Something You Should Know - Benefits of Being Messy & Household Hacks You WILL Use

Episode Date: January 11, 2018

It sucks when you have a cold. I’m sure you’ve heard that you should drink a lot of fluids and get rest and eat chicken soup – but there are other things you may not have heard before that can help alleviate the symptoms of a cold while you wait for it to go away. And since this is cold season, we begin this episode with great ways to ease the misery of having a cold. Everyone knows being neat and tidy is preferable to being messy. But wait! Not so fast. Says who? There is a case for being messy. Because it turns out that life is messy and often life doesn’t fit neatly into categories, files and folders. Tim Harford, journalist, economist and author of the book Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives (http://amzn.to/2Die1Cw) explains why being neat isn’t always the solution and suggests ways to embrace the messiness of life and use it to your advantage. Also, I’m sure you’ve noticed that whenever you cry, you get a runny nose. Why? Listen and find out. Then, sooner or later – and probably sooner, you will need to clean something. And no one knows better how to keep your life clean and sparkly bright than Jolie Kerr. Jolie is an advice columnist and host of the podcast, “Ask a Clean Person.” She is also author of the book, My Boyfriend Barfed in My Handbag (http://amzn.to/2Df2BPL). NO ONE loves to clean like Jolie and you will love her cleaning hacks that I know you will use within hours if not minutes after hearing them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on Something You Should Know, you know what to do when you get a cold, right? Well, maybe not everything. I've got a few ways to feel better you probably haven't heard. Then, being neat and tidy may seem the better way to go, but sometimes messiness is even better. As I said, I'm a tidy person. I like things tidy. I like things organized when they can be. But very often, they can't be. And if we can embrace that disorder, we can actually find it turning to our advantage. Then, have you ever wondered why you get a runny nose every time you cry? I'll explain. And some great household hacks I know you'll love. Oh, this is a fun one. If you have the glass shower doors that get the nasty soap scum buildup,

a dryer sheet can be used to scrub those glass shower doors. It works like a charm. All this today on Something You Should Know. As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know was all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right?

Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about Ted Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done Ted Talks. Well, you see, Ted Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new Ted Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu. She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future. Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more.

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Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. I'm not sure if this is true where you live, but where I live, it seems like everybody has a cold right now. I have a cold right now, and I've had two colds right in a row, which I've never had before. I had one at the end of November, early December. It came, it went, and then I got another one. So if you have a cold, you have plenty of good company. And WebMD has some things you should do when you have a cold that you might not have heard before that can really help until somebody comes up with a cure.

First is to use one of those nasal strips, you know, those Breathe Right nasal strips. You will be amazed how they can open up your nose so you can breathe. Also, take a hot shower before you go to bed because the steam and the humidity will help clear out your sinuses. I'm sure you've heard that chicken soup is good. Research shows that eating hot chicken soup is more effective than sipping hot water to clear out your sinuses, although nobody really knows why. Here's one I bet you don't know. You should avoid cold drinks before bed because cold drinks can increase stuffiness. Use a saline nasal rinse to clear out your nose, you know, like a neti pot or something. I've gotten into using those when I've had a cold

in the last few years and they really are effective. Also, be careful of over-the-counter nasal sprays. They have a rebound effect, and if you use them too much, you can actually get addicted to them. That actually happened to me many years ago. I was a nasal spray addict, and it was hard to kick. And finally, don't prop your head up with pillows, because that causes an unnatural bend in the neck and it makes it harder to breathe. It's better to use a wedge-shaped pillow that elevates you from the waist up.

And that is something you should know. Ask anybody which is better, to be neat or to be messy. And my guess is most people will say it is better to be neat. Neatness counts in our culture. A neat house, a neat desk, a neat room are all preferred. When people are messy, they're often admonished to be neater. But when people are neat, no one ever says, you know, you should be more messy. But could messiness be better for some people and in some situations?

