Dear Hank & John - 199: The Best of Dear Hank & John #2!

Episode Date: July 22, 2019

Over the last couple years, John and Hank have bestowed upon the world some true gems of advice and anecdotes. We compiled some favorites in one episode for you to enjoy! We'll be back with a regular episode next week, so if you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail]. Join us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn. Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Or as I like to think of it to your child and Hank. It's a comedy podcast where two brothers, me, Hank Green and me, John Green, bring you all the week's news from Marzen A.F.C. Limmel and we answer your questions and give you Dubie's advice. What's going on right now? Don't worry about it. I'll explain it in just a second.

John, I was at a restaurant recently and the waiter said, hey, you wanna hear today's special? And I said, yes. And the waiter said, today is special. And today is special. In that John's not here, I'm all by myself. I don't even have a special guest, but we're doing a special thing for our 199th episode.

And also because we lost our wills to live after VidCon. So we have edited together an episode that is all of the best things that have happened in the last year or so. I hope that you enjoy. What are we going to do for our 200th episode next week? I don't know, I don't have any plans. Probably nothing in particular, but hey, if you've got ideas't know, I don't have any plans, probably nothing in particular,

but hey, if you've got ideas for us, you could tweet them to me, but not to John, because he's not on the social internet. Are we gonna pretend to be alligators? That sounds like it could be fun. What noises do alligators make? What kind of advice do they give? I remember I was in Florida, I grew up there,

and I have heard alligators. The only noise I remember the making is sort of a hissing noise, like, can I, what I can tell you about that is if you can hear an alligator, you're too close. Thank you for liking the things that we do. Enjoy. Dear John and Hank, my long-term girlfriend recently broke up with me, and after having something of a nervous breakdown,

I found myself flying from my small liberal arts college, in Ohio, to Seattle, Washington for the weekend. This would not be so weird except that I have never been to Seattle, have no friends or family in Seattle and was not aware of having had any particularly strong inclination to visit Seattle before the breakup. Now I found myself living in a hostel with two very friendly Australian snowboarders and a dog named Snappy, but I still don't know why I'm here. Any insight would be helpful.

It's not going to hurt to try and be like, okay, let's just, let's go get a fresh. Let's go hang out with a dog named scrappier, chappy or flappy, whatever it was. Those are all great dog names. I think we might have just discovered Hank's secret superpower. What?

Give me 20 good dog names right now, go. Notebook. Jennifer, pants, yes, cabin, tambourine. Love it. Candle, manhole. Nope, you there, we got there. Nope. Okay. So it turns out it was looking really good for a minute,

but it turns out Hank does not have a secret superpower that allows him to name dogs. Somebody sent me a picture of your dog, Man Hall. Okay. You got to have to know. Any animal in your house, if you get a new pet or you name it by Man Hall, I'll send you a free poster. That is by far the worst dog name. And like everything before that album is a great dog name.

Pants is a great dog name. You were you were on such a role. Even candle is a great dog name because it doesn't make any sense. I love it. But then, I mean, you just went in the worst possible direction. Yeah, that's a tough one. Oh, man. It's bad. I got, I mean, that may be very nervous, John. I started to get like sweaty. I got the meat sweats.

I was like, oh gosh, I'm being put on the spot. I don't know why. What a dumb thing to get nervous about. Oh, man. Dear Hank, John, in the intern chip, I have at my college this summer, one of the major things I'm doing is calling prospective students to gate their interest in school. Sometimes, though, I have to call someone who has my same first name. It just feels very weird to leave a voice mail saying, hi, Lauren. This is Lauren. What should I

do? You just got to make a joke out of it, yeah? No, you change your name, not permanently, just for the sake of the call. So, yeah, you super-so it doesn't care, frankly, if your name is Lauren. So, and to me, it gives you a great opportunity. Now, you can only do this when you're calling Lauren. You can't do it every time, because it'll be seductive and super fun, and you'll want to do it every time that you can't. But every time you're calling a Lauren, they answer, they say, hello, and you say, hi, this is Beth Middler from Florida State University.

