Dear Hank & John - 233: The Adventures of Yukon John and Glass Foot Hank (w/ Dr. Aaron Carroll!)

Episode Date: March 30, 2020

How do I convince my parents to take social isolation seriously? Can I social distance from the same room? How can I get to know my new town while social distancing? Are squirrels real? Should I tell my parents about the secret passage I found in my room? Whatever happened to Soggy Pitch? Hank Green and John Green have answers!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 Subscribe to the Nerdfighteria newsletter! https://nerdfighteria.com/nerdfighteria-newsletter

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Oh God. Sorry, I prefer to think of it as Dear John and Hank. It's a comedy podcast where two brothers and sometimes a special guest answer your questions, give you the advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and Aves to Wimbledon. John, I heard that Bon Jovi recently made some really strange decisions or at least according to a song I heard. Apparently he moved out of his house and now he is living on a pair. No.

No. No, we're joined today. I'm not even I'm not even indulging it. I just want to move on from it. We're joined today by Dr. Aaron Carroll who is an actual expert. Hi, Aaron. Yes, yes, who is an actual expert. Hi, Aaron. Yes, yes, I'm happy to talk. Yes. Aaron's probably on seven other conference calls right now.

His time is very valuable. Yes. For those of you who are not familiar with Aaron's work, he's the host of healthcare triage. He also writes for the New York Times a lot and for the Atlantic and many other places. And he is joining us today for our hot new segment on global pandemics. How timely.

Aaron, can I start off with a question that's just slightly better than my dad joke, which is that if you have three people in the same room, then do you always have the recommended six feet between you? Well, Jesus. Oh my God. Did you get to actually think about that and answer it? then do you always have the recommended six feet between you? Well, Jesus. No, my God. Did you get to go to the church? Actually, think about that in answer to,

and then I realized the joke, yes. No, did you not? I was going to try to literally think about how to answer that. I meant, no. I'm going to move on from the dad jokes. How freaked out should I be right now? Freaked out for you or for the country? Like, that's a complicated question. Like I think

you probably will be fine. And I think your kids will be fine. And I think that most people who are engaging in social distancing are going to be fine. And most people listening to this podcast are going to be fine. But but from a worldwide health risk, this is this is pretty bad. And I try very, very, very hard not to panic, but I'm worried. And you know me well enough to know that when I say I'm worried, then it's real. Because I'm usually the guy that's saying,

calm down, this is not nearly as bad as everybody says, that the risks are not so bad. And people don't understand. In this case, the risk and the panic is big and warranted. Yeah, and it's both, you know, like the health system itself is a big area of concern. That's really where I think the major, the up front crisis that we're going to be dealing with in the next few weeks and even months is that healthcare system crisis.

You know, the United States loves to think that it's the best in the world. There's this weird perverse American exceptionalism when it comes to healthcare. But we don't have the greatest healthcare infrastructure. We have far fewer doctors per population than most other comparable countries, far fewer nurses than a lot of countries, not a ton of hospital beds.

We do have a fair amount of ICU beds or intensive care unit beds for taking care of really, really sick people, but they're not distributed Where we would optimally like them to be and Given the scope of this pandemic, how many people are getting sick where it could head we could very very easily Overwhelmed the capacity to care for as many people who are going to be very sick and for as many people who are going to be very sick and becoming more and more convinced that's absolutely going to happen

in more cities than we think. Yeah. So the question we're getting most often is, what can I do? Various forms of what can I do? People who wanna find a way to help or wanna find a way to minimize the impact that this is gonna have in their communities.

It seems like the most important answer to that, at least from listening to your other work, is stay home. Yeah, social distance or physical distance is a better term. The best thing you can do is slow the spread of this virus. That's less about protecting yourself than it is about protecting those who cannot protect themselves. And included in that group is the elderly, the immunocompromised, people with lots of chronic conditions, but it's really on a lot of people's minds these days and includes

healthcare workers. We only have a limited supply of them. They are being exposed. They are not being resourced as they should. And anything we can do to bring this to a close sooner rather than later and keep them from getting overwhelmed is going to protect us in a short and long term. And when we're exposing ourselves, when we're not staying home, it's not just that we're putting ourselves at a very tiny risk, we're increasing the population risk that this

