How To Do Everything - One-Liners and Free Throws

Episode Date: December 10, 2025

Ian and Mike help a listener lighten the mood with her clients, help another listener mess with an opponent’s free throw shot, and Peter Sagal shares his secret for falling asleep on an airplane.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 show outtakes, extended guest interviews, and a chance to play an exclusive WW+ quiz game with Peter! 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 Schuyler Swenson and Heena Srivastava. Technical direction from Lorna White.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Bayer. Science is a rigorous process that requires questions, testing, transparency, and results that can be proven. This approach is integral to every breakthrough Bayer brings forward. Innovations that save lives and feed the world. Science Delivers.com. We fly for work a lot for our other job producing the show Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me. And right now, we're actually in Phoenix, Arizona for a wait, wait, tapeing. Peter Sagal, the host of the show, is with us now.

Peter, you say you have a new hack for sleeping on planes? Yes, although I have to give credit to the person who taught me this. So my elderly father just turned 89, spent many, many winters in Florida. And he recently said to me, Peter, we have to go meet a friend of mine. The friend was a woman named Annie, and Annie's business is driving cars back and forth from Florida, where she lives, to the homes of snowbirds, people who can. come to Florida for vacation. So this woman walks in, she's there in the Chicago area to pick up somebody's car, and she is wearing a backpack with a pool noodle in it. A pool noodle. Although not a whole pool noodle about, say, a two-foot length of pool noodle. And she's, like I said,

all business, she's there to pick up the car, get going, she just flew in. But I say, Annie, why do you have a pool noodle in your backpack? And she says, oh, it's how I sleep on planes. I asked her to demonstrate. She takes out the pool noodle and she sticks it in her vest so that it's pointing up right under her chin. Okay. And then she mimed falling asleep

with her chin falling in the pool noodle and being suspended there as opposed to the chin falling forward and waking you up. So it's like the pool noodle makes a pedestal for your head to rest on. Exactly right. You can, you know, the classic Roman pose

of putting your fist under your chin, do that, but just imagine it's a pool noodle instead. Okay, so it's like a goate basically. No, I don't think a goatee provides any structural support at all. Is it more like a pedestal? Yeah, this sounds crazy,

but you tried it. I did. It just so happens that we had a trip coming up and I have children, so I have pool noodles, so I took one of these pool noodles and I cut one down to about a two foot length and I put it in my carry-on bag, and sure enough, I got on the plane and I was sleepy,

So I took it. I put it down my jacket and put my chin on it, completely ignoring what other people might be thinking loudly as they looked at me and had a lovely hour nap. Wow. It worked brilliantly. You showed me and I love you. You looked like an idiot. I have no doubt that I look like a complete fool. But what's interesting about this is people do not look good with the airline pillows around their neck?

No. Fools, right? I mean, it's not a good look. either. So I don't, I think it's just because it's novel. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I mean, I think it, what it needs is really just to explain to other people what it is, because otherwise they just think you're kind of insane. But if it had like, like how an emotional support dog has a vest that says, you know, I'm working, you could just say emotional support pole. Yeah. Do not pet. Exactly. I'm a whole sleeper. I think if this catches on, you know, the way that they come up and

down and they hand out headphones to people to do bring, well, they're going to start handing out pool noodles. This is How to Do Everything. I'm Mike. And I'm Ian on today's show, how to help out your favorite basketball team while also spreading diseases. But first, hey, Kelly, what can we help you with? Well, I have breast cancer.

I'm getting chemo. I have no hair. And so, and I'm in real estate. So I'm constantly meeting clients and building long-term relationships and I'm out in the community and volunteer and all the things. And I just like to make things fun and funny and comfortable for people. And I'm totally content with where I'm at. And I would like preferably a humorous or lighthearted way to address the elephant in the room, which is my baldness because I no longer have long, curly. care. Oh, that's awful. And how are you doing with all the treatment and everything?

