Dear Hank & John - 455: The Grocery Store Baseball Theory

Episode Date: June 3, 2026

Why can you see the outline of the full moon during a crescent moon? What do I do with a surplus of basil plants? How do I make amends with my mom? How do light particles not bump into each other and mess up their trajectories? Are Hank and John aware of how American they are? What do I do with my tongue at the dentist? …Hank and John Green have answers!If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohnProduced for Hank and John Green by ComplexlySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening to a Complexly podcast. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Or as I prefer to think of it, dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you to be advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbled and John. Yeah. What is the difference between a well-dressed man on a unicycle and a poorly dressed man on a bicycle? What is that?

A tire. Ah, yes, on two levels. Two different ways. It's funny twice. It's funny in two different ways. It's not funny in either way, very, but it is funny in two ways some. And that makes it funny vary by being. It multiplies.

Yes. Well, Hank and I are starting the podcast late today because we have been talking about my book, All You're an Ending, which Hank read, finally. You know, I, I. I went up to a like a nice little spot and I just sat down with it. And man, it freaking took over my brain. What mom said is she was like, it's the most surprising John Greenbook I've ever read.

Hmm. She didn't say that to me, but that's nice. Like plot-wise, surprising or what? I think that she was very surprised by, well, I can't tell you now. We're talking to the people. But the twists and turns, the actual plot. And so turns, yes. I think that there was a, which is funny because it's a plot thing that I, I didn't know it was going to happen, but I got very worried it was going to happen.

Yeah. And I texted you about it. And I was like, is this what's going to happen? And then you would go to the text, which made me even more worried. Yeah, it's definitely the book that I worked the hardest on the structure and what happens. Like my books famously are just two people sitting in a room in the dark chatting. but this book is a little more than that. It's got a mystery element to it.

There's like a couple of central mysteries that I am very curious about and feel will get resolved. Right. I don't know that it's a mystery, but there is a sense in which things happen, which traditionally in a John Green book,

nothing happens. So I tried to insert a couple things, just to reward the people. And I just, I love the ending. which I love the ending. Thank you. I'm not going to tell you anything about the ending in a public forum,

but I was very happy about the ending. Yeah, yeah. Well, here's what I'll say about the ending, and thank you for reading it, and thank you for your kind words about it, both on the air and off the air. It's available for prurter. Now you can get a signed copy at Hollywoodendingbook.com.

Sorry, that should have been me. I apologize. What I'll say about the ending, that isn't a spoiler is that every time I write an ending in like a first or second draft, Sarah reads it and she's like, this is crazy. This doesn't make any sense. Like when Augustus Waters got a gun and went to shoot up a drug cartel or something? Yeah, like when it's actually Hazel and Peter Van Houghton got a gun and went to shoot up a drug cartel.

Oh, man. I'm misremembered. That's not even to remember the time that Peter Van Houten tied Hazel to literal train tracks to recreate the trolley problem. What? Yeah. Man, you've got like a fun house mirror of John Green books up and there in that head that I don't know about. Margot Roth Spiegelman surviving an earthquake in India in this community where a single artist has built a bunch of human style figurines and created a sort of city made of sculptures.

Wow. Yes. The list goes on and on. This is a great lore drop. You know, my books ended in their first drafts. How? How they ended? With the literal exact words that are in the final. That must be an amazing feeling. And now I've had it because I gave Sarah the first draft. And she read the ending. And she was like, I liked the ending. And I was like, what do you? you mean you liked the ending? And she was like, I thought it was good. And I was like, what? But it's crazy. And she was like, no, I liked it. I thought it was great. Yeah. And that's the

ending. You did it? Yeah, it's pretty much the same ending. I mean, I had to do some changes and shifts and a different epilogue and like, but relative to author ties young woman to train tracks, it's the same ending. Who gets her off the train tracks? Augustus. Okay. Yeah. It's a different book, Hank. It's a different book. That's a very different book.

Does he... Hey, hey, hey. That book might be 14 years old, but that is a spoiler. Okay, we'll bleep the words that I said there. Yeah, it's funny how, like, I'm very, very concerned about this book, especially being spoiled because I want people who want to read it cold to be able to read it cold. That's really important to me because it is a book with a plot. But also just because I want people to read it knowing what I want them to know and not more.