is going to get really bad and go for a really long time. And that's really, really dangerous to our healthcare workers. Yeah, I mean, a lot of the goal of, you know, you think about physical distancing as a way to prevent ourselves from getting the disease, but really like a collective action is about numbers and it's about math. And it's about getting that number, like that number of people per person,

like people per infected person who become infected, getting that number as low as we can, without breaking things like healthcare, like food security, and transportation infrastructure. So like certain people are going to have to leave their houses during this time in order to take care of everyone, and that might be grocery stores, it might be food delivery, it might be healthcare, but the people who don't have to, we are the ones who are able to keep that number down so that those people can keep working. And I think that, you know, it's important if we're really trying to think about the population

and that we need to take care of each other, we have to even broaden the list of people who are protecting. You know, there's lots of people who are homeless and they don't have as many choices. There are people who unfortunately have to live in unsafe situations because of domestic violence or for fear of where they are. There are people who are food insecure and they can't just sit and wait for the food to be delivered, they might actually have to go get it. So there are people who have to leave the house.

And some still for economic reasons that we haven't yet got to a point where people are feeling free to quit their jobs voluntarily. Some people are still working across the country that probably shouldn't yet got to a point where people are feeling free to quit their jobs voluntarily. Some people are still working across the country that probably shouldn't be. They may not have the same choices that a lot of people listening to this do. Stay home for them. The more people that can stay home, the easier it is for those who can't. Right.

And even if your government hasn't said now is the time for everybody to stay home, maybe it is. As much as possible, it absolutely is. I mean, it's like the state, more and more states are getting to shelter in place before the crisis hits. And that's good, rather than bad. But there are a lot of places that are really behind and they got to catch up. They really do.

This is serious. So I have a question from Olissa who asks, dear Hank and John and Aaron, I, along with a lot of my friends, are struggling with our parents not understanding the gravity of this situation. They keep hanging out with their friends and going over to other people's houses and they go to the grocery store every day

just to get out of the house. How do I explain to them that this is really important and it's important for them to stay home, especially for them, because they are older people, Olvisa. So, you know, it's very easy for me to say, like, well, you know, of course, watch videos that we have made to talk about the risks that are there. Or to such Aaron Carroll's.

Or to read articles that I have written, which are literally answering this exact question. But part of it is that I think it has to come from a trusted source. And so it's important to find and explore with your elderly parents who they would believe and who they would trust and then see if you can find, I think, something in that, you know, venture big circle of people they trust. Another circle of people who are providing accurate information and where those two circles overlap, that's what I would feed them. Short of that, email me and I will email your parents.

I will tell them personally that they're not taking this seriously enough and that they need to. And if we have to do a direct intervention, I will. That's very generous of you. Aaron, do you see signs that the social distancing that's currently being done is working or is it just not nearly enough? So, we're unfortunately too soon, certainly in the United States.

So it's important to remember that even if we optimally social distance, if we all agree today, you know, house with our families and no one else and we don't see anyone else, all the infections that are going to show up in the next five to 14 days are already baked into the cake. So for the next five to 14 days, we're going to see the same number of infections as if we hadn't done any social distancing. So that's two weeks of badness. Then of course, a lot of transmission happens between family members. That's still going to happen in the house with social distancing to add on another week or two. So that means that even if we do a phenomenal job, three or four weeks till we really see a major, major difference and even then not everyone is doing

it right yet. So we don't we don't have any evidence in the United States yet that this is working. There was some promising evidence in New York yesterday because it looked like for two or three days, the number of new like serious cases or deaths had been slowing, but then to, in the last 24 hours, it's been horrific. So probably that was just a data blip. We're seeing some slowdown in Italy, but they're weeks ahead of us. And of course, we're seeing a slowdown in some Asian countries, but not only are they way ahead of us, they're engaging in measures that, you know, far outpace what we are doing. So it's going to take a while before we see a difference. I think the peaks are still coming and are not close for most of the United States, if not all of it. Man, I'm really a downer, aren't I?

