. And I was like, whoa, that is a sweet deal. So obviously I bought it, brought it home, chilled it, cracked one open without the boys. Uh-huh. It was the worst.

I have ever had easily. It was like sweet. It had like a honey taste to it. So guess what I did the next day? I returned 63 cans of Kirkland light to Costco. They didn't ask any questions. So on that note, I asked our Discord, what's your pettiest return story?

Inspired, of course, by Norman. Oh, yeah, of course. Okay. Let me pull this up. I'm excited to read some of that. Lou Roy Jenkins says, I bought what I thought was a cow squishmallow from Costco. It turned out to be a horse, and I hate horses. So I returned it.

Well, if you got the wrong animal, yeah, I guess you got to return it. Now, my question is, when they asked, why are you returning this? Did you confess, I thought it was a cow, but it's actually a horse? I mean, I'm always honest when I return stuff. And then, and I've noticed, like, sometimes I think I'm funny. They never think I'm funny. I was returning a shirt and it was like, I bought this, like, khaki colored shirt. I don't know what I was thinking.

I put it on and it's like the exact color of my skin. So it just looked like you were naked up to hug? You know what? And I'm looking back. So I bought it online. And the model wearing it, which why am I a sucker for this? The model wearing it, yeah, I think. think she was like super tanned just not not me at all so i don't know why i thought oh my pale

skin that's the exact color of the garment is going to look great yeah so i returned it they asked why and i was like oh it like matches my skin exactly it looked terrible the lady didn't even crack a smile not one laugh not not even a smile not a chuckle this is when you need a soundboard in real life because you could have said that and been like i did need it yeah and To add insult to injury, the lady was, of course, like, 22 and really cute. And I had to be like, man. And she was like, oh, my God, when do I get off work? Exactly.

Exactly. Why are she talking to me right now? I do hate shirts that are that color because I can't wear them either. And I get sucked into them every time. Yeah. I bought a sweet, lowly worm shirt one time from Richard Scarry. He was like skateboarding. Oh, it was the coolest shirt.

And on the website, it looked like a white tea, but when it came in, it was like a weird beige shirt and it just looked terrible on me. It looked like I had lolly worm tattooed on my chest. Tattooed on your bare chest. Oh, I'm relating too much to people. The emphasis says, I barely return things because I hate talking to people and always forget to return them anyway. But I am here for all the petty stories.

yet Norm knows I'm terrible about returns. You are. We have a return closet full of items that I have every intention of returning. I am Johnny on the spot with returns. When I don't want it, I take it back immediately. I'm the best. I have lowly worm tattooed on my chest. Maybe you relate to Lesbott's answer.

Lesbott, the digital cow, says, I am much too classy to return items. I simply let them collect dust in my basement and wonder where all the clutter comes from. There we go. I've never thought of it as being too classy. I'm too classy to return items. That is a good answer. Here's another one. Small, poor's big butt, life's good says, my anxiety will not allow it. So some people just can't return items. The cringe is too much. I do think that's a thing. I feel like I told this story on Let's Go to Court.

This is the dumbest thing. Do you remember this was several years ago? I went to the grocery store that's right down the street near us. and I bought a few things. One of them was some salad dressing. I got it back home, realized it was half empty, disgusting. I'm like, I'm not touching this. Yeah. And but it bothered me.

And I was like, you know, this isn't right. No. So, and in my head. I told you, go return it. I know. And you were very adamant, go return it. But, like, in my head, I kept thinking, I'm going to go to the returns desk. And they're going to be like, you stupid.

bitch you ate half this dressing. Like I just kept thinking they're going to think that I'm lying. Yeah. And how do I prove that I'm not lying? Yeah. And of course you can't prove it. My only logic was like, hey, I just bought this dressing. I swear I didn't dump out half of it.

And the lady just didn't care. They're not invested in the returns at the grocery store. They're just there to do their job. Or anywhere. Much like the young woman who was way too cool and didn't care about my little joke about how I bought a shirt that was exactly the color. of my skin tone. She did not care. Exactly. Heartbreaking.

