How To Do Everything - Nick Offerman, Trapper Keepers and Bee Stings

Episode Date: September 25, 2024

This week, we bring you the best of How To Do Everything's first life. Nick Offerman cures your hiccups, our intern downvotes our segments, and we learn the most painful place to get a bee sting. Plus, one listener wants help looking cool for school. You can email your burning questions to [e-mail] To Do Everything is available without sponsor messages for supporters of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me+, who also get bonus episodes of Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! featuring exclusive games, behind-the-scenes content, and more. Sign up and support NPR at plus.npr.org.How To Do Everything is hosted by Mike Danforth and Ian Chillag. It is produced by Heena Srivastava. Technical direction from Lorna White.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase. Hey, it's Mike and Ian. So this is another one of our archived episodes because, as we said a couple weeks ago, all of our older episodes have been wiped from the internet, gone forever. We don't know what we did, but we did something to deserve this. We really like this episode because it has a really important bit of information, a tip that could save your life if you're dying of hiccups. True story. One time,

Peter Sagal, we both also produce Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Peter Sagal had the hiccups on stage during a live taping in front of hundreds of people. He couldn't get rid of them. I used the tip you are about to hear to relieve him of his hiccups and save the show. I saved this show. Ian did this while the show was happening, through Peter's headphones while he was on stage. It was almost a miracle. Almost. Also, we should say you'll hear from Seth in this episode.

Seth was our intern at the time. We loved Seth. Without further ado, here's the show. One question that a lot of you send in is how do I stop the hiccups? If our email box is to be believed, there are thousands of you out there with the hiccups unable to find a solution. On the line with us now is Mike. He says he has a way to cure your hiccups. I have no idea when my mom told me this, but she gave me a technique that she uses for getting rid of hiccups, which is to hold your breath and to close your eyes and picture a door with wind trying to blow it open and then a giant finger holding it shut.

And for some reason, that's always worked for me getting rid of hiccups and also sharing it with friends and just people, random people in my life that have had hiccups. It's really worked with almost everybody. Wow. Do you remember the last time you told somebody about it? I was just chatting with my girlfriend about it, and she brought up our roommate, which is a good friend of hers. I guess she had hiccups for like 15 minutes a couple months ago.

And I came home and did it with her, and they just went away right away. And she was drunk. So that just solidified the go-to thing. Well, can you describe a little bit more what the image looks like? Like this hand, is it the size of a person? Is it in front of you? It's like the size of what I'm picturing is like a door and then a hand about the size of a door so it's a very large hand yeah and it's not connected to anything it's just like kind of a cartoon hand holding this door shut it would have to be a big hand right sure well do you guys

in your home growing up did you ever have a problem where you had doors that were being blown open by hard winds, stiff winds? I can't. I don't think, no, that hasn't been a problem. I don't know. I don't know where that originated from. It seems like something in your body must, I mean, if you're picturing that, then whatever has to open for a hiccup, I've just always thought you'd be holding that shut while you're thinking of it or something. I don't know.

You know, as you sort of laid through what I should be imagining, I closed my eyes. And in my head, the hand was about the size of the door, same thing, and it was disembodied, but it was wearing a white glove. Oh, I don't know if it works with a white glove. Yeah, I wasn't picturing a white glove. Yeah, you're going to have to take that white glove off. Okay, good. Were you guys picturing a room that was floating in space

and then the door was also in space? I'm not even picturing. I guess I never thought about it enough to where there'd be a frame on the door. I'm just picturing a door for some reason. A door with a finger holding it? Yeah, I imagine it would definitely be in space, though, wherever this door is. Yeah, okay. So that's kind of a beautiful meditative image, this door and this hand. It's very specific.

And we here have the power of audio. We can bring this to life. So if out there right now you have the hiccups. Or maybe you anticipate having them later, we're going to help you. So here we go. Here's a guided meditation. We're going to bring in a special guest. This will stop your hiccups.

Hello, I'm Nick Offerman. I'm sorry you have the hiccups, but it doesn't have to be this way. Close your eyes. Hold your breath. Now picture a door in front of you. A great wind outside is trying to blow it open. But a giant disembodied finger is holding it shut. Do you see it?