And yet I also feel this protectiveness over my books from 15 years ago or 20 years ago where people will, like, spoil looking for Alaska, and I'll be like, hey, now, there's a big audience here. Yeah. And some of them haven't read Looking for Alaska. But at some point, you do have to be able to talk about the endings of books, right? Like, at some point, you do have to be able to discuss in public that the book has an ending. Right.

And honestly, I'm surprised that Sarah wasn't that baffled by when Kai enters the Jedi Temple and kills the other wings. There you can go. Well, I mean, he had to do it. He had to do it, that guy. Yeah. Um, he's actually named after somebody in karate kid, not somebody in Star Wars, but you're close. You're in the right, you're in the right generation. And then he, then he kicked that guy.

Yes. Even though one of his legs was really messed up. There you go. Yeah. He gave him a flying kick. John, you want to answer some questions from our listeners. Let's do it. Let's do it.

Let's do it, Hank. Ask me some questions. Uh, but let's see. First, we've got one from, from, uh, Sydney and her mom who asks, dear Hank and John, me and my mom were driving at night, and it was a waxing crescent moon. However, we could still see the outline of the whole moon. Me and my mom's question is, why can we still see the outline? How does the moon work?

Sincerely, Sidney and her mom. Do you know why you can see a little bit of the moon, John? So here's a confession for you. I've had this experience, and I always thought that my brain was filling in the rest of the edge of the moon. Interesting. Yeah, no. So I just assumed that it was an illusion caused by my, totally unreliable brain, which wouldn't be the first one. I think, I believe that what is happening here is that there's some light bouncing off

the earth, lighten up a bit of the moon. Oh, like, wait, like our electricity? No, so, so like the part of the world that Sydney was in at that moment was dark, but from the moon's perspective, only part of the earth was dark. Sure. that Sydney was in, but there was another part of the earth that wasn't dark, and that light is bouncing, not city light, but sunlight is bouncing off of the earth. But what's so weird about that is that I always have to remind myself that the moon does not shine light, it reflects light, because it's so bright up there. It's so bright up there, but it's all sunlight bouncing off the moon.

When did we figure that out? And do you think the first person who figured it out was laughed out of the room? I think that we've known that one for a long time. I think that one's like thousands of years. We've known for a long time that like stars make their own light, but the brightest object in our night sky does not make its own light. By a long time, I mean, you know, heliocentric universe. Thousands of years. Not tens of thousands of years. Let me correct myself, heliocentric solar system.

There's no way we've known for multiple thousands of years. that the Earth does not make it, that the moon does not make its own life. I should, I am kind of talking out on my butt right now. I can tell. I think, I think this was Greece. I think we figured that out in Greece time, but I could, I could Google it. Do you want me to wait, wait, while I'll do some research real quick? Yeah, you, you, you figure this out while I share with listeners that the first time I ever noticed

moonlight, I was 22 years old and I was working at the children's hospital. I would work a lot of 24-hour shifts, and so I would, like, go outside in the emergency department at like 3 a.m., which is one of the most realistic things about the television show The Pit is they show people taking smoke breaks, which is very real in the 90s at least. And I would just go outside in the emergency department, and I noticed that there was moonlight that was separate from light,

and I realized that the moonlight was coming from a sun that I couldn't see, and that struck me as very beautiful and important in addition to the sort of silveryness of the moonlight. And so I've often written about moonlight as a result. I remember biking home from school once and it was dark out. And I kept, you know, you'd see your like shadow as you go under streetlights. And then I like entered an area with no streetlights and yet there was still a shadow. And I was like, why is there this shadow? There's no streetlight.

And I looked up and it was the moon. And I could see my moon shadow. which also hit me very hard, and I went home and I wrote an essay about it because this was grad school. So when I say school, I mean, I was a man. So you were also about 22. We were about the same age when we discovered moonlight. So my point is, if I made it to adulthood without knowing that moonlight existed, you're going to have a hard time selling me on the fact that early humans figured out that the moon wasn't shining its own light. I like that you think that the Greeks were early humans. Do you want to know who first wrote about this that we know of?