Yeah, we're getting a lot of answers of people that are like, no, I would have to talk to people. My ADHD does not allow me to return things. My anxiety will not allow it. Oh, hopped up on Earl Gray said, I returned a pineapple to sprouts one time because it just wasn't quite right. They accepted the return and gave me a sweet, juicy replacement. Sweet and juicy. There are success stories in here, too. Our friend Michael from Minnesota.

Mm-hmm. He's told this story before, but I'm going to read it out loud for all the history host to hear. I returned underwear to Costco after I wore them. No, Michael! Michael, so you farted in those things? I didn't like the fit. Costco took them back without question. My proudest moment.

I don't have the strength. I don't think I would have the nuts to do that. You were going to return a toilet to Costco. That's fine. That's a $1,500 toilet. Still, I, I, underwear is like 10 bucks from Costco. I, that's not enough money to go through the shame and embarrassment to return. Rumor has it.

Michael has $8,000 toilets in his house. He's got three hot tubs. And you know why? Because he's the type of guy who will return the underwear. So you're saying he's a very wealthy man. Yeah, because. Very classy, very wealthy. He follows the day for his, he doesn't go buy lattes.

No, no. He returns underwear that isn't. quite right. Yes, yes. Binge and rash, rash and beans. That guy. Dave Ramsey is an interesting fella. Oh, yeah.

James lost my butthole. Eden says the only return I made out of spite was I caught my boyfriend cheating with my best friend. Oh. Jesus. So I returned his birthday presents before I told them I found out.

That's, yeah. I fully support that. Poop in a shoe. 18 years ago. My sister-in-law was just a teen and had bought a pair of jeans from Urban Planet. Never heard of that store. I never heard of it. She was wearing them when we went shopping again, and they started coming apart and were just poorly made.

So we went to the store and I returned them right off her body. What? They were not pleased as they had a no-return policy, but hey, they were garbage and she didn't have money as a teen to spend on crap clothes. Wait, what did she wear? So just walk out in your underwear? What happened? I feel like we're missing a crucial part of that story. Come Kardashian says, do divorces count?

Oh, that's sassy. In a way, you are returning something. I'd like to return this husband. Yeah. Frozen Like a Grape says, I don't have one. I did recently buy a pack of the new Fanta Beetlejuice. It's disgusting. Like my whole family wanted to vomit.

So I gave the case to a friend. Haven't heard back yet. Fanta Beetlejuice. I've never even heard of this. Well, it's probably from like a promotion with the new Beetlejuice movie. You think so? Yeah. Okay, top banana.

Yeah. Who, I think, won top banana at the live show. I would assume. She says, I was a victim of a petty return when I worked at Nacy's. Okay. A lady returned a clearly used stained bikini bottom. No. No, ma'am.

And my manager said we had to take it back. Oh. Ugh. Gross. Okay. I witnessed a petty return one time. Really? Yes.

What was it? It was at Costco. No surprise there. I was returning something. I don't remember what. And so I was being helped. And then over here, there's this other lady who's returning something. She's being helped by someone else.

This lady returns a dress and doesn't have the receipt, bought it three years ago. Three years? But, you know, Costco, they're very good about it. that return so the ladies, you know, there's a limit Costco. Well, okay. Three years? But again, the associate was not putting up a fuss. It was just, okay, this was three years ago, you know, blah, be-bo, people, boop-bo in the

computer. And as this associate is doing that, again, not being a dick to the lady at all, the lady goes, I thought y'all were supposed to sell quality items here. Oh, shut up. And, oh, no. The Costco worker was like. like, well, you did have it for three years and it cost you $14. Yes.

Yeah, well, seriously, it's like I'd say that's a pretty good. Yeah. Don't be shitty with the person who is accepting your return from three years ago. Yes. Address. Yeah. Shut up. I feel like maybe the customer got a little embarrassed or something and then felt like she needed to be shitty.