I have to emphasize how much of a bummer Dr. Carroll usually isn't. I do appreciate you're saying that. This is not my usual, you know, Jolly what I know. This is a man who, when I got into a go-kart accident on my 39th birthday and broke a rib, hit me on the top of the helmet and said, I think you're gonna be fine.

Yeah, yeah, I'm a minimizer. I'm like, I'm not the one that panics. Like my job is almost, I mean, my book last book was about, don't freak out about food. Everything you've heard is not nearly as bad as it is. Like that's my usual job at the New York Times is to put risk in context and explain

that you don't need to be worried about anything as nearly as much as the news would normally tell you. This is not that time. You know, not, again, not to panic, but it's like, we have not seen anything this infectious and this dangerous for which we have no treatment, no immunity, and no vaccine in a hundred years. The last time something this series occurred

was, you know, the flu pandemic of 1918 or, you know, what most people call the Spanish flu. That's the last time we've had SARS and MERS, but they were not nearly this infectious and we contained them. And we've had flu pandemics, but we are naturally immune to the flu at certain levels. And we have treatments and even vaccines we can create. We don't have any of that. So this is really in a century the most serious sort of infectious threat that we've faced. I have a question about social distancing that we've gotten from several people including my parents. They should say, far away from you is possible. possible. Because they do live next door. Right. So they can only stay so far away. But they can stay

like a hundred yards away. Yeah. One of the questions we've gotten a lot is, can I social distance or physically distance myself by staying six feet away from friends, but still spend time with friends. Slash, can I choose one or two families to have a closed loop with where we agree that we don't see anybody else? Okay, so let me do the six foot question first. So outside, I would say yes. In fact, just to be honest, I'd make it a little more than 6 feet. But if they're not sick, not coughing, not sneezing, then it's very, very, very unlikely that outside, they're going to be passing the virus to you because you're not even touching the same things.

Inside is a little more tricky because then it's, people have varying amounts of washing their hands, they could touch stuff, it's harder to do. But outside, sure. In fact, I was talking to Ivan neighbor who lives across the street and we were well over six feet apart, but talking outside this morning. And people are walking around outside. And as long as you maintain distance, that's fine. Now, the second question you asked was about broadening the circle, but still keeping it

contained. I think that that is fine when we've gotten outside the first two week period. Because in the first two week period, we don't yet know which families are exposed and are infected. But after two weeks, if no one has really been exposed to anyone else in your house, and no one has shown any symptoms,

or at least it's been two weeks since any symptoms have shown, and everyone is healthy and you're reasonably confident that no one has COVID then saying, okay, this family over there and this family and our family. Sure, if we agreed to see no one else and just widen the circle to that, reasonably confident that none of us are exposed, that's likely fine. But what you can't have is family A says they're going to spend time only with family B, but family B says they'll spend time with family C and family C, but no, that's not going

to work. It has to be that A and B agree only A and B and only after that sort of original time has passed. Yeah. I mean, that's very hard. And that's only for people who are able to sort of have a two week time off of spending significant amount of time with other people. If you, you know, a lot of people still do have to do their work and go to their jobs. I will say that, but we should be prepared. I mean, I know that various politicians are talking about an end date, but I would caution everyone that if it's very possible, we're in this for the long haul.

And so it is very possible that we will get through two week periods, be totally safe, and then be able to wind up. That has not happened yet. Right. No one has yet been social, the physical distancing enough, but we may get there. Right, but I still shouldn't see my parents. Well, there are a variety of reasons for that, perhaps.

Absolutely. Only kin or COVID is only one. Oh, our parents are. No, I really like my parents, but I should budget it. I'm joking, I know your parents. I think I'm joking. No, both of them are we exchanging,

we exchange tweets all the time. Yeah, so just hang out with my parents outside is what been, I'm joking. No, both of them, we exchange and we exchange tweets all the time. Yeah, so just hang out with my parents outside is what you're saying. Yes. Well, again, again, I would say like after two weeks, it's like if your parents are seeing no one else, then and you're seeing no one else, then you're reasonably sure that, you know, you and they are safe, and then it would be, you know, more permissible to intermingle. Right. Okay. And is there anything else that you want to say? I think that, you know, it's going to be scary for a while and people are going to necessarily be panicked. I can't stress enough that while we are physically distanced, it's very important that we continue to socially engage, that we find new and better ways to hang out with each other from

afar and to keep talking to people and getting good information so that, you know, we do the best that we can. We'll come through this. I really do believe that. I don't want to be, you know, this is not the end of the world. It's certainly not the end of the human race. We will come through this. We just want to do it as healthily and as safely as possible. And I think it's important to do the best that we can. Thank you, Aaron. Yeah, thank you. I know you have lots of other good stuff to do. Thank you.