Can you make the case for messiness? Actually, and perhaps surprisingly, yes. And here to make that case is Tim Harford. Tim is an award-winning journalist, economist, and author of quite a few books, including Messy, The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives. Hey, Tim, welcome. It's great to be with you. So here's my take on messiness, because I've heard people talk about this subject on this program in the radio show I did for many years, and I've heard both sides of the argument.

And it seems to come down, from my observation, to this, that neat people think neat is better, and messy people think messy is better, and that whatever works, works. It's really, it's personal preference. I think that's fair, although I think something I've learned while writing the book is that messy also works in certain situations. I mean, I should admit, I violate your basic pattern. I am a tidy person who has written a book trying to persuade us to be more messy.

For example, my kitchen is pretty much always tidy, or as tidy as it can be with three children in the house. But my study desk, sometimes it's tidy, but often it gets messy and then I kind of struggle with that. And I try and tidy it up and it won't be tidied up. And I've been asking myself, well, what's going on and i've come to realize um that a different approach works for different situations and the thing about the kitchen for example is you know everything has a place now if i want to be tidy there's a place for the knives there's a place for the glassware there's a place for the cutlery i can put everything away and i often do but it's not so simple with the desk i mean yeah sure i can i can have a place for the cutlery. I can put everything away and I often do, but it's not so simple with the

desk. I mean, yeah, sure. I can, I can have a place for the sticky tape and I can have a place for the pens, but you know what, what's the place for, you know, the, the latest letter, the emails you don't want to read right now, but you need, you need to deal with them later. And the thing about the desk is it's in constant motion. And if you try to tidy it up, that can actually have counterproductive effects. Well, you and I are very much alike because things that are easy to keep neat are kept neat. But as you say, you know, life isn't always so neat as that kitchen. So, I'm pretty neat, but then I also have a messy desk often as well. So, but, but my

preference would be that things were neat. It's just not always the reality. Yeah. Well, you and me and Benjamin Franklin as well. I mean, Benjamin Franklin is a wonderful example of this. So, um, the man needs no introduction, right? One of the greatest Americans who ever lived. And you may be aware that he had this thing called his virtue journal. I mean, I think it's your kind of thing, you know, self-improvement. Benjamin Franklin, as a young man, decided he was going to just make himself better in every way. He was going to drink less and he was going to flirt less and he was going to be more humble and all of these different things he was going to do to improve his life. And he kept a track of every day. Had he lived up to his principles? Every week

had he lived up to his principles? And reflecting back on this, at the end of his life, he's in his 80s, if I remember rightly, he's very proud of this virtue journal. He thinks it's worked really well. But he says, you know, there's one thing that I could just never conquer. I could never get on top of this. And that was orderliness. His principle was every appointment should go in the right place in the diary, everything should go in the right place in the study, and he could just never conquer it. And who knows what he might have been able to achieve if he'd managed to tidy up, eh? Yeah, I've thought the same thing. Like, you know, when I'm filing bills, for example, and I pay the auto insurance bill, well, does that get filed under auto or does that get filed under insurance? Life isn't always so neat and obvious. It is really crazy like that. So sometimes you organize things, well, this comes from my boss, this comes from my spouse. Other times it's, well, this is really urgent. Now,

other times is, oh, this is the kind of thing I want to be reminded of later. And actually, there's no right or wrong way to organize any of this stuff. But if we try to get it organized, it can often be self-defeating. One of the concepts I loved while working on this book was the concept of premature filing, which I was told about by a psychologist called Steve Whittaker, who studies basically the way we organize stuff, the way we organize digital photos, the way we organize email, the way we organize our desks. And premature filing is a beautiful idea. So this is the idea that some people, because they want to be tidy, something comes into their life. It's a letter.

It's an email. It's a task. It's a book. And they want it off their desk. And so they put it somewhere. They create a digital folder and they put it in the digital folder or it's an email folder or it's a physical folder or they put it away on a shelf somewhere. But they haven't really understood what it is really or what they're going to do with it, whether it's the beginning of something big or whether it's just junk. And these things are hard to understand initially.