But it's like that's not the solution. stand there, you be ashamed of what you're doing, you take your money back and you leave. You take your $14 and you buy a bunch of hot dogs. Go to the food court, get your chicken bake, and leave. When I worked at GameStop, we had some people try to do some shitty returns. What, okay, tell us. I will never forget. This young man came in with a copy of Guitar Hero. Okay. And he was like, I bought this brand new and it doesn't work. He had the receipt, too. Okay.

So the receipt was, like, from 70 days ago. Uh-huh. And I looked at the disc. It looked like... It had been through hell? Been through hell and back. It looked like someone put it on asphalt and just, like, shi-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-like sandpapered it or something. It looked terrible.

Yeah. And I was just like, well, this is past the return window, and this disc just looks... Yeah. Bad. And he was like, well, that's how it came. No. And I was like, we would not. we would not sell this brand new game.

I mean, they're shrink-wrapped. Right. We wouldn't sell it that way. So he was like, okay, and he left. Well, then his mommy came in and said, you need to give us our money back on this game. I was like, I can't. Like, it's past the return window. The disc, and the disc is in terrible condition.

Yeah. And she goes, don't get smart with me. And I said, ma'am, don't get dumb with me. This was norm being a threat. It was maybe one of the highlights of my life. It was the boldest moment. It was. I said, don't get dumb with me.

And she was like, well, I'm going to be calling your district manager. And I said, please do. And she left the store. And you got into huge trouble. No, I didn't. You got into, you, Norm, you didn't get in trouble for saying don't get dumb with me. Oh, yeah, I did get in trouble for that. Yeah.

But not about the lady's return. It's because a manager overheard me say to the lady, don't get dumb with me. That's not. I mean, I'm with you, but also. So, yeah. Look, anyone that's worked retail can hopefully feel my pain. Yes. It's tough dealing with people like that.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, everyone in here, I'm convinced we are just a community of people who do not return things. It's true. The ADHD, the anxiety, it's all too much. I return my undergrad graduation cake because I didn't like the way they wrote on it. Now that's a petty return. Okay. I do wonder, though, because some.

Sometimes you'll see the writing on some cakes, and it just looks terrible. And what do you do? I mean, I would suffer in silence, but not everyone. Yeah, I couldn't return a cake. Carlos, the serial killer, says, I once ate a burger with flour on top of it because I was too afraid to send it back. Yeah. Yeah, I think a lot of these answers are just like, I can't return stuff. You know what?

The question I should have asked was, what's the most ridiculous thing that you should have returned and didn't. Oh, okay. Problematic Bluey has teased this story and has finally decided to share it. Okay, yeah, Problematic Bluey. This is the reason I asked this question was because you suggested it last month. Okay, let's hear it. Okay.

The first king-sized mattress I ever bought in my late 20s was a fancy adjustable with two bladders to adjust the firmness. Bladders? Yeah, I guess it's like inside the mattress, you can blow it up and make it firmer. All right, all right. Had a 10-year warranty. Of course, I was super excited. It came delivered in a box. It was cooling memory foam.

Fast forward to nine years and 10 months later, one of the bladders wouldn't stay inflated. I called Costco, told them I had a 10-year warranty. I wanted a replacement air bladder. Found out the company went out of business, and they couldn't honor the warranty. I'm not the type that likes confrontation, but I really wanted my 10-year warranty. It was 40% of the reason. I bought it, and I was super proud. I talked to the phone rep into a refund.

and since I still had the warranty paperwork. Now, this mattress comes in several parts and needed to be assembled and there was no putting it back in the box. Imagine what a mattress looks like after 10 years. Yeah. And of course, I bought it when my daughter was a toddler, so you get the idea.

This mattress was kind of a mess, I bet. I dragged this mess in two different Costco carts into the San Jose Costco, told him I wanted a refund. The manager wasn't having it. I told him they told me on the phone I could bring it in for a refund. the manager had a loud, angry phone call.