Thank you not only for joining us, but I know that you've been working non-stop for the last month and a half. And we're really grateful for that. I appreciate that. Really, everybody who listens to this podcast should go subscribe to healthcare triage. Read Aaron's articles at the Atlantic and at the New

York Times. They are super helpful. They are not panicked, but they are forthright. And the healthcare triage series, especially where Dr. Carol answers all your questions. I found extremely helpful. So, Aaron, thank you for all your great work. Thanks for being here with us today. And we hope to have you back on soon just as a regular friend instead of as our local pandemic expert. Yeah. Anytime. All right. Thanks, Aaron. Well, I'm so glad that you managed to get Aaron on the podcast. John, it feels like a big a a help and what a great guy and and he does he is not forgetting to be awesome. So thanks to Aaron for coming on.

John, do you want to answer some questions from our listeners? Not really. I want to just answer some questions from you. Yeah, I just can I ask you some of my questions. Yeah, how are you doing? I'm okay. I mean, I am really okay. I'm okay. We have so much to be grateful for.

And my concerns are mostly centered around the people in my life and the people in the wider world whose lives have been completely upended by this in the last two weeks. I mean, our life has definitely changed a lot. Our kids are home. We have to oversee their learning on a scale that we aren't prepared for like a lot of parents, but we're able to work from home. We still have jobs, you know, all the places where so many

people have been made to feel suddenly insecure. We have security. So yeah, I'm extremely grateful for that. And I guess my worry is omnidirectional at the moment. Usually I have fairly focused. Oh God, that's such a great turn. Like yes, absolutely, everywhere I look, I'm like, well, there's one. Right, there's another one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That one also was a worry. Uh huh. Yeah, nothing is normal. A friend of mine who also loves soccer said to me recently, you know, until three weeks ago, everything in my life was completely normal, except Liverpool were about to win the Premier League title. It was like the most not normal thing.

And now, nothing in my life is normal, except that Liverpool are not about to win the Premier League. Which is exactly my experience of it. Like, yeah, so little is normal. It's hard to put your, it's hard to know where to put your worry. I have a glass blinner in my foot. I can't get out. I'm a mom and dad sent me some things from my youth

in one of them broke in our entryway. And I cleaned it up but I missed a piece. Oh, no. And I thought I got it out, but then clearly I didn't because like two weeks later it started to hurt really bad. And I was like, do I go to the hospital? Do I go to the doctor?

Like, do I go to urgent care right now? And it started to hurt bad enough. I think you tried to avoid it if you can. Yeah, yeah, I think you do. And it was hurting bad enough that I was about to go back and then it started to feel better. So I'm feeling very grateful that the glass in my foot, whatever was wrong with it has worked itself out.

Hopefully. That doesn't actually sound like it worked itself out for time. Just because something stopped hurting, doesn't 100% mean it's resolved. Now I have a new worry. Yeah, there's a secret, silent glass liver in my foot. Well, I can actually make a recommendation on this front-hand. I don't know if I've ever told you my story

about Yukon Territory Medicine. What? I mean, I can't imagine that you have a story I haven't heard, but it isn't ringing a bell yet. Well, many years ago, I spent a summer, a very ill-advised summer in Alaska, trying to like be like our dad. Our dad worked as a salmon fisherman in Alaska,

he mushed dogs, you know, he's rafted, he's Arctic rivers and whatnot. And so I was like, I'm gonna go to Alaska with some friends from college and a girl who's gonna break up with me in 12 days and it's gonna be great. And so we went to Alaska and on the way there, one of the many bad portents

on the way there was that my arms swelled up. Oh! To like approximately eight times, it's normal size. Oh my God, I don't know this story. So I looked like normal me, tiny little skinny college John, except that I had the rocks left bicep. Well, I imagine it didn't have the definition of the rocks left.