And they say, what? And you say, this is Beth Middler. I'm a student at Florida State University. I'm calling because I know you've been admitted to the school and I was just wondering how you feel about it. I love that you chose Beth Middler. Well, I just think it's the perfect, because that's a name that prospective college students

will really resonate with, you know, because they remember wind beneath my wings. I, basically, yes. Beth Mittler is good. I think in general, like, something a little bit obscure is excellent. You could also be like, hi hi Lauren, this is Manhole. I'm calling from far enough to the university. I'm just wanted to let you know that we're really interested in giving you as much information as you want on the great programs we have at FSU.

So, okay, you're onto something here, Hank, which is that what happens when, because nobody's listening to the beginning of the call anyway, what happens when you try an increasingly obscure and absurdist series of things, right? Like what happens if you're like, hi, Lauren, this is a gang of turkeys calling from Florida State University. There's 17 of us. We were just wondering how you feel about Florida State's excellent classical music program. We have You're just wondering how you feel about Florida State's excellent classical music program.

We have four classical music majors here among our gang of 17 turkeys who are making this phone call. Be happy to connect you with one of them directly. I'm an anthropology major. Hi, Lauren, this is one scissor. Now, you may be thinking to yourself, is that possible? Yes, because scissors are a pair of scissors.

I'm just one of them. My other friend is calling a different Lauren right now. I'm basically a knife. Anyway, anyway, I'm not a fan of the loopy handle. Anyway, I've seen it's really great. I've had a really, really positive experience here. Hey, Lauren, have you ever been driving alone at night and you're filled with a sort of vague melancholy, but not an unpleasant one?

That's me here to call you about FSU. What do you think? Would you like to go to college here? Don't feel pressure. I know there's a lot of great schools. John, I just made a huge mistake and the looked up at Saltein salad and there is in fact a thing called a Saltein salad. It's like a potato salad except it's Saltein instead of potatoes. It's just Saltein's crunched up mixed with like mayonnaise and stuff. I don't know how I feel about America anymore. Oh, oh no.

Oh god. It's like egg salad, but without protein. Yeah, they just put saltines in it. Oh, okay, I've seen, I've now seen something that's even more disturbing. Oh gosh. There's this thing in the Midwest, and I cannot explain it or justify it,

so I'm just gonna say it, which is that in the Midwest and I cannot explain it or justify it So I'm just gonna say it which is that in the Midwest sometimes at like barbecues people will serve what is essentially a Ball of ground beef that has not been cooked But it's been like spiced. Oh in some way. Okay. I don't like it so far I'm but it's raw and it's just sitting there with flies on it and people eat this. Oh wow. And I've just seen a version of a salty salad that's like that plus a bunch of saltines.

Oh, it's just raw ground beef and saltines. Yeah, if you scroll down far enough, you'll see it. It's noticeable. I think that we need to burn it all down. Yeah, unfortunately, we're we need to burn it all down. Yeah, unfortunately, we're gonna need to cancel saltines. Or just like the Earth. Imagine Hank, if you felt like you had the power

to cancel saltines, like certain people in the United States right now clearly feel like they have the power to cancel certain industries at their whim. Imagine if you could like tweet, like, saltines, colon, bad for America, don't love America, saltine CEO, Blasgrbrorm, farm dark is a bad person.

And as such, saltines will no longer be part of the American diet. No, no, no, you're saying Hank, you're saying that's way more than 280 characters. No, don't worry, I posted it as multiple tweets, but I didn't thread them. Yeah, and also it's just like right in the middle of a word. So you're Hank and John, can I take apples off the ground? There's a house across this street from me that has an apple tree and there are so many apples that just fall off and sit there. Are they mine now?

I think that the tree grows more apples than a person could possibly eat. But I don't know how many people live at that house. Maybe there's like an army in there packed in, like a clown car. Apples and art, Varks Ken. I mean, isn't it possible that this person just runs an extremely small apple farm and that Ken is essentially

trying to steal their livelihood from them? They're on the ground. Once they're on the ground, they're questionable as to whether Ken should eat them for health reasons. Oh, I'm not worried about that at all, but I don't know. I was thinking about this question because I was thinking, now if somebody were in my garden and a tomato were on the ground and they picked that tomato, I would be mad because not because they picked the tomato,

but because why are you in my garden, Ken? Yeah, but if it falls on the other side of the fence, that's fair game. There is a lot of fun around in my town right now. And frankly, the town doesn't even let you plant fruit trees in the boulevards anymore because no one picks the fruit and it just sits there and gets stinky. And then the squirrels eat it and they get drunk. And then they are crazy squirrels. And... Wait, what?