Great. Yeah. Just, I mean, chemo's a beast. But yeah. Doing as well as it can. Well, good. All right. So do we just leave that aside now? And we joke about not having hair? Sure. Or joke about all of it. Yeah. So have you, as you've sort of been out in the world, have there been times where, you know, an interaction has made you feel, like, oh, I need to think about this. Or are you just sort of like predicting that? I think I've been predicting it when I knew I was going to see people and they were seeing me for the first time. Bald actually texted them in advance. Huh. Oh.

But like, you know, I'm constantly meeting new clients who haven't seen me with hair, although they may have seen my email or my photo online or something and thought, wow, this is super different. There's no long curly hair there. Yeah. Yeah, so with people that I know when I knew when I had hair, and I say, hey, didn't want you to be surprised by my stylish new look. So what are you doing?

Like, how are you handling that then? What's the approach with the head? The approach is beanies. Okay. I'm here in Spokane, Washington. It's winter and it's beanie season. So I can get away with tucking it down, but it won't be any things in here forever, and it's going to be a long time before I have hair again.

Yeah. Before all this happened, did you think about your hair a lot? I mean, I've always had long curly hair, and I've always gotten compliments on my hair, from young, from old, from strangers, from new people I meet. So I knew it wasn't going to be a big change to not have. that as my identity because it was such a part of who I am. Yeah. But like all of this, I'm just embracing it. It's like, okay, let's just go for it. I'm not dwelling on, you know, the negative and anything like that. But, you know, in writing

into your show, I figured I can't be the only one. I mean, people go bald from chemo all the time and people are in public or long-term client relationships like me. So I'm like, I'm not be the only one with this problem. I mean, I would say, Mike, if you're comfortable. So Mike is a cancer survivor and also really likes not making people uncomfortable and likes making people laugh. Mike, did you, we haven't really talked about it, but like, did you think about this when you were going through it?

I, well, I don't know. I loved it. I loved being able to shave my head because I didn't have to worry about it. But unlike, unlike Kelly, I wasn't, I didn't have cool hair. Right? Like, you've seen my head. It's fine. But, like, having a shaved head, and again, I recognize for a man, it's different maybe than for a woman. I never want to assume anything. But yeah, I thought it was fun to have a shaved head. And now, since then, when I just have my dumb hair that I have now, I've often felt. like, man, if only I could just shave my head, but my kids don't want me to shave my head because they don't think that would look good either. So, actually, a no win, no win situation for me. Yeah. I mean, is there any, Kelly, is there any, are there any positives to this? Positive to having no hair? Yeah.

Positive to being both. You know, the one thing I thought of is like, I've been carrying, and I don't know how this was for you, but I've been carrying around this cancer diagnosis and knowing all these treatments were calming and yet I looked fine on the outside and now I kind of feel like wow maybe you should cut me some slack because yeah right look at what I'm going through so I was a tiny bit looking forward to being who I really am which is a person going through cancer and chemo so yeah and yeah I mean I guess because I'm trying to look on the bright set of everything so it was like okay here's the next phase and yeah what I really look like so yeah well we'll

We'll keep our fingers crossed. Everything goes as well as it can. Yeah. Yeah, we'll be thinking about you as we try and solve this project. Oh, thanks. Yeah, we're solving it for me, but I know there's others. So let's help all of them. All right, Kelly, good to talk to you.

Okay, you as well. Okay, so Kelly wants a funny joke, a one-liner to make things comfortable for people when they see her for the first time without hair. So right now we are going to call up some very funny people. to see if they can help. We'll start with a voice memo that Jeff Hiller just sent us. Jeff just went an Emmy for his role in somebody somewhere. Hi, it's Jeff Hiller, and here are my thoughts.

You could say, I like my hair, but I thought it was distracting from my bold lip color. Or you could say, cancer is bad, but looking like Cynthia Arrivo is good. or you could say I always thought I could pull it off because of my long neck and now I know I can Patton Oswald you got anything for Kelly well it's based on my interest

in my area of the world but just maybe she should go hi I'm Kelly I'm your realtorne if it helps you pretend that Professor X is selling you a house thanks Patton okay we got Tom Papa up next do you ever do have you ever had to talk about hair

in your act? Has your hair changed over the course of your career? You know, that's mean for you to ask that as a question. Well, it was the way he really talked around what he was trying to say. I wasn't trying to say. What I was trying to say was what I said.