Who? His name was anaxagoras. Where do you think an axogorus lived? Lorax land. Lorax land, that's correct, about 2,500 years ago. Dang it! Yeah. Oh, God, back when they were a lot of truffle of trees.

There were so many. Yeah, the Greeks were taking them and grinding them up and turning them into snuff it, sniff it, sniff it, snufferfuls, something. Yeah, snorffles, something like that. Nothing like that. Well, that is amazing. And human capacity for discovery and inquiry continues to astonish me. And it is not only a phenomenon of super modern humans. It is also a phenomenon that goes all the way back 300,000 years.

Crazy. Crazy to look up there and be like, what would explain this? And then figure it out and be right. And not only that, we weren't even the only species to do this. Neanderthals were doing it too. They were figuring out what's going on with the stars. Oh, man. So cool.

So it's, yeah, that dim glow is in fact called Earthshine, which is beautiful. Earth Shine. And do you want to know how long we've known about Earth Shine? How long? Around 500 years. You want to know the guy's name who figured that out? Sure. Or wrote it down for the first time anyway.

Leonardo da Vinci. Wow. How? It's freaking crazy. That guy. An axiagoras we forgot about, but not Leonardo. We got his paintings up still. Not only that.

I mean, he named a Ninja Turtle. That's how you really secure foreverness, Hank, is you get a child's toy named after you. All right, Hank, we have another question from Rebecca, who writes, Dear John and Hank, I started basil from seed this year because I did not want to needlessly kill any plants trying to do the life thing, so I did not thin them out.

Yes, you did not. I now have 117 basil plants. I managed to get 77 in various permanent pots. What do I do with the remaining 40 plants buried in basil, Rebecca? Rebecca, you just started a business. Yeah, I will say at the grocery store I go to, the basil is on sale in Ziploc bags that were clearly also purchased at that store. Like somebody is the basal supplier for my grocery store.

And they live like I could probably hit their house with a baseball is how I feel about this. Well, you couldn't hit their house with a baseball that someone could. What do you mean? Like I wouldn't want to get in trouble. You don't trust me to be a rebellious man? I don't trust you to hit a baseball very far. Oh, I would, yeah, I wouldn't be hitting it with a baseball bat. I would have no idea how to do that.

Well, then I don't trust you to be able to throw a baseball out. outside your own yard. Have you heard my theory on grocery stores and baseballs? No, very much not. I think that a grocery store can no longer be a good grocery store if you could not imagine taking the roof off and throwing a baseball from one corner of it to the other. Oh, you think it's too big? Too big.

I like a big grocery store. No, I hate them. I mean, they're for a reality. Ever. Oh, there's an international grocery store in Indianapolis that's just endless. I mean, it's just, it's, that's almost like a museum. Now I'm into that where I'm like discovering things. Football fields of grocery store. And there's like there's like spices you've never heard of. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, that's different. That I'd go for. But like for everyday grocery shopping, I know what I need. I don't need anything in particular weird. I need peanut butter and jelly and bread. And I just like, I want to get in and out. But I want to have it be, you know, I don't want to be just in like a gas station. I want to be in a place that also ideally has like a deli.

Okay. All right. You know who invented the grocery store you're pitching to me? Chuck E. Cheese. First off, that guy's name. That guy has a name. And it's not Chuck E. It's not Chuck.

It's Charles Entertainment Cheese. My bad, my bad. Charles Entertainment Cheese. No, I think it's whoever created Piggly Wiggly, John. Right? Clarence Saunders. Yeah. Clarence Saunders invented the grocery store.

You can see how I confuse him for Charles Entertainment Cheese. The inventor of Pigley Wiggly, the first ever self-service grocery store that also... No, he didn't invent it. So I think he didn't invent the modern grocery store until he lost control. control of Piggly Wigley went bankrupt and started a new chain of grocery stores, which he wanted to call the Clarence Saunders grocery store, but the owners of Piggly Wigley were like, no way, man, you can't start a rival grocery store. We bought this from you and you signed a non-compete clause. And so he ended up calling it the Clarence Saunders sole owner of my name grocery store. What? Yeah.