Long story short, the manager called me a few names as he refunded me in cash for a mattress I paid about $800 for in 2004. Oh my God. I've been chasing that high ever since. Okay, so I actually think this is perfectly fine. Yeah. Costco stands by their products. That product had a 10-year warranty. Promise a 10-year warranty.

Yes. It went out of business. Okay, now it's up to Costco to honor the warranty. And they obviously can't because it's not like Costco is going to make an air bladder for this mattress. So that manager was wrong to yell at you, by the way, because Costco told you over the phone you could return it. That story, I'm okay with that, actually. Now, I agree it would be super embarrassing to bring in a nasty old mattress to Costco. Do you remember the story of the online returns?

Mm-hmm. Oh, from Costco? Yeah. Yes. Okay, you got to tell that. Okay. I know you bought some plants. Yeah.

Off Costco.com. Yeah. Toolit bulbs or something. Yeah, yeah. And then you had your cyst explosion. Yeah. So you couldn't plant them. Yeah, everyone, if you, you haven't lived until you've had some ovarian cyst that explode in your body as COVID takes over.

So I was like, well, I guess I'll just return these to Costco. Mm-hmm. And so I took them back and the lady was like, well, she asked like, why are you returning these? I was like, oh, well, you know, my wife is unable to plant these right now. Yeah. And she goes, oh, you know, a little too hard, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, oh, actually she was really sick and she can't. And the lady was like, oh.

That's so awkward. So then she goes, well, just for future reference, it's a lot. lot easier to return these on Costco.com. And I was like, well, actually, I think it's easier to return them in the warehouse. Yeah. And she was like, well, actually, we're not supposed to take returns from Costco.com. Not true, by the way. Mm-hmm. You have to return it on Costco.com and UPS can schedule a pickup. And so first of all, I was like, well, that seems way harder. Yeah, that's not easier. And then I pulled up Costco.com and I showed on the website where it said make returns in the warehouse. Yeah. And she goes, oh, well, that's outdated because we don't allow that.

But I'll do it this one time. And I was like, okay, thanks. Yeah. Never saw her again. I'd like to think she didn't actually work there. She was just a lady who got behind the counter. Yeah. She's cosplay as a Costco return person. Should we do a couple more?

Sure. Ooh, midge-pidge. Not my return, but I have so many stories from working the service desk of a grocery store through high school and college. Oh, my. One that comes to mind is a customer who brought back an empty sandwich case from the pre-made deli sandwiches and claimed it was supposed to be ham, but it was actually turkey. But she still ate it. Maybe she didn't know the difference. All I could think to say was, but you ate it?

Like, how do I know you're even telling the truth? Also, there's nothing to return. That is funny. I mean, that's kind of the situation I was afraid of with my half-empty dressing, although I did have half the dressing. At least you had something. This happened at Dairy Queen all the time. Yeah. I remember you have stories about that.

Yeah. So, like, one guy, he ordered a double cheeseburger. Yeah. And he ate like, I think there was like one bite left. And he was just like, I didn't like it. And I had to make him another one. My manager made me make him another one. Yeah, I mean.

And I was like, come on, bro. That's one of those annoying things. Yeah, you ate it. You obviously liked it a little bit. Yeah, you could take one bite and tell me if you like it or not. Ooh, Richard N. Balls. Not mine, but working at T.J. Max generated a ton of return stories. One time a woman came in to return boxed cupcake mix she bought from us, but she had already

made the cupcakes. What on earth? After 30 minutes of arguing, we just let her return the damn cupcake mix. We ended up throwing them out. Oh, she tried to return the, okay, I'm misunderstanding. That is so weird. She bought cupcake mix, made them. Made them.