If you're going to say what you're going to say, at least treat Tom Papa with the respect and be direct with him. That was really, that's the way my wife like asked me to do something Tom you know I have only the greatest respect the greatest respect for your

wife and her methods I'm thinking it kind of depends on who she's talking to if you're dealing with a Republican magavide I would just lean in and say sorry about this I blame the vaccine you could say

sorry if I look a little different this is just in general one you can just lean in and say sorry if I look a little different I started trimming my eyebrows and I couldn't stop I know what you're thinking do the curtains match the drapes I'll tell you

I'll tell you after we get through escrow That's all I got. Tignitaro, do you have any ideas for Kelly? I would say to Kelly, the response I had immediately was to say something like, I just got back from the hairstylist. I feel like maybe they went a little too short. What do you think? Maybe I should have brought a picture. That's great.

That's what I would say. If I was looking for a way to diffuse a situation like that, that's what my gut says. That is wonderful. I think that that's going to be really good for Kelly. Were there other things at that time that you thought about or that you tried that you remember? Well, I was never bald, so there was no reason for me to say that. But I don't know if it's the opposite or what, but I did an HBO special and took my shirt off. So, and I didn't, I didn't give any information. So I guess it is the opposite.

Do you, from that time, like right after your diagnosis, do you remember, I don't know, do any interactions you have with people as people were kind of learning what was happening to you, people in your life, were there any awkward or, or just otherwise interactions that you remember? I think because after my diagnosis, I spoke so public. about it. It was kind of everywhere in the news, but I would say the most awkward things for me was my mother had died right before I was diagnosed, and my stepfather was my parent that I was now contact with in a way that had never happened before, because we were very, even though he raised me since I was two, he was just very standoffish and reserved

and we weren't terribly close. And so everything, all communication went through my mother, basically. So it was very odd to now be sick and having to call and talk to him about my breasts all the time. Oh, yeah. So that was terribly uncomfortable for me because I barely talked to him about anything. And now we were constantly in conversation about my boo. So that was like a nightmare for me. Did it get better? Talking to him about my boo? I mean, sure, you know, it was, I never was like, oh, I can't wait to call Rick and bring this up again. But it was totally fine. And he was very, he really stepped up after my mother

died, which was a real pleasant surprise. That's great. Yeah. Well, TIG, thank you so much for helping Kelly out. Yeah, thank you. Comedian Rachel Koster left a voice memo for Kelly. Hi, I hope that

the chemo is effective and that you feel better soon. But in the meantime, while you are bald, you can let people know that you're in your Elmer Fudd era and that it's Wabit season. I hope that's helpful.

And last but not least, Mohandah El Sheikhi, what do you have for us? Yeah, I mean, honestly, that she's a, so I assume she's showing people houses and stuff, I guess she could be like,

you know, I promise the house looks exactly like the pictures, though. That's really good. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I think, yeah,

I think, you know, there's so many things one could say, you know, like the picture thing, but also you can just explain to them what happened, you know, you went to Turkey, you kind of met stuff got lost in translation, and they did the opposite. They did reverse hair transplant. And this is what you're left with. You should see my back. Yeah. I went to Turkey to be a donor. It's not a zero-sum game. Or, you know, sometimes if, I'm like, I just look too beautiful with the hair.

I just want you to focus on the house and not me. This is for you as a service. This is, I like this for Kelly. I feel like these are like, they're funny and they're also like, I feel like she's going to seal a deal with these. Yeah. 100%. And Kelly, just, FYI, if you seal any deals using any of these jokes, I'm getting 10% out of that 10%.

Okay, so we have Kelly on the line with us now. So what's going on? What's the, is it too personal to ask for a health update? No, no, yeah, no. I finished breast cancer treatment in June. So hippie. Congratulations. Yeah, yeah, I'm super excited, super grateful.