Man, I love it. I love how fueled by spite we can be. Oh, Clarence Saunders was big time fueled by spite. You once said that there was going to be a football stadium in Memphis for his Memphis football team that was going to be adorned with like the spiked heads of his enemies. I mean, I got to tell you, John, like my past is littered with former nemeses. that I'd never think about anymore, and that's like the biggest win. Yeah. Do you have current nemesies, though?

I do. I do. And I hope that someday they will be forgotten. Lay it out for me, Hank. Who are your top two nemesies? I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours. I can't tell you. No, I'll just bleep it out.

It's both embarrassing. Well, my top nemesis is Elon Musk. Okay, that's a lot embarrassing. I'm not bleeping that out. No, but like, I can't. There's never going to have a time where Elon Musk is like, oh, man, Hank Green is my nemesis. I think he doesn't like me.

I think he legitimately doesn't like me. I think when he thinks about either of us, which isn't often, he feels that we are virtue signaling, snuffy, liberal trash. Yeah, he thinks that we caught the woke mind virus. I mean, he thinks that we spread the woke mind virus. It's even worse than that. Yeah. But I bet he regrets naming Starlink after the fault in our stars.

Is that what he told you? That's what he told the public on a tweet. Oh, man. Oh, I just think about when I told him that he shouldn't have spread misinformation and he responded to me, and therefore Twitter should die? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, no, man, that's not what I said. I feel like that was a big escalation.

Yeah, that's a classic, classic Elon escalation. My nemesis, I have two. Tucker Carlson is one. There's no getting around it. I don't want Tucker Carlson to be my nemesis. But it's in there. They take root. But he took root, and it's hard for me to not. Like, I still get fed a fair amount of Tucker Carlson content when I'm in an algorithmically generated space

because they know that I'll watch it with all the lack of love in my heart. Yeah, I don't have that. I watch it and I'm challenged by my own faith tradition that calls for me to love my enemies. And then the other one is our lieutenant governor, Micah Beckwith, who tried to get my books removed from the YA section of a local library and the only job he ever had before becoming lieutenant governor. And then when I wrote a letter to the library board, including him being like, what the actual heck, like these are YA books and they should be in the YA section, he threw the librarian in the community under the bus and was like, oh, yeah, no, like I didn't mean for that to happen when I wrote this legislation that said that, yeah, every book that described sex should not be in the

YA section. And if it has, I don't know what you're talking about. Like, the fault of our stars is great. and then he's still banned looking for Alaska. I really dislike that guy. I find him to be intellectually disingenuous. Yeah. It's funny what gets its hooks into us.

Yeah, it's one thing to, like, ban a book, right? Yeah. It's another thing to ban a bunch of books by your neighbor. Yeah. Right? Like, he and I are neighbors. And that shows, it just makes me think that, like, when 10% of the people who,

walk through the grocery store recognize me, they recognize me as like someone they despise, which is just a bummer. And I don't like Micah Beckwith for like furthering that false narrative. And then I said he was my nemesis and the Indy Star asked how he felt about me and he was like, oh,

I like John. Yeah. Well, that's the thing. There's so much of this is just about like what thing will get me attention right now, not about any actual feelings of animosity. or even any belief in what should, you know,

well, maybe they believe it in a moment and then they haven't considered that belief very deeply. But yeah, it's mostly about what we'll get attention in a moment. And a lot of people's decisions these days make a lot more sense if you ask instead of like, what's the sort of worldview behind this? If you ask, is this going to deliver attention to them? Yeah.

Including from me on my podcast, inside my platform right now. And that is what you, You do with 100 basil plants. Today's podcast is brought to you by Rebecca's basil plants. Rebecca's basil plants available at Rebecca's house right now. You could maybe put it in like a Facebook post or something. Maybe somebody wants your basil. That's totally a thing.

People buy starts. Yeah. Yeah. I buy starts all the time. I was just going to tell you to throw them away. but I need three basal plants. I just don't need 40. This podcast is also brought to you by Leonardo da Vinci, the Ninja Turtle.