Well, the fruit ferments on the ground and the squirrels eat it and they get shut up. Squirrels do not get drunk off of ground fruit. They do and it happens to bats too. Bat can get drunk. No, no. Definitely a thing. Drunk fruit squirrels. It happened on naked and afraid too

where this guy was really hungry and he needed to eat food. And so he ate some rotten food and he got really drunk. Oral, like he had eaten them like two days so he didn't get that drunk. He didn't, but he didn't need a lot of alcohol and that fruit to make him get a little tipsy. And to be clear, I only know this because I was told this by Hannah Hart. I do not watch naked and afraid.

Yeah, that seems like something that somebody who watches naked and afraid would say. Jacob writes, dear John and Hank, my girlfriend and I recently found out that her mother plans to give us a live duck as a present when we get engaged. What's why'd you put it on the registry? That's on you, Jacob. If you don't want a duck. Don't register at ducks.com for 400 ducks. Both my girlfriend and I agree that we're not ready for a duck and likely won't be by the time we get engaged. I mean of course, I mean, maybe I mean, I like that Jacob is open to the idea that they will be ready for a duck someday. Yeah, but they're just not there yet.

How do we tell my girlfriend's mother that we don't wanna duck without hurting her feelings or revealing the sources of our information? Oh yeah, you can't reveal your sources. That's like textbook ethics. Can you imagine like Jacob's girlfriend's dad calling Jacob's girlfriend and being like so listen? You know your mother. She's so wonderful. We all love her very much. You know how she loves her ducks

I don't know if I believe it. I don't believe it's not possible I Sometimes we get questions that are obvious goofs and this has to be a goof. There's no way. Where do you live? Like you live in a place where you can have a duck. Where do you keep a duck?

You don't keep it inside. It poops to you. I mean, maybe you do keep a duck. Maybe people have like, fully domesticated ducks that like pee in the potty and everything. You guys gotta take it for walks, I guess. Oh God, that would be so cute actually taking your duck for a walk.

All right, now I'm on board. But maybe, maybe, maybe here's the solution, you are ready for a duck. No, you think you're not ready for a duck. You're ready for a duck. Just believe in your relationship, believe in yourself. You're getting engaged. No, that, getting engaged does not mean

also acquiring a third member of the family. Hey, what if instead of engagement rings, we had ducks. Wouldn't the world be a better place? It's actually true. Wouldn't it be amazing you go to like a football game and like the jumbo tron and then the guy gets on a one knee and just like thrusts a duck at a woman?

Will you marry me? And this ducks like squawking and flapping. And then the duck like flies around on the whole stadium like thrust the duck at a woman. Will you marry me? And this duck's like squawking and flapping. And then the duck flies around and the whole stadium is chasing the duck and they're like, we gotta get the duck. And you'd go to the mall and there would be these kiosks where you can buy a duck, but you have to spend like two or three months

of your salary on a really, really good duck. So your partner will know that you're serious. Oh, you don't wanna get your partner this duck. It's just like to look mania but ducks. I mean, your partner is going to live with this duck for the next like 12 years. This duck is going to remind your partner of you forever. Do you really want to get a substandard duck or do you want the highest quality duck available? Yeah, you got to wear this duck on your hand for years. Jacob, you have to stop this now. This, this is an emergency. I don't wanna overstate it.