No, it was pretty wet looking. I don't know how it's described. It's a bit of a goosac. A bit of a goosac. A bit of a goosac. Yeah, so we're in the middle of nowhere in the Yukon territory. And we drive past a house that has a red cross outside of it. And I'm like, is that the doctors?

So I go to the house and I knock on the door and then very nice woman answers. And she says, I'm not a doctor, but I am a nurse. Can I look at your arm? And I showed it to her and she said, you need not a doctor, but I am a nurse. Can I look at your arm? And I showed it to her and she said, you need to see a doctor immediately. And the good news is the doctor is only 45 miles away. So we drive to the doctor.

Oh, good. I thought you were going to have to like, mount up a dog or something. No, no, no, no. By the way, when I finally got to Alaska, instead of working as like a salmon fisherman or a dog, my sure or whatever, I scooped ice cream and made cappuccinos.

Because that's not relevant to the story. We go to the doctor and the doctor looks at my army and says, we got to lance this unfortunate girl. And he says, okay, explain your arm to me more fully because I've just pictured you got one pop-eye arm from like the shoulder to the fingertips. Like, no, it was like, I would say I had one pop I arm from the elbow to the shoulder. It was huge. Oh, wow.

I just kind of hoping it would go away, which is my strategy for most things, but it got worse. So, I go to the doctor. The doctor says, oh, geez, we're going to have to lance this. You've got it. You've got it infected, little cut. And he actually pointed to the cut and I was like, oh, that's what that is. And so, he was like, I got good news and bad news.

The good news is we can do it here in the office. The bad news is you're going to have to ball up your t-shirt and put it in your mouth because I don't have any anesthesia. Oh my God. Well, you know, at least you had some experience, this comparable to what what dad did in his life. He took out his one, probably. He took out a knife that like was like,

I don't know how to describe it except that it was a hunting knife. It wasn't like a medical instrument. It was just a regular knife. Okay. He cut it open. I would, it was an incredible amount of fluid. Oh my God. Then he stitched it back up with two stitches and I, like, tears were just like pouring

down my face. Yeah. And then he said, you're good to go. He gave me two Tylenol with Cody on my way out the door and said, good luck. Thanks for coming. And like, no anti-biotic or anything. Do you want to know how much it cost? Oh, I, I, I'd be shocked if you charged you.

This is a subpar experience. He said, I'm not gonna charge you for this. And I was like, how do you make a living out here? Like, what do you, if you don't charge for this, what do you charge for? I have had that experience a couple of times when the situation is so weird and bad that they're just like, it feels wrong at this point to take your money. Yeah.

I mean, look, I'm not proud of how this went down, man. We were just doing our best out here in the country. Like, did you think I was a professional doctor? Oh, no, no, no. I'm a woodcar. I've got car, I carve in little wood. That's what the knife is for. I'm a woodcarve. I carve, I carve in little wood. That's what the knife is for. I'm a doctor of anthropology. All right. It's more of an MF. Anyway, that's all to say, Hank, that there's no need to go into urgent care. Just slice it open yourself and just, just, just, just, Just, just, yes. Let's do at least a quenches week. This one's from Mackenzie who asks, dear Hank and John, I will be moving to a new city, St. Petersburg, Florida, and starting a new job. I work in power generation. So I will continue to report to work in the

midst of this crisis. How can I start feeling like I'm part of this new city while still practicing social distancing? Mackenzie. First of all, McKenzie, thank you for doing what we are now calling the essential work, the things where people have to still go back to work, and we are staying home so that you can keep doing that. So thank you. I hope you're moving to St. Petersburg in a car by yourself.

I've never been more aware of the fact, and I apologize for the tangent, McKenzie, that my work is non-essential. Also, I find it very interesting that the work that turns out to be essential is often compensated so poorly. Yeah, not particularly. Well, which maybe this will be a time where we wake up a little bit to that. I hope so, because the people who do the work and support the systems that everyone actually

depends on are essential and their labor is essential. If our systems of economics don't acknowledge that, they fail. Like they will always fail. That's just something I've been thinking a lot about in the last few weeks. We are not doing a good enough job of acknowledging where the value is really added. Yeah, or we know it, but we do not compensate for it.