And tried to return the actual cupcakes. That is wild. And also it's T.J. Max. So what the hell? What's the maximum that could have cost her, like $3? Oh, Cupcake Mix at T. max yeah seven dollars maybe

maybe maybe that is wild what oh my god okay me now ally cat has a good one this wasn't a return but an embarrassing reorder i briefly got roped into an MLM in my early 20s it was one of the sex toy party companies because I was so subversive

when I got home oh excuse me Hank Hill when I got home the big box containing my starter kit was nowhere to be found. Ooh, I asked all my neighbors, but nobody fessed up. I had to call UPS, explain the situation, and file a report for a stolen package so that that could cover the cost for it to be reshipped. I was 22 broke and couldn't afford another $200 starter kit.

I never did find out what happened, but I'm 99% sure that downstairs neighbors stole it. She was living there for free because she was sleeping with the married landlord and was just generally shady. Downstairs, David! Did you hear all the buzzing from downstairs? I mean, that would be devastating. You're 22, you've got your starter kit from your sexy MLM. You think your dreams are about to come true.

God damn it. And the lady downstairs has all your butt plugs in every orifice. Yeah, my sister has a neighbor that steals their packages and tries stuff on. and I think yeah Randy bought like bike shorts one time yes yes and she bought them from off Amazon and they were never delivered

and then like three weeks later the neighbor brought them over because they had accidentally been delivered to her house and Randy was like they had been opened up and they smelled weird and they've raked of cigarettes it's right he was like

I just threw them away because she may have tried them on or something she definitely tried them on I mean they're open and they smell weird There's a scent coming from them. Should we wrap up?

Now I'm wondering about the Costco person that took Michael's underwear back. Yeah. They're like, they had a kink. Yeah, it was a win-win. Michael got to return his underwear, and that Costco person had a serious kink, and he was thrilled. He said, have a great day. When Michael turned around. I know I will.

When Michael turned around. Michael didn't even get money back from Costco. It's just money back from the guy. He was like, oh, I'll gladly pay you out of my pocket. The guy was like, the guy gave him a $20 bill. He was like, but it was only $14.99. He's like, don't worry about it. This is a steal.

I normally buy these online. People rip me off all the time. Getting a hell of a deal from you, buddy. Oh my gosh. Thank you. Thank you all for your stories. This was so fun. I love asking the history hose questions.

Me too. I'm sorry, that T.J. Max Cupcake story. That is the weirdest. That is the absolute weirdest to go through all that trouble. She made the cupcakes. But it is true. It's like, okay, I mean, that's how you would find out if it was like a crappy cupcake mix. Sure.

But there's also a lot of, because it's like, what if you made them wrong? What have you got the ingredients wrong? What if you didn't put in enough milk or whatever? And then it's like, yeah, how expensive is this? Is this worth returning? See, that's what I always, I always ask, is like, well, how much is this? And if it's a couple bucks, I don't know, I'm going to take the L. Yeah.

But also, even if it's a lot of bucks, I'm going to put it in the closet and have every intention of returning it one day. Very soon. In no time. Yeah, we need to go through that closet sometime. All right, all right. Norm, we've got a rehearsal dinner to get to. Okay, let's wrap up this episode. You know what they say about history hoes. We always cite our sources. Hang on.

And Norm's not where he should be in the script. I just have to pull up the doc. I wrote it all right now. Well, you're talking. I'm just going to thank everybody. Okay. Everybody thank you for being on Patreon. Thank you for being on Patreon.

You keep our hot tub nice and full. This song's not going on there. Let's do the outro. You know what they say about history, hoes. We always cite our sources. That's right. For this episode, I got my information from The Book, An Odd Kind of Fame, Stories of Phineas Gage by Malcolm McMillan.

The article Phineas Gage, Neuroscience's most famous patient by Steve Toomey for Smithsonian Magazine. And the case of Phineas Gage from Harvard's Beyond the Bonebox online collection. That's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to an old-timey podcast bonus episode. Please give us a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts. And while you're at it, subscribe. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok at Old Timey Podcast. Join the Reddit community, R slash Old Timey Podcast.

And follow us individually on Instagram. She is the beautiful Kristen Pitts-Carruso. I am gaming historian, and until next time, Tudaloo, Tata, and Cheerio. Bye. Bye.