And as a result, the filing takes place too early. And then you've basically put a label on something or you've put it in the file and then you don't know where it is and you're not reminded of it. And the whole thing just gets really quite gnarly quite quickly. On the other hand, if you're a little bit less concerned, a little bit less stressed about being tidy and you just leave the emails hanging around for a bit or you pile up the paper on your desk, give it a little while, and you start to figure out what you actually do need to do with it, and whether it needs to be filed at all, or whether you can just file it in the big round filing cabinet underneath your desk, the trash can. And so people who are willing to tolerate a little bit more mess actually in the end end up paradoxically

often being better organized and more effective. They have smaller archives. They know where their stuff is. They make decisions more quickly. And I thought this was a really interesting point because Whittaker wasn't approaching this from some great philosophical tradition. He was just saying, well, I just carefully look at what people do and what the effects are, and premature filing is a real problem. I'm speaking with Tim Harford. He is a journalist, economist, and author of the book, Messy, The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives. You know that reaction you get when you come across a business that doesn't have a website? You think, wow,

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That's squarespace.com and use the offer code SOMETHING. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness,

and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies

and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. Contained herein are the heresies of Rudolf Buntwine, erstwhile monk turned traveling medical investigator. Join me as I study the secrets of the divine plagues and uncover the blasphemous truth

that ours is not a loving God and we are not its favored children. The Heresies of Randolph-Bantwine, wherever podcasts are available. So, Tim, you were talking a moment ago about premature filing and that that can be a problem because you end up filing something away where it ultimately doesn't belong. And yeah, okay, maybe that's a problem for messy people, but I would contend that maybe that's not such a problem for neat people, that neat people put things in a place perhaps prematurely, but they know right where it is, and if it's time to get it and move it,

that they get it and move it, that they get it and move it. And to not put things in their place because you're waiting to figure out where it ultimately goes, so to just leave it laying on the desk somewhere, causes those people a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety, and so therefore premature filing is just fine. I think the most important point is that the world is messy. Our lives are messy. Conversations are messy. Our relationships are messy. Creativity is messy. Basically, we are surrounded by disorderliness everywhere. And by mess, I mean stuff that can't be scripted, stuff that can't easily be put into categories, stuff that piles up, stuff that can't be scripted stuff that can't easily be put into categories stuff that piles up stuff that's ambiguous um stuff that gets made up on the spot or i mean it means the word means a lot of different things and but because our lives effectively are often

very messy um we need to embrace that deal with it face to it, and try to make the most out of it. And when we try to impose structure and tidiness in a situation where it doesn't fit, we just end up hiding the mess or dealing with the mess in a very counterproductive way. Now, I mean, as I said at the beginning of our conversation, I'm a tidy person. I like things tidy. I like things organized when they can be. And sometimes they can be, and that's great. But very often, they can't be. And if we can embrace that disorder, we can actually find it turning to our advantage. I mean, let me give you a couple of very quick examples, which I'm happy to talk about at more length. So the example I begin the book with is the amazing jazz musician Keith Jarrett, who shows up at a concert to discover,

and it's the biggest concert of his life. And he discovers that there's been a mix up and the piano he's supposed to be playing doesn't really work. There are bits of it are out of tune, bits of it sound bad, bits of it are sticking, the pedals aren't really working. And he ends up playing, even though he doesn't really want to play, and producing one of his best pieces of music and certainly his most commercially successful recording, because he, in the end, he embraces the disorder. And there are interesting things we could say about why the disorder worked for him. And another example, I mean, people are going to have very strong feelings about this example, is Donald Trump. I mean, Donald Trump, and when I wrote the book, he was just a candidate, he wasn't the president. But I wrote about his

campaign as being one where he was able to create a lot of chaos deliberately as a strategy to dominate the media cycle and to wrong foot his opponents, people like Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush. He was able to use mess as a way of winning this battle for attention. So lots of different ways in which mess can be made effective. Here's an example that I heard a long time ago that struck me. It's a little different than the ones you just mentioned, but it was a doctor who was a medical examiner, and he wrote a book about why we die, and he said that this whole idea of death with dignity and trying to sanitize death. Death is messy business.