Yeah, so yes. So thanks for doing the important work, McKenzie. Well, Hank and I are set up in our little home offices talking about, do we not essential work? Lansing wounds and doing doing non-essential work. Lansing wounds and doing other non-essential labor. So thank you, Mackenzie, for doing the essential work. Hank, you lived in St. Pete.

I did. I lived in St. Petersburg for four years. And Mackenzie, if you drive on more than two roads, you will get to know that city better than I did. I, you know, feeling connected to a place is I think really important. And, and something that can't, we can sort of ignore. And because I was in college, I spent, like, I felt connected to the college campus, and

then mostly I went to Taco Bell in the beach, which, I mean, that sounds amazing right now. But one thing that I like to do when I am in a new place is just walk around it. If you can, you know, if you have a walkable neighborhood, this is a time when walking around is not only allowed, it is more important than ever. Driving around is also nice where you can sort of get a feel for how different people in your city live and, you know, and understand the neighborhoods. And Florida is a place that sort of, like, it puts the places where people live kind of behind the scenes a little bit. It can be like actually difficult to get into the neighborhoods.

But I think it's worthwhile just to sort of see it. And then of course, your main points of social connection as is often, certainly not always the case these days, is going to be co-workers. So hopefully you will find a good supportive community there. Take a hike, see some oak trees, smell some swamp, that kind of thing. Yeah, if you can get outside right now, it's really nice.

Yeah, that said, we did get one question this week that it's absolutely essential for us to answer it. And it's also properly goofy. It comes from Pauli, who writes, dear John and Hank, wait, oh my God, squirrels exist. Like, I knew they were real, but they're everywhere. They're like birds or insects.

I live in New Zealand and we have no squirrels. I've always assumed that squirrels were like, I don't know, penguins or zebras, they're not. Oh my God, you guys let them run around and they're quite common. Also, it turns out Americans think you're weird if you follow squirrels around and take pictures of them. What's going on? Paulie. Yes, squirrels are absolutely everywhere. We live in an urban forest in many places in America and squirrels just share that space with us. They do it extremely effectively.

This is a habitat that they thrive in. So we certainly don't let them live here. We don't say, we don't invite them. It's just a thing that happened and they don't cause huge problems. I think if squirrels had bigger poops, we would like them less, but they poop such small little poops. They're poop plenty, but their poops are actually physically small, so you kind of never see them.

So I feel like people would dislike squirrels more if we knew how much of their poop was around, but we really just don't. Yeah, I mean, I don't love them, but I don't have a strong dislike for them. Like I do other urban animals like the Canada goose. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I like squirrels, okay. If you're a bird feeder kind of person,

then you have like a thing against the squirrels because they will yell your bird seed and your birds won't get to it. And that's sort of like, but I've tried to become more accepting of the ways that nature intrudes upon my control of my surroundings and that extends somewhat inside the walls, but definitely outside.

Like, Dandy Rhyans, I'm like, you guys, you're doing what you were designed to do, you're doing it hard, and I'm just gonna let you be squirrels same way. This is outside, I can't control this. I do feel very strongly, like whenever anybody gets freaked out seeing a mouse outside, I'm always like, no, this is great, the mouse is where it's supposed to be.

We need to encourage this kind of behavior in mice. We need more mice to be learning to love outside. Yeah, we need to praise you. Well done, little mouse. You have chosen the right habitat. This is, let me go get you a marshmallow. What is the, I wonder, Hank, I wonder what the New Zealand version of the squirrel is.

Like what animal do they see so much that you're just like, whatever? I know that that's the case with kangaroos, where they're just like deer. And it's like, ugh. Yeah. And even within America, we have that. When I moved out to Montana, I was like, oh my god, there's deer everywhere. And when I go back to Florida now, I'm like, there are lizards everywhere. And that was not weird when I was growing up.

And now it is weird, whereas it's like, what was that? Oh, it was a lizard. Cause the state is covered in lizards. I just wanna say for the record that I'm pretty sure that there are no kangaroos in New Zealand. And one thing I know people in New Zealand love is when you confuse them with Australians. I said Australia.