Wind, you're no match for this giant disembodied hand. You should give up. Go away, wind, and this giant disembodied hand will wave goodbye. Maybe it'll even give you a giant disembodied high-five for being such a good sport. There. Are your hiccups gone? You're welcome. Now you just need to get rid of this giant, disembodied hand following you around. Nick Offerman's latest book is Where the Deer and the Antelope Play. This is How to Do Everything. I'm Mike.

And I'm Ian. On today's show, how to look cool carrying a trap or keeper, and how to avoid the most painful bee sting. But first, your radio probably has an on-off switch, probably a dial. It's a one-way device. You can't comment on something if you like it or dislike it. But it almost wasn't that way. Matt Novak is here with us now. He runs the Paleo Future blog. So Matt recently came across some information about a device called Radio Vota from the 1930s. It was invented by a man named Neville Monroe Hopkins. So Matt, what can you tell us? Well, it just seemed so strange to me that this guy was so ahead of his time in the sense that, you know, we like to think that this like button, the whole concept is rather new. But, you know, this Dr. Hopkins had this idea that you'd be able to push a button and more or less have an instantaneous interaction with someone who's delivering a broadcast media. So basically, so I understand the technology, right? This is a box that you would attach to your radio and it's controlling electricity down a line.

And at the other end of the line, someone can tell whether you've hit, what is it? Yes, no, and present. Is that right? Yeah. You could tell apparently that a button was being pushed. So radio, though, was kind of everything. So what was the range of things people could, in theory, comment on? You know, I think that people were talking about the possibility of not liking jazz. I think that popped up in one of the articles. Obviously, jazz being still relatively new by the mid-1930s,

there was, I think, a lot of snark in the newspapers about, yeah, you'd be able to press a no button to that jazz music. But yeah, politics was obviously a much more direct and obvious application for this box that Dr. Monroe had developed. So this would be a great way to kind of weigh in on a fireside chat, say. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Just put present right right that's your sort of uh none of the above vote i guess yeah but you know also there's like it is kind of an example of a lot of things that annoy people today like it's it's kind of a version of uh wolf blitzer on cnn reading tweets from viewers,

and it's kind of a version of the like button. As somebody who sort of looks back through history, do you find it comforting that we've kind of always been as annoying as we are today? If there's anything I've learned through studying past visions of the future, it is that there really is nothing new. You know, it is fascinating to me how we sort of evolve and have these ideas.

And there's almost always something that relates to it that someone was trying to do 100 years earlier that was just far too ahead of its time. But, yeah, I do find it oddly comforting to know that everything has always been the worst. It's not just today. Well, Matt, thanks so much. Thanks for having me, guys. Well, let's try this out. Let's try and make our own radio vota. We should get Seth, hook him up with a fake radio vota and just let him comment on the rest of the show.

Seth, are you cool with that? Yeah, that sounds good. Ready to go. Hey, Julia, what can we help you with? So our principal made a new rule at school that we can't have backpacks, so we all have to use trapper keepers or carry around a stack of books. And I'm having trouble finding a good position to carry my trapper keeper so that I look cool.

So you have this trapper keeper. What's that look like? It's lime green. And it has a lot of signatures like, so-and-so is here, and I love Julia. And did it come that way? No. I think people wrote on it. Right.

Well, okay. So in my experience, a trapper keeper is something you just kind of sling under your arm. It's pretty easy to carry. But is that what you're doing and it just doesn't look cool? No, it doesn't look cool. Yeah. And sometimes I carry it like in front of me like with your arms crossed around it but that that makes you look kind of weak weak body language i think oh yeah okay yeah well maybe

have you seen anyone who can pull it off is there anyone in school who is manages to to not look like a dork no i haven't seen anyone wow is. Wow. Is there, in your class, in your school, a kind of icon of cool? And if so, could you kind of describe how they carry themselves? Well, actually, I'm sitting in my band teacher's room, and pretty much the coolest guy in our grade just walked in. Oh, really?