And, you know, in the old days, people would die at home and the grandkids would see grandpa die on the couch. And it was messy and horrible, but it was part of life. And today we've cleaned it up. We've tried to create this death with dignity and make it all clean and pristine. And it isn't. And it never will be. Death is ugly, messy business. Yeah, I think that's a very wise comment. I don't want to glorify mess and disorder everywhere. I mean, it's great, for example, that our computer operating systems

are compatible with each other, right? And it's great that you can plug a plug into a wall socket and you know it's got the right voltage and it's going to fit and it's not just a couple of pieces of wire just improvised. I mean, there are many, many examples where structure works and where order works and where tidiness works. But the argument I make is that I don't need to convince anybody that that stuff's good. But I do need to try to convince people that sometimes they need to let go. And sometimes they need to embrace these more ambiguous or more unpredictable, more disorderly situations. So what is the, when the dust settles from all this, what is the advice here, do you think? Because there are those

people i mean i've already expressed that i think i'm somewhat like you the i like it neat but life isn't always neat so sometimes things get messy but you know i'm in this studio a lot doing this program when it's cleaned up and neat i do better work i just do But it isn't always easy to get it always neat. So it seems that some people seem to do better work. And then we've heard other stories about, you know, that when things are messy, anxiety and stress levels go up. And that when things are neat that, you know, stress levels go down, people lose weight. So there's a lot of conflicting and different ideas going on here. So where do you come on all of that? Yeah.

I mean, you could say in some ways it's a messy idea, it's a messy book. Before I give you the practical advice, I should say, by the way, there is an interesting causal question, though. Because you're saying, oh, you know, when you you tidy up stress levels go down you seem to get more done well yeah maybe but maybe the alternative view of that is when you're getting stuff done and your stress levels are low that's the moment when you get to tidy up when you're really busy when everything's going crazy um and you start to get really stressed that's also the moment when you you can't spare the time to tidy up and things start to get messy. I often find to myself that, yeah, when I'm able to tidy up, I feel very calm, but that's usually because

nothing's really going on. I don't have anything important to do and that's why I've got the time to tidy up. So, you know, we need to be careful about what's causing what. Maybe, but I do think that when things are neat, I do feel less stress. When things are put away, it means that's something I don't have to do and things are less stressful. But I hear what you're saying, that maybe it's less stressful because I've got the time and there's nothing really pressing. Sure. So what's the practical advice? If we're talking about just trying to get things done, my advice would be to improvise more, to rely less on the script. There's a chapter in the book about Martin Luther King and how much more he was able to communicate and get his points across just at the moment where he was

forced to step away from the script for want of time, when the press of the civil rights movement was so great, his duties were so great, he was no longer able to script his speeches, they got better. So trying to improvise, make stuff up on the fly, see what happens. And if the advice is simply, you know, what do you do with your diary? What do you do with your to-do list? What do you do with your desk? Go easy on yourself. Be forgiving of yourself.

It's fine to try to get some structure. I like structure in my life. But you have to recognize there are certain things that can't be structured easily. And this is Benjamin Franklin's problem. He was beating himself up for 60 years about not being able to tidy up. Forgive yourself. Acknowledge that email, to-do lists, desks, this is always going to be an unsolved problem. It is always going to be a work in progress. And you're always going to have to explore different approaches and not be too down on yourself as Benjamin Franklin was when actually the mess starts to build up.

Last question, but when is messy too messy? When does it get too bad? And we've all seen pictures of those kind of desks where just everything is everywhere. At some point, it has to become dysfunctional. I think that's right. You do see incredibly dysfunctional spaces. What I would say is most people err on the side of trying to tidy up too much. And I would encourage people to just let go a little bit, be a little bit more messy with your inbox, with your digital files, with your desk, and see how that works for you.