But if this is not a goof, it is a very serious problem. And the way that you address it is the next time you are with your girlfriend's mother, you and your girlfriend say, two slash in front of the mother, I love your ducks. I'm so glad you have ducks. I'm glad that these ducks bring you joy,

but we are young people who are not looking to bring a duck into our lives at this juncture. We wanna be able to travel duck free. We wanna be able to be duck without feeling weird about it. We wanna be able, this is the life we want to be able to travel duck free. We want to be able to be duck without feeling weird about it. We want to be able, this is the life we want for ourselves right now and we need you to respect that. Yeah, you got it. Maybe you could just say like,

ah, we're really looking forward to after we get engaged to doing a bunch of traveling. It's one of the only times in our lives and we're not gonna have a dog or a cat or a duck or a kid. And he's like, put the duck in there. I'm like, split it in. I'm just sneaking in. Put it third in a list of four.

And we can just travel completely without any responsibility. And not have to worry about like house sitters and like having a duck sitter, et cetera. Et cetera. And you know what, the mom is probably gonna say? What? She's probably gonna say,

Oh, don't worry, you can travel with the duck. Oh, yeah, they love travel. Yeah. They love it. They choose it. Little with a camper van. You haven't seen your 70 until you've seen your 70 with the duck. You think you've been to Paris, but wait till you go to Paris with the duck. I'm just gonna read you the headline from the Associated Press.

Kentucky Town mourns its first female mayor, Lucy Liu, a dog. That's very sad, but also not. Dateline rabbit, hash Kentucky, you heard that correctly. Rabbit, hash Kentucky, the town of rabbit, hash Kentucky is known for a string of highly esteemed mayors, one of whom died this week She was 12 and a dog Yeah, because if it wasn't a dog that would be a very different story

She was 12 and a dog She was 12 and a dog. I mean, good on rabbit hash, though maybe your first female mayor should have been a human being. Well, maybe, but to be fair, Lucy Lou was rabbit hash's third dog mayor. So they've had good luck with dog mares in the past, I guess. And by all accounts, Lucy Liu was a wonderful mayor and she will be sorely missed, not just by her family, but also by the larger community of rabbit hash. But don't worry, I'm sure that they will elect a new dog mayor soon. In small communities, people are busy and the people who will take the yolk of public

servanthood aren't always the ones that you want to actually do that job. I would argue that's also the case for larger communities. Just led by dogs. Not only should dogs vote, dogs should also vote for dogs. So when we first started using forks in around like 1500, they only had two times. Oh, that's because it was work. Like a turkey fork when you're dirt carbon turkey.

Yeah, because every new time that you would create was extra work. So you wanted to use the minimum number of turns. Sure, sure, that makes sense. The problem was that people would stab themselves. Like they would say it sounds extremely dangerous. As soon as you said that, I was like, ow, I don't want to put that in my mouth. They would stab the roof of their mouths,

they would get it stuck between all kinds of problems. And so they were like, maybe we should have a third time and they did and then they were like, you know what might be better, a fourth time. And it was and then they were like, you know what might be better, a fit. And then everyone was like, no, that's worse. It's the exact same thing as with razors.

Like, remember how razors for all of human history had two blades and then the mock three came out and everyone was like, oh my God, three blades on one razor. This is revolution. I don't know if, there are lots of people who aren't alive for this, but like, it was as close

to a consumer product revolution as I have witnessed in my lifetime, except maybe the... People were adoption of the personal computer. They were so excited. People were so, it was such an event, and it's so very strange to think back now at what an event it was when they had a third blade to the Mach 3.

I remember reading about it in Time magazine and like not an advertisement, but like in an article. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man, we cared about things that are different back then. So anyway, then everybody had three blades. And one day somebody was like, now we're going to release a razor with four blades. And it didn't make quite as big of a splash. And then somebody was like, now we're going to release a razor with five blades. And everyone was like, actually, this is worse.

Let's go back to the mock three. That was a good number of blades. And that's exactly what happened with Forks. Oh, I wonder if it's the use of the fork we're having five times is like, that doesn't work as well. Or if having five times is like, that looks like too many. It looks like a hand. Right, exactly. I don't like it. It looks like a human hand.

I'm not trying to improve me out. I'm not trying to employ a tiny child to feed me. I just want to use a fork. Yeah, this is like a weird robot child's arm that I've taken. Oh, I didn't. Google fork with five times and tell me you've ever seen anything uglier. Like, I am just scoops.