Leonardo da Vinci the Ninja Turtle, bet you didn't know his last name was Da Vinci. And of course, today's podcast is brought to you by Leonardo da Vinci the Moonshine Man. Leonardo da Vinci the moonshine man. Maybe, maybe I don't know. It was Earthshine, but maybe there's a guy who lives in like the mountains of Tennessee. who's also named Leonardo da Vinci who's out there making moonshine all the time Yeah, that's what I'm talking about

That's what I'm talking about Leonardo da Vinci the moonshine man, Hank That guy in Kentucky Oh, we're loose today And this podcast also brought to you By one more person, Peter Van Houghton Who tied a human person to the railroad tracks Just to illustrate the trolley problem

It wasn't his best moment This episode is brought to you by No CD Have you ever had a thought pop into your head that feels so foreign or distressing that you just can't move on from it. Like suddenly wondering if your headache means you have a brain tumor and then Googling symptoms for hours or having the inexplicable urge to swerve your car while driving, feeling horrified, and then spending hours

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Starting something new is going to be scary because there's going to be a moment where the idea starts being the safe thing inside your head and has to be the risky thing inside of the real world. Real world things can fail. People can ignore it. The website can break. Maybe nobody buys anything. Maybe too many people buys something and you don't know how to figure out how shipping's going to work. Trust me, I know there are a lot of ways for a dream to become logistics. But fear doesn't always mean you make it the wrong decision. Oftentimes fear is just the sound a new thing makes when it starts existing. It's like the cries of a new baby idea. But there are ways to smooth that transition into the real world.

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all out. That's shopify.com slash dear hank. This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Quince. Summer changes the way I want clothes to work. I want things to be a little lighter, more breathable. I also want to look, though like I did not give up, which is a narrow

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Quince.com slash dear Hank. All right, here comes a question from Carr, who writes, Dear John, and perhaps Hank. I'm 16 this year. Recently, I said something to my mom without fully thinking about it, and she's completely avoiding me. Every time I try to speak to her, she stays silent and does something along the lines of throwing her phone or closing a door with a little more than needed force. The passive aggressiveness is driving me bonkers. Of course, I regret what I said, but I have no idea how to make amends with her. We've always been really close. And although I would not admit it to her, I really miss her, is there any way I can mend our relationship?

Anxie and confused car, car, play them this bit. All right. You miss your mom. You love your mom. You regret what you said and you wish you could take it back. But also, mom, I understand as a parent of a 16 year old getting your feelings hurt by a 16 year old, but you've got to remember they don't have a prefrontal cortex man like they're not able it's they want to but they can't like they they they are they're they're struggling so you're going to have to meet halfway yeah and this podcast is going to be your yes um amends we've given you we've given you an opportunity here and i don't know if if it's if it's takeable because we are just two guys. But it seems like you honestly regret the thing that you said.

It seems like this could be a hard thing to get in. And ultimately, like, harm done, damage done is like, it might take its own time to heal. But I don't think that if you're having, but if you're having the thought, is there any way I can mend our relationship, that's worrying. because, like, of course there is. Of course you will once again have a relationship between a mother and a child. And also I would say that, like, there's space here to, if there's other adults that you feel comfortable bringing into the situation,

if it starts to feel like that kind of difficulty, you can also bring that in because... Yeah. Yeah. Don't just ask your internet uncles for help. Ask your real uncles for help. Yeah. Hopefully there are some.

around who can give this, who can give this advice. But though you will not admit it to your mom, hopefully we can admit it for you. You miss her. And you do regret the thing that you said, whatever it was. When I was 16, I told my mom that I did drugs, even though I didn't. It's funny. That's the opposite of what I did when I was 16. My point is that you can't rely on a 16-year-old. They're like the least, and I say this would love, Carr. Like, it's not a dig. But man, life is, life can be hard.

Yeah, yeah. And time tends to heal. But I'm so sorry that this is happening. And it's, it's very hard when the people we love, when we act, when we hurt the people we love, even if we do it on purpose. The regret is real. And, you know, we learn. Yeah. Yeah.