So keep it simple. That is the way that you're going to deal with this constant influx of confusing information. over-organize, over-structure, tidy too much, tidy too soon. If it works for you, great, but most people find their systems just break down under the strain and they get frustrated. Well, it's good to hear because I think, I know for me, and I think this applies to a lot of people that I try to be neat. And when it does break down under the pressure, when things don't go where they should go because there's no place for them, I figure it's my fault. And it's nice to kind of get permission to say, no, it's just life is that way, and so don't try to put a square peg in a round hole. It's just, it's not going to work. Tim Harford has been my guest. He is author of the book, Messy, The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives.

And you'll find a link to his book in the show notes. Thank you, Tim. Thanks a lot. Great to talk to you. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS

and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker.

Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, join me you get your podcasts. which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our Lister poll results from But Am I Wrong? And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Whether you are a man or a woman, young or old, there will be a time in your near future when you're going to have to clean up something. Because life gets messy, and nobody knows better how to keep things clean than Jolie Kerr. Jolie writes a cleaning advice column. She has a podcast called Ask a Clean Person and she is author of a book called My Boyfriend Barfed in My Handbag. Hi Jolie. So how did you get to be this cleaning guru? I was always a clean person even as a child. I was kind of an odd child, and I'm definitely an odd adult. And I just really love cleaning. It's just a thing that I've always been into, oddly enough. That's very weird. Yeah, I know. Well, compared to a lot of

the other people who write about and give advice about cleaning, I mean, you love this topic. I mean, it does seem a little weird. You might be right about that. I've actually never thought about that. I mean, I'll tell you that I am a pretty joyful person in general, and I think that bringing a positive, upbeat attitude and lots of laughter to almost any situation is a very great thing to do. I just think it makes life better. Okay.

So, yeah, that's the way I look at cleaning. So let's get into some nuts and bolts here and have you give us some of your favorites or some of the, gee, I never knew that kind of cleaning tips that will dazzle people. So, yeah, one thing that I think people tend to be surprised by is that white vinegar is a magic product that can be used for everything from removing mold to as a glass cleaner and an all-purpose cleaner. It's an odor eliminator that can be used in laundry. So it's just an incredibly versatile product.

It's also really inexpensive and it's non-toxic. So it's basically a perfect cleaning product. And the running joke in my column is that the answer is always vinegar. So that's one thing that surprises people. Then I have other weird, weird tips like using foodstuffs to clean. So tomatoes and ketchup will clean copper, make it bright and shiny, which is kind of a weird one. Another thing, you know, when you set a glass down and you forget to use a coaster and it leaves that white water ring on your wood table, mixing a little bit of ash, either cigarette or cigar ash, with butter to make a paste will

take those white water rings up from wood. So people tend to really like those kinds of weirdo tricks that I have. Yeah, give me some more of those. I love those. A couple more. Use a piece of sliced bread to pick up glass. If you've shattered glass on your kitchen floor, say, grab a piece of sliced bread and just use it to pat that glass right up. Same thing with a cut potato. A cut potato will also pick up glass shards, so that's a nice trick to have. And then I guess sticking with the food theme, if you cut a half a grapefruit or a half a lemon and sprinkle it with kosher salt,

that can be used to scrub the interior of a bathtub. So the combination of the citric acid and the sort of sloughing power of the salt will take soap scum and that kind of stuff up off of a tub. Better than cleanser? Better than Comet? I mean, it's different from Comet. It's much gentler than Comet. Comet's very harsh. I mean, I love Comet, but I think that people can tend to overuse those kinds of harsh powder abrasives.