It's super creepy. Why is that so creepy? I'm nauseated. Why don't I like that? I feel like I'm going to fall. I feel like I'm going to fall. I feel like I'm going to fall. I feel like I'm gonna be on a coffee. Oh God it's terrible reminds me of Bart Simpson's head I don't like that one either that's so strange. Why wouldn't I like that? Oh

Well, there you go. There's your answer. They're disgusting Well, there you go. There's your answer. They're disgusting. Five times more so horrifying. They are. They look very... Oh my gosh. Woof. I don't know why I don't like it. I don't though. Dear John and Hank, I just started my new graphic design job last month. And as part of the graphics team, it's my job to create the retirement power point for a long time employee. I don't know anything about this guy or how to make a personable retirement PowerPoint, especially since this is my first job. I barely know

how to start much less retired or do you be a advice requested at your earliest convenience. First off, how unpopular must this long time employee be that everyone was like, oh, God, who's going to make the PowerPoint for Rick? Oh, I know, we can make Molly do it. She's brand new. Instead of being like, oh, I'd love to do it. Rick's an old friend of mine. It's like the ultimate insult.

Yeah, I mean, it's like, hey, you gotta ask around, I guess. You gotta get people to send you some pictures of Rick, maybe find Rick's Facebook or at least, as LinkedIn and be like, okay, how long's Rick been with the company? What if his job titles, you got to, what are you supposed to do?

You can't give this job to a person. It's like, it's like calling something up and being, like it's my wife's at his anniversary. Could you make us like a really heartfelt video that'd be great, all of a, send you $50. Can you please put a PowerPoint together? Could you make us like a really heartfelt video that'd be great, all of a cinjure, 15 bucks. Can you please put a PowerPoint together? Here's what I would do in this situation, because Molly, I don't think this is a great work

environment. I'm going to be honest with you. I think you need to move on from this job. And I think the best way to say goodbye to this job is via a really hilarious retirement PowerPoint for Rick. So I think the background music has to be wind beneath my wings. Did you ever know that you're my hero? And I think it all just has to be fading in and out of the same picture of Rick. It's just his work ID picture. Just fade in. And it's Rick's ID picture. And then you do that slow fade out. And then it's like, what's the next slide going to be? Oh no, it's Rixide fixture again, and it's the whole, did you ever know that you're my hero? And then the last frame,

because I got a great idea for the last frame. Yes, you do the last frame. It fades out and it's a bald eagle with the picture of Rixide superimposed over the head. Just Rixide fixture. That's it. And then it's decided. Oh, maybe underneath that, underneath that inscription,

it says like Rick 1964 to 2018. I was like he died. Yeah, like he died, exactly like he died. Like he died and he left behind this photo, this work ID with Bald Eagle. It's beautiful, Molly, and you will never have to make another retirement PowerPoint as long as you are a person working at this company. Dear John and Hank, my friends snapchat and drive. They snap themselves talking into the

camera, singing to the radio, or they just snap a video of the dashboard because they like the song and the radio. Obviously, this is dangerous, but I haven't managed to convince anyone that they're doing anything wrong. Driving feels safe, even though it is the most dangerous thing people do every day. How do I get through to my friends

before they kill us all? Wonder wall and wrecks, Carly. If there's some kind of, like, basically meme that you can create among your friends, that like, you are the person who cares about this and you're going to give them a hard time about it every single time. And that's because you love them. If there's, like, you're just going to, you basically, you draw, like, a tyrannosaurus Rex.

And he's called, he's called snappy, the don't snap while you're driving T-Rex. Yeah. And you take a picture and send that to them every time and you say, I'm not, every time you get a snappy, I'm not talking to you for a day. There's no more snap chatting. Oh, so. And I was suing by the fact that you're using Snapchat, that you are under the age of 25. And so everyone you're snap chatting with is fairly new to the whole driving thing. And that is when a lot of accidents happen.