Is there anything practical? from there that you feel like you could use? Any phrases you could adopt? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Like, oh, I went to do my eyebrows, but apparently I did too much. And then I swear the house looks just like the picture, even though the picture you saw of me

looked nothing like what's standing in front of you. And then something Tig said, she said she had to talk to her dad, about her breast and my kids are young adults they're 1921 and 22 and so I'm in to talk about my kids about my breasts and I'm sure they don't want to hear the word breast coming from their mom yeah yeah that's a tough one so those are my my favorite all of them were fabulous and I can't believe you've got some of the best people to comment. I really appreciate that.

Sure. Well, Kelly, it's so good to talk to you, and we wish you continued good health. Yes. Thank you very much. I have enjoyed continued good health. Hey, if you have any questions you'd like us to take on, go ahead and send us an email.

You can send us an email at how-to at npr.org. We are, this is our, last episode of the season, so we're taking a little break. But in that break, we're going to be working hard for you. So even though you won't be hearing new episodes of the show for a little bit, send us your questions, and we will get back to you probably long after your emergency has already been resolved. But know that we are hard at work, doing something. You can also leave us a voicemail. We have a voicemail box. It's called a phone number. We have a voicemail phone number box, and the phone number is 1-88-G-G-A-A-X-5. That's G-A-G-A-X-E-5.

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At Dignity Memorial, the details aren't just little things, they're everything. They help families create meaningful celebrations of life with professionalism and compassion. To find a provider near you, visit DignityMemorial.com. This is Iro Glass. On this American life, we tell stories about when things change. Like for this guy, David, whose entire life took a sharp, unexpected, and very unpleasant term. And it did take me a while to realize it's basically because the monkey pressed the button. That's right, because the monkey pressed the button.

Surprising stories, every week, wherever you get your podcast. Hey, Jeff. What can we help you with? Well, I've had this question kind of pondering around in my brain for a long while now. You know, at basketball games, especially free throws, you know, people in the stands kind of act crazy, scream, wave signs, and things like that, try to distract them. And I've always thought, you know, like they're professionals, they do this, you know, a million times, it's not going to work. But what if there was something that would actually work? and the best I could come up with would be like an entire section of fans

like blowing air some way or another to try to like adjust the path of the ball as it's going towards the basket blow blow you're imagining everybody behind the basket blowing at the ball

it'd have to be perpendicular not behind and yeah like either like you're blowing out a birthday candle, or maybe everyone has those little, like, handheld fans, you know, like in the summer, you know, something like this, kind of like, you know, if you're at a concert and they turn the lights out, but everyone does their, like, cell phone light. Sure.

It's like, you know, if enough people are doing it, is it enough to matter? So create resistance that would impact the ball enough that it would throw it off and they'd miss the shot. Exactly, yeah. Let me ask you this. When you're at a basketball game, do you try blowing during a free throw just to see if one man can make a difference? Not a chance. No.

I'm not. First of all, that definitely wouldn't work. And second of all, like the person in front of me would be like, what the heck's happening here? So you don't believe in the butterfly effect, I take it, Jeff. No, I guess not. You know, I feel like the right person to help with this is, uh, people. Ph.D., an expert in fluid mechanics. David, who is a professor at Georgia Tech's George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.

David, could people blowing at a basketball affect a free throw? Yeah, this is an interesting problem. I worked this out at my kid's orthodontist the other day. It all depends on how far they're sitting away. So if someone's making a free throw, they're in the middle of this whole, this state. I mean, you've got 50,000 seats around you. I mean, people have a lung capacity about three liters. Okay, so they could, if you exhale that, the issue is they're not going to get close enough

to generate a strong wind near the basketball. Maybe you've heard of saying, like, you can blow out a birthday cake, but you can't suck out a birthday cake candle. Oh. I haven't heard that, but it makes sense. We move in different circles. But basically, air jets, they travel