The other thing that's really great about the grapefruit or the lemon trick is that it's totally non-toxic. So if you have a household with kids and they're often taking baths, you might be hesitant to use a product like Comet because it can leave a residue that then is still in the tub when, you know, Junior goes in for his nightly bubble bath. So using natural products is a big thing, especially for a lot of parents. Great. Keep going. Sure. Oh, this is a fun one. As long as we're on the subject of the tub and the shower, if you have the glass shower doors that get the nasty soap scum buildup,

a dryer sheet can be used to scrub those glass shower doors. It works like a charm. I actually just told a reporter who was interviewing me about that, and she emailed two days later and said, oh my gosh, I tried that and it worked. I can't even get over how good my bathroom looks right now. So that's always exciting to hear those little tricks. Another good one with dryer sheets is to use dryer sheets for dusting. Not only will they pick up dust, but they also leave behind a thin coating that will help to repel dust for just a little bit longer.

It's not going to prevent the dust, but it's going to extend the life of your dusting effort just a little bit longer, which is a good thing. What about, I know it's a problem for lots of people, is when you do your best to finally get out and clean the windows, the streaks, when the sun shines through, they get all streaky. What's your advice? Yeah, well, first of all, don't clean the windows on a sunny day, which I know is frustrating because oftentimes it's that sunny day that makes you realize how dirty your windows got, especially during spring cleaning time. But wait until you have an overcast day and clean the windows on an overcast day, the sunshine actually will contribute

to the streaking. Another really good thing to do is to use newspaper instead of paper towels because newspaper is lint-free, so it's not going to leave behind any lint on the windows. If you don't like using newspaper because it gets the ink on your fingers, which a lot of people don't like, grab a copy of the Wall Street Journal because they spend a little bit of extra money on a kind of ink and printing process that doesn't leave the ink on your fingers.

Oh, great. Yeah, there's a weird one for you. Buy the Wall Street Journal. Yeah. What about stuff weird one for you. Buy the Wall Street Journal. Yeah. What about stuff around the stove and the oven that gets burnt on? You know, like the burners get burnt on stuff and it's like impossible to get off. Oh, I know. It's really a bear, isn't it?

A little bit of a cream cleanser or a powder abrasive like Comet. Comet might be too harsh if you've got glass or enamel stove tops. So I would use something a little gentler, maybe something like Bon Ami. And there's a product called Adobe Pad, D-O-B-I-E, that's made by 3M. And it's a sponge that's covered in a kind of special 3M magic netting that won't cause scratching, but is an excellent product for getting things that are stuck on up off of surfaces. Yeah, I've used those for years. I like those. Yeah, I love those. They're a great product.

You know what our cleaning lady uses something called Barkeeper's Best Friend or Bartender's Best... Do you know what that is? Barkeeper's Friend. Yeah, absolutely. What is that? I'm going to tell you something. It's very similar to Bon Ami. So it comes in both a cream and a powder formula.

People swear by Barkeeper's Friend. They love it for cleaning their stainless steel pots and pans, for cleaning everything in the kitchen, for cleaning the bathroom. I have to tell you that I have never had good luck with Bar Keeper's Friend. And so I resent it terribly because I am a cleaning expert and it doesn't work for me and it makes me feel bad. But other people love it. So, yes, I will bite my tongue and mention it, that it is a pretty good product for most people. So talk about the car, because people stain things in the car and the

car smells and talk about the car. Absolutely. The car is a mess and we tend to forget about the car being a mess. So there are a couple of different things that happen. One, the staining. What you should use if you have upholstery, it's really mostly a problem when you've got upholstered seats. A product that's used to clean upholstery, like a foaming upholstery and carpet cleaner, will go a long way in bringing that upholstery back up. It's also going to help with some of the smell issues. Also, a good idea from time to time to vacuum the car out. You know, you can go to a car wash and use the shop vacuum that they have for rent. If you have your own shop vac or a handheld vac even, that's going to

make the car look a lot better, vacuuming the floors and the upholstery and so on. For the smell, you want to use an odor eliminating product. So not something that's going to mask odors like the trees that you hang from the rear view mirror because that's just going to make the car smell like pine and french fry. So instead, it's better to find a product that's an odor eliminator. Activated charcoal is a great odor eliminator. It's actually the product that's used in most kitty litters to control odor. So if you think of a litter box as needing odor control, the same kind of product is going to work to control odors in your car.