When people are fairly new to the driving thing, you start to think that you're pretty good at it, but it turns out that you haven't experienced a lot of the things that you might experience, the sort of outside edge cases of traffic, unfortunateness. And then people end up hurt. And it's very bad. And like a legitimate cause of of tremendous amount of tragedy and pain in the world. And so I think that like if you can put together a good ol' snappy, the T-Rex, don't

snap all your driving T-Rex picture, please do that. Do I have the power to do that at least, John? Probably, although I think that your understanding of both teen culture and meme culture are pretty weak. But I like the idea of snappy the T-Rex. It doesn't seem at all like a cringy thing invented by a 38 year old. To keep the young people from distracted driving.

It doesn't seem like that at all. It seems like people are totally gonna respond to that. They're gonna be like, oh wow. I gotta snappy the T-Rex. I'm in big trouble. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. John, this is how it happens. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha idea which speaks to the fact that I'm even older than a Hank. You know, I've noticed that there's this whole thing on Twitter where people are taking that great William Carlos Williams poem about the plums and turning it into lyrics from

the popular music song All Star. Are you familiar with this meme? No. Do you know the poem in question? No, but I do know All Star. Okay, great. So there's a William Curls, William Poem. I don't know exactly how it goes,

but I'm gonna give you my version of it. This is my attempt to recite a William Curls, William's poem. I've had a couple drinks, but fewer than Hank. I have taken the plums that were in the ice box and which you were probably saving for breakfast. Forgive me, they were delicious, so sweet, and so cold. And here's the version that's been making the rounds on the social media, Hank. Okay. Hey, now, you're in icebox, get your palms on, so sweet.

That's not the best version. That's not the best version at all. Now I'm falling asleep and she's eating my plums and he's open the ice box and she's taking a plum. Now I'm looking for plums and my stomach feels sick. Now it's all in my head. So sweet and so cold now. I don't really know how that song goes. I would say that that do eat that a little bit of cold plums in my life. There you go. A little butter ice box by my side. A little butter breakfast. What you need a little bit of forgiveness is what I seek a little bit of delicious those those plums little sweet plums all I have. All right here we go

here we go. What do you got? That one's got 15,000 likes. Well, the plums start coming and they won't stop coming. Got to hit the ice box for some more cold plum and didn't make sense to eat, who didn't make sense to eat lukewarm plums. You got the ice box, so go chill them, son. I don't think this person's ever actually heard all star, but that was close. That was close.

That was like, there's like an algorithm wrote a version of all star. I had a version of that William Carlos. I saw like like happening on Twitter. They were cold plums Yeah, and people were talking about it That's as far as I got into the meme until now and I feel like I'm explaining something that everybody already knows about But the great thing is that because we're recording this in the relatively distant past Everyone will have forgotten about this meme by the time the video. Yeah, though we like the hot kid.

Oh, I remember the good old days. Oh, I mean, back when all those terrible things that have happened since then hadn't happened, and we joked about. Love them. These two wasn't nuclear winter. Upon my attempt to acquire a learner's permit, I found out that there was a clerical error

on my birth certificate making my legal name Emma. That is Emma spelled with three M-E-M-M-M-A. To be clear, this spelling was not intended by my parents, however, they seem to find my mutant beast of a name absolutely hilarious. And take every opportunity to remind me of it. Obviously, I am distraught. The problem with my name is causing an inordinate amount of anxiety for me. I mean, is it better now that we're laughing at UMMA? And perhaps it's something philosophical

about the teenage struggle for identity. No, I don't think it's that. I think it's maybe that your name is spelled EMMA. Oh, how is it pronounced though, John? How is M.O.3? It is pronounced like it's just make it worse? Or is it pronounced though, John? How is M.O. 3? It's pronounced like it's just make it worse or is it like... Don't make it worse. Don't make it worse. I'm having a hard time figuring out if my fears are legitimate.

Thus I've turned to the pod. Oh, great idea. So, am I being too uptight? Should I pretend this clerical error never happened or should I own the new spelling? Well, I'm worried that it's going to end up on your driver's license, too. Like, no, you should not own the new spelling. Well, I'm worried that it's gonna end up on your driver's license too. Like, no, you should not own the new spelling. Jesus Christ. Well, I don't know. It's just like, hey, why is your name Emma with 3M's? Oh, it's like 16 years ago. Somebody misread a form. Okay, but John, I just want to point out that Emma signs off the quality of mercy is not strained, Emma, or possibly Emma.