I don't think you did. And so there are kangaroos in New Zealand. Are there? Oh, there are not kangaroos in New Zealand. Oh, okay. Look, there are not kangaroos in New Zealand except inside of Zeus. And yes, Australia and New Zealand are different places.

I was in Melbourne, Australia once, and I was like, I looked off the coast, and I was like, is that Tasmania? And they were like, no. You can't see Tas, that's like the other part of Melbourne. That's like across the bay to more Melbourne. I'm such an ugly American that way. Like I'll always be like sharing the one fact about New Zealand,

I know, with New Zealanders. Or I do the terrible ugly American thing where I say to someone from New Zealand, oh, do you know my friend Ronan? And they're like, no, there's a bunch of people in New Zealand. It's not just me and Ronan. We got a bunch. There's a few others.

But anyway, that reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by my buddy Ronan in New Zealand. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? Let's see. But anyway, that reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by my buddy Ronan in New Zealand. You know him? You know, you know, let's see. Today's podcast is also brought to you by the rocks left by Sam. Temporarily transported onto my brother, John's arm while he was in Alaska. I was in the Yukon territory for the record, but it is kind of all the same up there. I'm getting everything confused. Yeah.

All those people in the Yukon territory are gonna be so mad at me. Yeah. Canadians love being mistaken for Americans too. Today's podcast is additionally brought to you by Dr. Aaron Carroll's personalized email to your dad. Dr. Aaron Carroll's personalized email to your dad. Stay home.

And this podcast is brought to you by squirrels. They're big boys. I wonder if over time squirrels will get bigger. Alright, Hank, before we get to the news from our Znafc Wimbledon, Meg wrote in to say, dear John and Hank, my name is Meg, I'm 12 years old. About a year ago, I was rearranging in my room when I discovered something. Behind a wooden panel, there was a large chimney space. Our house is pretty old and I assumed that this was where a fireplace used to be.

Anyway, it was full of bits of charcoal and dust and etc. But still a fairly large space. My parents had never told me about this, and it was such a shock to me that when I pulled on this piece of wood, there was a hidden space in my room that had been there all along for many, many years. Meg, I'm not sure that you're writing us from inside of a children's book, but boy does it seem like you are. This is an amade, I just love this, Hank. I loved secret spaces when I was a kid. Like my dearest dream was to find such a secret space in my room when I was a child.

Meg, there's a lot of dreams about this still. I do too. Yes. was a child. Meg has a dream about this still. I do too. Yes. I love it. Meg is having that reality. Yeah. Meg goes on to say, I went up onto our roof and found a chimney at the top,

and I dropped an apple down it. And when I had another look inside the secret place, the apple was there, which means the chimney was not blocked off. Meg, are you absolutely sure you're not inside of a children's book? Is the apple different now in any way? Was the apple taste different? Oh my God. Was it red when you dropped it in the chimney and green when it landed?

No, it goes. Because that would be... The best actually would be if you dropped down a red delicious in it lands of pink lady. Right. She just takes bad apples and makes them not. Yeah, it's an apple improvement engine. Yeah. Or it improves anything so you can like drop like a, like a,

like a, a plastic cup down it and then it like comes out and it's like a nice mug. Yes. It makes you a hydroflask. I don't know what that is, but that sounds very impressive. And then you have to jump down it yourself and then you find out that you actually were the best you could be all along. Oh, but Meg seriously do not ever get into a chimney. Like if you could take one piece of advice from your head. You got to get into a regular chimney

and definitely did not get into a magic chimney. I know that always goes bad. Well, I think we've already answered the question, but the question just gets better as it goes along. By the way, man, you are an inspiration to me and also to every 12-year-old I have ever known. I thought, wouldn't it be cool if I could block this off and clean it up a little and make like a little chair or something in there where I could put decorations and fairy lights and make it a special spot for me?

But if I tell my parents and they say no, then they will know that I know about this spot and they may say that I'm not allowed to open it up again. But if they say yes, I can have an awesome little spot in my room. So should I tell my parents, should I try to secretly clean it out myself? Should I just ignore it?