His name is Zach. Zach, Zach. Wow. And he's super cool. He always wears hoodies. Okay. Can he hear you talking about him right now? No, he just left.

Okay. He has a trombone lesson. Well, he's the coolest guy, and he plays the trombone. Yeah. Okay, so what does he do when he has to carry his books and stuff? The thing is, like, I don't notice. Because you only notice when they look dorky, what they're doing with their books. Okay.

Wait, so is he close enough by where you could run out and look at him and see what he's doing? One second. He's probably putting the trombone, but I'll check. Okay. Okay. Okay, so he's watching, like, a band performance on the computer, and he's kind of, like, standing there with his hand in his pocket, and he's, like, a little slouched, but backward, not forward. And he's, like, looking at it like, yeah, that's's cool and i totally get it and i could be that cool yeah i i i'm picturing it it does the the lean back definitely looks cool yeah it would

it be possible for you to go up to him and hand him a trapper keeper and see what he does with it i don't know i don't see one around here any books any notebooks i don't know i don't know. I don't see one around here. Any books? Any notebooks? I don't know. I don't want to interrupt his lesson. Yeah, I know what you mean, but the way I see it, he's going to have plenty of time to play the trombone, and you want to make sure you look cool. Okay, I'll see what I can do. All right, we're going to hold here. Okay.

I'm nervous right now. I'm wondering, do you think we're going to get her in detention? They're not going to. Risk-reward here is high on the reward side. And honestly, getting suspended a couple days probably is going to increase your image, your coolness. We're only helping. It's just a matter of how much. Hello?

Hello. Okay. So, him and the teacher both think I'm crazy now. a matter of how much. Hello? Hello. Okay. So, him and the teacher both think I'm crazy now, but what he did was he just, like, put it under his arm

and kind of walked. So I think that's probably the way to do it. Did it look cool? It did look cool. Really? Well, he carried it in a way where you, like,

don't notice he's carrying it. Was he still leaning back? Yeah. A little bit. Alright. Well, I mean, do you want to try that? I guess. Okay. This feels pretty good. I think that's an important component.

Yeah, alright. Well, thanks, guys. I think I found a good position. Great. Thanks, julia have a good day all right thank you so much bye-bye bye i definitely give julia um a yes because i really like how she described the coolest kid in school zach um which is really great and i also like that she got her question answered right on the spot um i didn't like the peer pressure that definitely made me a little bit uncomfortable but but I love that Julia pulled through. She followed through and ended up getting a good answer to her question.

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How the war unfolded and where it could be headed. Pagers carried by Hezbollah members began exploding in cars. Listen to a special episode of the podcast State of the World from NPR. You know what nobody likes? Getting stung by a bee. And what's the worst possible place to get stung? We are about to talk about this, and we should say we're going to talk about specific parts of the body. So if that bothers you, maybe do something else for a few minutes.

Michael Smith studies bees at Cornell University, and he tried to find the answer to that question. So Michael, you actually used yourself as a subject. Can you tell us how you did this research? So let's see. There were 25 body locations, and I stung each body location three times. I can tell you which was the worst area of the 25 that I stung, though. Okay. Please do. So that would be the nostril. Inside? Inside. Oh. So if you were to touch your own nose, not on the outside of your nose, but if you were to like the skin in between your two nostrils, as if you were a bull and you'd be pierced there, put a honeybee instead.

And you did that three times to yourself. Yes. And you did that three times to yourself. Ah, yes. So, maybe this is a personal question, but did a bee sting your sensitive man region? Yes, it did. Actually, two locations within the sensitive man region. Really? Yes. The scrotum and the penis shaft. Ah.

Wow. No. And, I mean, you're clearly a scientist who cared very much about getting everything right. But this had to have been a hard day realizing that this was what was going to happen. You know, I think it's just, as strange as it sounds, it's just like, okay, you know, this is my life. This is what I'm doing. Yeah. Wow. I have to ask you, Michael, so you're stinging yourself every day multiple times.