You can't take things back, but you can move things forward. All right, John. This next question comes from Gwen, who asks, dear Hank and John, how do light particles not bounce off of each other and get all jumbled up together? From what I understand, objects reflect light in every direction, right? It seems like the light particles from my shoe or my chair or my sister should be hitting one another and messing up their trajectory. Is this because light is a wave and not a particle? But wouldn't waves mess one another up as well?

I've been plagued by this for some time. pumpkins and penguins, Gwen. It's good, Gwen. It's good stuff. I'm going to avoid this one, Gwen. I'm going to kind of poke it with a stick and say I don't understand it. Yeah, that makes sense that you would do that. But is it like both a wave and a particle? I don't know if that helps.

It doesn't really. But if you could wager something outside of light is both a particle in a wave, why doesn't light bump into itself? Because it has no mass? Yeah, kind of. Light, it turns out, doesn't bump into itself. It just, like, two photons will pass directly over one another. Even if they were big enough that they would probabilistically hit each other very often,

which, you know, in terms of bigness, this is a little bit of a difficult thing to say here because they don't have a size, from what I can tell. but even if they were big enough, they would just pass through each other. They don't interact with one another, which is amazing. Turns out, photons don't touch. They don't engage with electromagnetism,

which is the thing that makes touch happen, which it seems like what makes touch happen should just be existing. But indeed, that is not the case. You can exist and not touch. That's so weird. Yeah, I know. That's so weird.

I don't even know what to say about that. I know. Except that like the rules of the universe are so weird. And the, like, the more you look into the universe, the weirder it gets. Uh-huh. Even the, like, I was reading Katie Mac's new book that's not out yet, so I shouldn't be promoing it. But it talks about how, like, the way we're taught about Adams when we're in middle school and then in high school is, useful but not accurate.

And then like an atom is actually so much more than the sort of electron shell that I imagined it to have. Yeah, there's a lot of weird stuff going on in there. So much weird stuff. And the more you dig, the weirder it gets. Yeah. Yeah. And there's all kinds of like geometries that seem like, did somebody make that up?

But then it's like real? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know, man. But they don't touch. so they don't bounce and they don't collect up and they just go exactly the way that they're going to go,

which is super useful for using them to detect the world around us. Yeah. They're always coming from where they're coming from. Right. Okay. Well, we can't, you can bend their trajectory, but only by bending space itself. Or by having them pass through different materials. So, you know, like if the speed of light is different in one material than another, it is, don't ask me why, then light will bend as it enters that material, the way it does

with glass. Wow. And then you can get them to like bunch up, which, you know, magnifying glass would do. That, that's a mind-blower. All right, Hank, before we get to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, let's answer one more question. This one from Ruby who writes, Dear John and Hank, as a British listener, I'm always struck by how American you guys are.

Do you notice your Americanness? Despite having similar cultures and being constantly exposed to American media, I always feel like, wow, these people are different from me or we have totally different worldviews and cultures. Do you feel that difference when you visit other countries with globalization? Will there be a day when we aren't as conscious of the distinctive separation between people's tea and biscuits or dinner and cookies, Ruby? It's more like late afternoon snacks. Snacky and cookies.

Yeah. I do notice it. And I think while if I were to move out of the U.S., I would move to the U.S., I would move to the UK because it would be the least culturally disruptive. It is an important reminder that anybody who moves anywhere experiences a pretty intense cultural disruption. And the further you move from what you're used to, especially if you're in a different language environment, if you're in a different, you know, whole different cultural environment, like the harder it is. And it's, it would be like the three months or six months, however long I lived in the Netherlands,

I was shocked by how different it was and how hard it was for me to get accustomed to the difference. And that's a place where things are not very different at all. No, totally. England is the same. Yeah, England is such an interesting example because it is like outside of like Canada, I guess, the most similar place to America. You know, like literally the language is the same. The colonists that begat this country were English. certainly not exclusively, but, you know, in our history primarily.