Great. Well, we've talked about some of my favorites, so pick some of your favorites. A couple of my favorites. We'll tell you one that my readers come to me all the time about, yellow underarm stains. The thing to know about the yellow underarm stains is that it's caused by two different things. One, the sweat, obviously. We think of those as sweat stains. But actually, the other contributor to that is the deodorant and antiperspirant that we're using.

It contains aluminum, and there's a chemical reaction that goes on that creates that yellow stain. What you don't ever want to use on that is bleach, oddly enough. People think, oh, I'll just bleach out my white shirt. No. Bleach is going to make that kind of stain, which is a protein stain, sweat is a protein stain, render more yellow. And so you don't want to use it. Instead, what you want to use is something that has an enzyme in it, so an enzymatic-based cleaner. I really like OxyClean, but there are loads of other products out on the market. And the thing is that once you've gotten into that yellow staining territory, you're going to need to do a little bit of work. So you're

going to need to let those products, the stain-removing products, work on the shirt before you launder them. So either by soaking them or by using a spray treatment and letting it sit for 30 or so minutes before laundering. So that's a big one I hear all the time. Do you think that good cleaning contains an element of preventiveness? I think so, yeah. I mean, the thing is that the more frequently you clean, the easier it's going to be. And the less time overall you're going to end up spending, I know that sounds sort of odd to say the more frequently you clean, the less time you'll spend. But if you let things build up, you're going to have to put so much time and work.

Physical energy cleaning is a very physical thing that we do. It's just going to be really exhausting. Whereas if you just kind of stay on top of it and do a little bit every day, every week, you don't really, you're not really going to be looking down the barrel at these major, you know, hours long cleaning tasks. One more. One more tip? Yeah. All right, let's talk about bloodstains, because we all get bloodstains. The good news about bloodstains is that there are a lot of ways to remove them. So some really common things that we see are hydrogen peroxide is a go-to, and that's also very cheap, very readily available. Also, salt and saline solution. So, if you're on the fly in your contact lens wearer and you have saline solution, saline solution will

help to remove blood stains. Again, just like our pit stains, an enzymatic cleaner is going to be great on blood. Here are two that are really weird. The first is unseasoned meat tenderizer will remove blood stains. You mix it with a little bit of water, rub it onto the stain, wipe it off with a damp rag or a sponge, and it'll take that stain out. The last one is kind of so gross, I don't really want people to use it, but it does work. So I'm going to tell people that saliva will take a blood stain out. If it's a fresh blood stain, if it's an older one, you should use something like an enzymatic cleaner. But if you've got a fresh blood stain, your own saliva will take that blood stain out. Excellent, excellent.

Well, you're now my go-to cleaning expert. Jolie Kerr has been my guest. She is the host of a podcast called Ask a Clean Person. She has an advice column, and she's also author of the book, My Boyfriend Barfed in My Handbag. I love that title. There's a link to her book in the show notes for this episode. Thanks, Jolie.

When you cry, you almost always get a runny nose. And that can make things even more upsetting and embarrassing. So what causes that? Why does your nose run when you're crying? And the short answer is overflow. We all generate tears all the time. They're a mix of oil, mucus, and water that are secreted from different glands and cells around your eye. Tears serve to keep the eyeball surface lubricated. If your eye gets irritated or if you're feeling sad, tear production ramps up until your eyes fill up and overflow. Each eye can hold about 7 microliters of fluid,

according to Penny Asbell, who is an ophthalmologist at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. When this threshold has been crossed, then the tears start dribbling down your eyes and down your cheeks. Excess tears can also go down the back and flood the drainage ducts that lead to the nasal passages, and then you get a runny nose. And that is something you should know. That's the program today. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening to Something You Should Know.

Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave

Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook. Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.