What was your reaction when you're doing that? When you're standing there and a bee stings you, if a bee stings me, I'd probably shriek or something. What were your reactions? I mean, I guess, again, that would depend on the location. You know, for some of them, it was just, okay, that was painful. Was it more painful or less painful than the sting I just received on my forearm? However, in the case of the nostril, that's a whole body experience. Yeah.

When you get a sting to the nostril, it's pretty violent. Your nose just starts flowing mucus out. Your tears in your eyes, they're just welling up. You're sneezing, you're coughing. It's a whole body experience. And remember, at that point, I've just received the sting. I have to leave the stinger in there for a full minute. So at that point, your body just wants to get the stinger out. And I mean, if you think of the way honeybees, we know that they zero into locations that have high contrast. For example, if you're wearing, if you're doing beekeeping, you're wearing a watch with a black band. They will target the line between your skin and the dark band.

We also know that they react very strongly to CO2. So they really are, their evolution has done a great job for them to really target the most sensitive spots on your body. You know, I see all the time I see ads for studies that are done by universities where they need volunteers or they even offer compensation for people to be a subject in a study. This seems like one where you could have got somebody else to take the stings. Why do you want to do it? I'm the best person to really rate my own pain. So in that way, it really had to be me. In addition, if I'm looking for a subject that their immune system isn't going to change over the course of the 38 days that I was stung,

I need someone who works with bees as well. So I'm not just looking for any old student. I'm looking for a student who's also a beekeeper, who's received stings over the last couple of months, and who's willing to do this, and then I would have to pay them. So Michael, if you're out in nature, and a bee comes up to you, and you're trying to, you know, it's clearly agitated, what part of your body then are you going to offer to it to keep it from stinging you inside your nose? In the pain rating that I have, the skull, the middle toe tip, and the upper arm, all three received the same pain rating, which was a 2.3. So the toe tip, in that case,

it's like you want to direct them. If they're going to sting you, get them to the toe. Yes. Although actually,, actually, personal preference, I would probably go for the skull or upper arm. Oh. Just because I think then you'd have to take off your shoes and that would be ridiculous. Well, thank you. This has been so disturbing and fascinating.

I hope so. No. I could actually sort of, like, feel what he was talking about, and it was kind of horrible, and I hated it. That does it for this week's show. What did we learn today, Mike? Well, I learned that the most painful place to get a bee sting is inside your nose. Yeah.

When you think about it, honey nut Cheerios kind of look like little nostrils. B's always hanging around. Hey, maybe he's not the benevolent little insect that we thought he was. He's just looking for a nostril to sting. I got a Cheerio stuck up my nose once. I mean, of the things you can get stuck up your nose,

it's probably the best. It's got the breathing hole right in it. That's not what the doctor said. You know, talking to Julia, I wonder if in every high school, the coolest kid is named Zach. I think that's true. I mean, think about it. Saved by the Bell, coolest guy was Zach. I think Slater might disagree with you.

I think there are those that think Slater was cooler, but I see your point. I do think if you're a parent and your dream for your child is that they grow up and be cool, name them Zach. High school musical, Zac Efron. Didn't see that. How to Do Everything is produced by Stephen Tobias with technical direction from Lorna White. Our intern this week is Seth Kelly. I bet you like this part, huh, Seth? No.

It was kind of horrible, and I hated it. Get us your questions at howtoatnpr.org. And it looks like we have a voicemail here. Hey, guys. It's Julia calling back about my Trapper Kiva situation. So I held it under my arm and I felt pretty confident and pretty cool. I think I'm going to keep going with it. So I was kind of hoping you would call in somebody famous, but you two did a pretty good job helping me.

So thanks a lot. Have a good day. We can't let Julia down. You know what? Let's call up Slater. Let's call up A.C. Slater. He's a famous person. Mario Lopez played Slater on Saved by the Bell. So Mario, any advice for Julia?

First of all, Julia, I think what I would suggest is using your locker and going one period at a time to get your books, because you can be cool with one book. You can't be cool with more than one book. So just make a little trip to your locker, and you get a little exercise in while you're there, and you'll look much cooler.

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