And the, and the, like, we share a lot of media. You know, we launch a lot of the same shows. But then you show me Mr. Blobby, and I'm like, no way you're not messing with me right now. That cannot possibly be a thing that would, Mr. Blobby cannot have happened in America. That is. Well, neither could Doctor Who. Yeah. So many different things.

And like, there are all of these. And you, you don't understand. how much cultural knowledge you have of your place. And there's such an interesting thing about England, where it feels like there should be nothing. And so the fact that there's so much is like really illustrative. Why does it feel like there should be nothing? Because it's one third of a small island?

It's just like they speak English. Right. Like we do. They have about the same number of years of school as we do. Yeah, there's lots of shared systems. Yeah. Right. Right.

They drive on the other side of the road, which is weird. But they drive. You know, it's not like... Yeah, they got a lot of the same cars even. Yeah. Their cars are a little smaller. But your point is well taken. They got some different cars.

Yeah. Yeah. We got... Our cars are gone really out of hand, I got to say. I know. I'm buying a small car just as active counterculturalism. Yeah, I can't wait to get back into a small car. I got a fairly small car, actually.

I know your car because it's also my car. It's not too big. If it's big to me, I want to get back of that bolt. Yeah, you miss your bolt. Man, I'll tell you what. What a car! I mean, I'll tell you that prices have used bolts going up right now. Why?

Well, let's not get into that. But the price of bolts, it's a great car, very small. It's the most affordable electric car in America. I think they're going to, I think they're going to be to the moon. Everybody's going to have a bolt. Counterculture begins with a B. And starts with a Chevy. Okay.

All right. That's my slogan for when they hire me to be the spokesperson for the Chevy Bolt. What were we talking about? I feel like, did we get it? I think we got it. Okay. Wait, John, I want to ask one more question before you get the news from R. Okay.

This is from Emily, who asks, dear Hank and John, what am I supposed to be doing with my tongue at the dentist, DFTBA, Emily? Hmm. Hmm. This reminds me. Last time I was at the dentist, my dentist asked me if, said my teeth were stained and asked me if I smoke or drink coffee and I told him that I drank it. Like you drank smoke? No, I drank. Oh, because you were making a pun.

Yeah. Do you smoke or drink coffee? I drink it. Oh, ha, ha, ha, ha. God, that's a bad joke. I feel like you actually liked it. You just couldn't let yourself. Nope.

You're wrong. You're wrong. You've been misinformed. What are you supposed to do with your tongue at the dentist? It's in there the whole time. We can't get rid of it. You've got a tentacle in your mouth. Don't think about it too much.

Yeah, I think the key is not to think about it, actually. I don't think, because I think what your tongue does naturally is just fine. But then you start to, it's like when you're getting photographed and you start to think about where your hands are. And then you're like, why do I have these? Yeah, somebody take these away. Yeah. It's like that. I just want the dentist to take care of it for me.

I'm like, wherever that tongue's supposed to be put it there. I tell you, though, it has a mind of its own sometimes. It doesn't. Well, the tongue desperately wishes to participate in the dental procedures, which, of course, is the one thing it can't do. It's like, what is that? It's sharp. I think in general, the less you think about what you're supposed to be doing with your tongue,

the better off you are when it comes to dentistry. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that the dentists, here's what I'll tell you. pretty much every mouth that dentist's ever dealt with. There's been a tongue in there. They're experts in this. So like what you're doing, that's normal.

They've seen it. Yep. They've seen every way a tongue can go. There you go. All right. What's the news from Mars this week? In the news from Mars. Did I tell you I got theme music?

No. Yeah. I just did it for you. It's great. And now I'm trying to find that to... Actually, I was trying to kill time while I found it, which I do now have. In the news from Mars, John, do you know what astronauts do with their dirty clothes? What?

I want you to guess. Put them in a hamper. That's step one. It's just like normal. The step one is just like normal. Step two is completely different from normal. Okay. What do they do?

Instead of washing washing them, which they can't do because they do not have water up there. They put them in a pot and burn them up in the earth's atmosphere.

You're kidding me. Not. That's what they do. They just burn their clothes? They just, they send more up. They have temporary clothes. Yes.