Oh, Meg. You cannot tell anyone about this. You've already told too many people about this. Totally. You should have written it anonymously. You've got to clean it out one day at a time. Yes. You know, put a little bit in your backpack, dump it out behind the house. Yes. Exactly. You want to secretly acquire some fairy lights. I'm not here to tell you how to do that, but try eBay. You want to build everything yourself, so that like when you're 18 years old

and you go off to college, that's when your parents find out about this secret room. Yeah. Don't get stuck in there. Don't have a door that might get stuck. Meg, I'm gonna guess from your email that you're significantly smarter than either Hank or me, but don't get in the chimney.

And don't get stuck. Right, correct, but don't get in the chimney. And don't get stuck. Right. Correct. But I'm so excited for you. I'm so excited for your special space. You're going to read so many good books there. Oh, this is just awesome. It's the Meg discovering that secret space is the best thing that has happened to me

this week. Oh, John, well, we're going to talk more about the best things that happened to us this week on our new Patreon Patreon only podcast this week in good things that happened to us. Yeah. Because yeah, you can check that out at patreon.com slash deer hank and John. Is that what it is? It is. And the money from that goes to support Complexly, which makes educational content for people all over the world. Hank, let's do the news from ours in AFC Wimbledon. I'll go quickly. Not a lot of news from AFC Wimbledon. This is obviously a disaster for everyone, but it is also a disaster for Wimbledon as

they try to figure out how to finance the new stadium that is much more complex than it was three weeks ago. I did get this lovely email from Haley who wrote in to say, dear John and Hank, I remember from previous AFC Wimbledon updates that in past years, the team has lost many games to their strong opponent, Saga Pitch. How is Saga Pitch doing this year? Did they get relocated or did they move up? I think you mean relegated,

but I kind of like relocated as a euphemism for relegated. I'm afraid I don't see them anywhere on the table. Best wishes, Hayley. Yeah, great question Hayley. I mean, in some ways soggy pitch is having the season of a lifetime because a version of soggy pitch got the entire season canceled.

Yeah, I mean soggy pitch is basically what happened to. Yeah. I mean, soggy pitch is basically what's happened to us all. Yeah. We're being really living in an international every person affecting soggy pitch. Oh, what's the news from Mars? Well, the news from Mars actually is pretty good. So that's nice. Mars is blessedly free of all life.

So it can't get any worse there. Mars is blessedly free of all life. So it can't get any worse there. But the team behind the Insightlander, so you remember this, there's this mole that was supposed to dig itself into the dirt. Yeah, I remember. It's supposed to go down like meters and it didn't even get all the way, like didn't get itself all the way in.

Eventually it decided to to push up against it to give it some friction so that it could go down and that worked a little bit, but then it literally popped itself out. So that was bad. Now they are doing the riskier thing, which is instead of pushing on the side of it, they're pushing on the top.

The reason why they didn't start doing that, since it seems like sort of the obvious thing to do, is because there's a bunch of stuff on the top. It's sort of like how it connects to the rover is like there are all these wires and stuff on the top of the probe. So you don't want to squish those things, but better to squish them, didn't have it just sit there on the surface of Mars doing nothing. So they're pushing on it and they hope that they'll be able to push on it and it will go in and then eventually they will move the arm that's pushing on it away and like move some dirt on top of it and that will keep it there and it will be able to push itself down with all of the necessary friction to hold it in place as it's sort of self hammers itself. So instead of hammering it from the side, they're hammering it from the top. They're holding it on top while it hammers itself. So they put a little pressure on it and

then it hammers itself. And so basically it's not able to bounce back up. So far, it's his work. So they've done 25 strokes. It's and each one of those strokes has gotten it a little bit deeper. I'm really struggling. I'm really struggling. 25. I'll be honest with you. You're making it very difficult for me. And that has gotten it down about half an inch. That doesn't seem like the best news. Well, it's moved. It hasn't moved in months. Okay. All right. well, it's down half an inch. That's good. That's better than not at all. Yeah. Well Hank, thanks for potting with me,

and thanks for letting me tell my Yukon territory arm story. If you've told it to me, I've forgotten it. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tune of Mettish. It's produced by Rosie on a Halsey Ruhossum shared in Gibson. The music that you're hearing 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.