certain distance, but then air has very low density, and it's basically got all this stationary air around it. So as you're pushing the air around you, pushing the air out of your mouth, you can't create this jet. Like, you can blow out a birthday candle pretty well if you're just within like two or three inches of this candle. But if someone put that candle a foot away from you or two feet, all the air that you pushed out is basically, it's slowed down by the air around it, and it just does not get very far. And if you could concentrate all the all these 50,000 people into like, I don't know, somehow have one giant person that would be almost having like a leaf blower or maybe some really big, like a couple really big strong

people coughing right next to the person, like right next to the ball, then maybe you could deviate a little bit. So it sounds like the crowd is going to be too far away. But, you know, there are the players, the defensive players standing right next to the free throw shooter. They could probably lean in and be a couple inches away as the ball leaves the hand. And as far as I know, that's legal. Could they blow the ball enough off course? They'd have to time it really, really precisely right when that person's releasing the ball just to change the directory.

You'd have to have not just even one person, but I think a few people, I think if they really focused and really coughed or sneezed on the ball, but that probably has more effects on the person trying to shoot, shoot this thing, too. If you have three defenders waiting for that shot to go up, and I think, Dr. Hu, this is a question I have, these are not regular people, right? A lot of these people are seven feet tall. Does that, do they still only have three liters of lung capacity, or do they have slightly more because they're giants? Yeah, the average person, uh, as three leaders, I mean, volume goes as height to the one-third. So if you basically get someone that's 50%

taller 50% taller 1001.5 to the third yeah you could maybe you get double maybe you get double that okay yeah what if you had six leaders if you had then just imagine this imagine a scenario where you had three shacks

two on one side one on the other side blowing on that basketball do you think they could affect the trajectory of that ball they've got to get really really close and get their timing right and if they all sneezing and coughing, you know, it's those, you'd have to do some kind of, like the body can only generate those speeds outside of our conscious control. Like when we cough, it's, I mean,

it's almost like, it's like a third of a leaf floor, 15 meters per second. It's like, it's like many, many miles per hour. Wow. Okay. If you're close enough, so three shacks, sneezing, I think someone has to put that to the test. Well, Dr. Hu, thank you so much for helping us, helping us out. Well, I'm happy to. Well, that does it for this week's show. What'd you learn, Ian? I learned that you can use a pool noodle to sleep on a plane. Yeah. If you're willing to look like an idiot. Here's a thought I have that I think could make sense, could make this doable.

What if you just brought a baguette on the flight? Because a baguette is something you you can eat. You could even, if you do following Peter's method, tuck the baguette in your shirt, rest your chin on it, and you, I think you have an excuse that would take away the embarrassment. You just fell asleep while eating a baguette. You're right. You're right. And it is incredible. And I think very telling about the pull noodle method that it is less embarrassing to tell everybody around you, you fell asleep while eating a baguette. Well, that just opens up the world to any number of foods.

You could say you fell asleep eating a foot-long sub. You could do. I fell asleep eating a pool noodle. This bread is so hard, I just got exhausted. How to Do Everything is produced by Skyler Swenson with Hina Shravastava. Technical direction from Lorna White. This is our last new episode for a little while, but we will be, as we said, working hard to help you with your how-to questions. Keep them coming to how-to at npr.org. Or use our phone number and leave a voicemail at 1-88-gag-axe 5. Just trips off the

tongue, 1-888-gagax 5. I'm Ian. And I'm Mike. Thanks. Wise, the app for using money around the globe. When you manage your money with Wise, you'll always get the mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Join millions of customers and visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. During the holidays, there's a lot of pressure to make things perfect, but that can actually make the season less merry and bright. And I remember thinking, oh my gosh, in all the doing, I am not here, I'm not present, I am missing being. This week on the Life Kit podcast from the NPR Network. Tips to make your holiday season actually enjoyable.

Listen in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. On the TED Radio Hour, for over two decades, Krista Tippett has been helping her listeners get through change. But she was going through her own life crisis when something unexpected happened. I fell in love at 64, and it's the greatest thing ever. Finding your bliss. Listen to the TED Radio Hour on the NPR. app or wherever you get your podcasts.