It's way better to do it that way than to take the resources to clean them. Yeah, they wear them for like three to five days and then they put them, They fold them up real tight and they put them in a bag and burn them up. That's a great fact.

That's a great fact. With a lot of other stuff that goes into the thing to get burned up in the atmosphere. But on a mission to Mars, this is less convenient because resupply is not as easy. It'd be better to reuse stuff if possible. So scientists at the University of Alabama Huntsville and the Marshall Space Flight Center have developed a device that blasts helium, air and water vapor along with electricity at the clothing. And that blast makes oxygen ions that get into the fabric of the clothing and kills off microbes through oxidative stress. Basically, it just gives them too many reactive oxygen molecules to deal with and they die. That blast is safe and doesn't cause any damage to the fabric, but it's also currently not very efficient.

So far, the gun can clean about a patch, a square centimeter wide at a time. Oh, okay. So that's really inefficient. First step, the researchers are still refining the idea. They're also looking at developing a plasma washing machine, which I didn't do any more research on, but is a cool-sounding couple of words. That is cool-sounding.

That sounds like the future, man. Yeah, and I then spent a huge amount of time talking about whether or not we could use these systems just on our armpits. That's a great idea. Just one centimeter at a time. Yeah, yeah, that's way easier than could. in a whole garment. Right.

I like it. I got worried about introducing oxidative stress to the cells of my body rather than just the microbes on the body. It turns out my armpit is made of my body. You are a little paranoid about cancer. I don't know why. Wouldn't want to get armpit cancer.

Which I already did in a way. You did. You had cancer in the armpit. You had it elsewhere. But yeah, it was in the armpit, too. Well, Hank, news from AFC Wimbledon this week is that it's been a year to the day as we're recording this since Miles Hippolyte scored that goal at Wembley to send AFC Wimbledon back to the third

tier of English football where we managed barely to stay last season. Yes. We are the only, out of all the teams that were promoted via the playoffs in the last six years from League 2 to League 1, we are the only one that's sort of. survived a season in league one. Wow. So that's something to be proud of. It does indicate that there's going to be some stress next year, but we're going to do our best.

It continues to be difficult. And we don't have a buyer yet for the 25% of AFC Wimbledon that is now available. We haven't found the right partner, or at least if we have, I don't know about it, yet to buy that remaining 25% that's available. before the Don's Trust, the Don's Trust owns at least 51% of the club, but we haven't found that 25% owner who potentially could fuel a little extra capital into the club that could keep us going for, make us a little more sustainable, but we're not there yet. So it looks like it's going to be another hard season,

but life is full of hard seasons, and we somehow make it through. John, do you know who Hippolytus was in Greek mythology? I don't. He was a son of Theseus. associated with, and this is crazy, horses, chastity, soccer balls, and karate kicks. Did you make up soccer balls? And karate kicks. You made those two up?

I made those two up, yeah. Okay, great. Well, Miles Hippolyte is, if I recall correctly, a Grenadian international. He plays his international football for Grenada. It's a French name, I think. Is that related? Probably. Probably.

Let me find out. Yeah, probably. Paul's Hippolyte was born in England, and he represents Grenada at an international level. Interesting. And he's never played in. Yes, but it was a French colony. Grenada was. I believe it was.

Up until the 1760s. So much world, John. It's fascinating to watch Oren realize how much world there is. He's never really been interested in. cultural geography, just in the physical geography so far, but he's starting to ask questions about last night he was like, why is there, why are there guineas in Africa? But then there's also a guinea in the, in the oceania, Papua New Guinea. And I was like, God, man, I don't know. And then we read all about all of the use of the word guinea. Wow. Well, that sounds interesting.

In New Guinea is just like any other new place where it's like, this seems like it looks a lot like that other place that we were before. I just want to state for the record that Grenada was also a British colony. So who knows? Who knows? We're learning, John. It's also invaded by a little nation called the United States. Seems like something we'd do. Thanks for listening to our podcast.

You can email us your questions at Hank and John at gmail.com. This podcast was edited by Linus Obenhouse. It was mixed by Joseph Tuna Mettish. Our marketing specialist is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosiana Hals Rojasa and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Debunky Chalkervardi. The music 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.