But Rosiana has put the person's name at the top of the question as she does. And it's filled it with three amps. I believe it's pronounced Emma. Emma, right? Emma? Emma. I think it's, no, I think it's just M-m-a.

Oh, that's what it is. You're absolutely right. You just have to, you have to settle more into the M-a. So it's like M-a. Yeah, that's not bad. By the way, that quote is from Shakespeare, and it's very good sign off. M-a. It's really lovely.

And so if nothing else, you've got a great sign off going for you, which is a wonderful start. But anyway, all of that reminds me, Hank, that today's podcast is brought to you by our number one most important sponsor, Snappy the T-Rex. Snappy the T-Rex reminding you not to snap while driving. Is snap the right verb for snap chatting. I don't even know.

Which reminds me, John, that this podcast is brought to you by naked and afraid. Naked and afraid. This week on Discovery, man and a woman are uncomfortable. In the woods, they get bit by bugs a bunch. Don't you want to watch those bug bites? Today's podcast is brought to you by Manholes, Manholes, saving the world from sewage one large steel cylinder at a time. It's more of a disc, but okay. Good point.

It's definitely not a cylinder. I mean, I guess it's just an extremely narrow cylinder. It's a very thin cylinder. I'm standing by my... You know what? Forget it. James Monroe did write the Federalist papers papers and I'm not backing down. If I've learned anything from this president, it's to stick with your guns.

And you don't need to use murder to build a brick house. It's a conspiracy. This out this this podcast is also brought to you by very thin cylinders like coins and and symbols And finally this podcast is brought to you by Ferret oatmeal bath. That's the question we haven't answered yet Dear John and Hank I have a roommate who I absolutely adore We share a bathroom and she's a moderately clean person I don't have any complaints aside from the fact that she has two ferrets and she bathes them in our bathtub I don't have any complaints, aside from the fact that she has two ferrets and she bathes them in our bathtub. This wouldn't be a problem, but ferrets have to have oatmeal baths.

And she doesn't always clean them. Do they have to have oatmeal baths? Like do they have oatmeal baths in the wild? Yes, that like on the instruction manual. Can you imagine like the ferret spa that they go to, like in the wild where they're like, oh god, this oatmeal bath, it's so nice. I'm sure there's a reason why ferrets need oatmeal baths. Anyway, she doesn't always clean the tub out

after their baths. It needs oatmeal dust in the bottom of the tub, and if I don't check before I shower, it makes the bottom of the tub slimy and smelling like a retirement home. I'm a non-confrontational person. So how do I broach this? Well, this is a great time to take a person you adore

and have a good relationship with, an experiment with a little bit of conflict. Just a tiny bit where you say, hey, Rumi, couple things. First off, do ferrets have to take oatmeal best? No, no, no, no. First off, I love your ferrets and I love them and I love them and I love them. And I want you to love them and I want you to take good go that far. First off, I want you to take great

care of them. First off, I tolerate your ferrets and I know that you love them. There's no reason to be dishonest. I know that you love your ferrets. I want them to be healthy. I want you to take great care of them. But when I shower after the fair it's have bathed in our only tub. I often feel really gross for a variety of reasons that I would imagine you can imagine. It's dangerous. It's dangerous. You got a like a slippery tub. Is it, people die? Absolutely. It's dangerous. That's why I believe that if you've got a tub, you should take a bath, but not Vicky. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. But only, but there's one exception to that.

That's the, there's not a lot of bath tubs that I wouldn't take a bath in, but I have to say that if I was living in Vicky's house, I would probably be a shower person. Dear John and Hank, I recently had to have a rib removed. Oh. My surgeon let me keep my rib. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. How do I appropriately artfully display my rib?

Oh, God. People have suggested Scrimshaw or that I carve a picture onto my rib. I think I should just frame it and call it spare rib. What are your suggestions? I don't think that you are gonna develop the techniques necessary to scrimshaw your own rib. I just don't think that,

I don't like, for this one task, unless you like want this to be something that you do more of, you scrimshaw other people's ribs, I think probably you're gonna wanna give your rib to a professional Scrimshaw artist. So I totally agree with you. You go to the person who already has developed a talent for Scrimshawing human ribs.

No, no. Not human ribs, just Eddie Scrimshaw at all. Don't invent the wheel on this one, Rachel. Oh God. Have you talked to your surgeon about the possibility that they might be an expert in skrimshawing ribs? Ha ha ha. They have good fine motor skills, presumably.

Dear John and Hank, I'm at a training at work and I'm hiding in the bathroom because I just vomited in the meaty room. What do I do? Oh God? Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. I once was working at a nonprofit and I was just licking envelopes and stuff and stuff and stuff on the floor, literally on the floor. Yeah, and I started to bleed out my face as you sometimes do when you move from Florida to Montana. Yeah, and I bled on the floor, literally on the floor. And I started to bleed out my face as you sometimes do when you moved from Florida to Montana.

And I bled on the envelopes, that was supposed to be stuffing. That was very new to this place. I didn't know where the bathroom was. So I literally ran out of the building. And I assumed that something would have noticed the bloody envelopes by the time I got back. And then I got back to the nonprofit. And indeed, my bloody envelopes by the time I got back. And then I got back to the nonprofit and indeed my bloody envelopes had been discovered. And I said, I had a nose bleed and they're like,

oh, and then we reprinted the envelopes and I kept stuffing them. Yeah, I'm gonna argue that that's not a perfect analog to barfing in the middle of a meeting. Oh, was there currently, there are people in the meeting? Oh, in that case, M, you just go into someone else's office and you say, somebody peaked in the meeting room. No, no, no.

So about three months ago, one of my good friends turned 40. I'm excited about that. And we went to, we had a party in a hotel suite in Indianapolis, and it was a great time, and there was a lot of drinking and food and games and fun. And we, it was a tiger. And Mike Tyson was there and then everybody,

you've seen the movie. And that's how Indianapolis party's unfold with 40 year olds. Yeah. And then at about 12, 30 in the morning, somebody was like, oh, man, I'm really hungry. I wish I had some Doritos. And I was like, oh, you guys want snacks? And I should add that I was kind of half conscious at this moment.

My eyes were closed, and they thought I was asleep. But I heard somebody say Doritos. And I just was like, hello, how's it going guys? And I was like, you guys want some snacks? And they're like, yeah, we really want some snacks. And I was like, I'll go get some snacks. And they're like, what? You're asleep, and I'm like, no, it's good, I got it. So I go down to the hotel lobby and I don't want to brag, but I am really good at like late-night snack acquisition. You know how like some people under order on the snacks? That's never been a problem for me.

So I go downstairs and you know it's a situation where there's like this like hotel pantry where you can get whatever you want and I get a lot of a lot of snacks. I probably get 30, 35 total snacks. But I don't have any bags. So I just just kind of roll it up into my shirt as best I can and kind of hold the rest of it. You know, yeah, like a baby, basically, but like a baby that's got 35 discrete parts, any of which could fall off at any moment. And I get in the elevator. Now the elevator is full of eight people who do not know each other, but are all very drunk and have been riding up and down on the elevator

for long enough that they've become friends. And they can't figure out how to get to the floor that they all want to get to. This is the environment into which I walk with this 35 different snacks. So I walk in there, and one of the guys says, you got a lot of snacks, man. And then one of the other people says,

he's a snack man. And then these eight the other people says, he's a snack man. And then these eight strangers start chanting, snack man, snack man, snack. No! No! No! What did you expect? I should never have done it! Oh no! Wow! So I'm like, okay, well this is really bad, but at least it's just an elevator phenomenon. But, but no. I get out of the elevator. I'm walking back to the hotel suite where Sarah's birthday party is.

And here's this freaking Greek chorus behind me chanting snack man. And that's how I got that nickname. Thank you for listening to our special Super Cut, one hundred and ninety-nine episode. This episode is produced by Rosie Honhaul, throw-hawson shared in Gibson, who was edited by Joseph Tuna-Mettish, our head of community and communications

is Victoria von Jorno. I'm Hank Green, John's not here. The music that you're hearing right now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunnarola and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.