Stuff You Should Know - Why Ticks Suck

Episode Date: July 27, 2010

It's no surprise that ticks are one of mankind's least favorite animals. After all, they subsist on blood and spread disease. But how much do we really know about ticks? Tune in to learn more about ticks -- and how to get rid of them -- in this podcast. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Use promo code heart 20 to receive 20% off your tour. That's promo code heart 20 through January 30th Visit gate 1 travel comm for more information or to book your tour. That's gate the number one travel comm once again Use promo code heart 20 through January 30th to receive 20% off your 2023 trip brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Welcome to stuff you should know from how stuff works calm Hey and welcome to the podcast I'm Josh Clark there's Charles W. Chuckers Bryant and that makes this stuff you should know If you didn't know now, you know Happy birthday, Josh. Thanks Chuck. It's your birthday. It is my birthday. You're for

You're closer to me an age now for about a half a year. Yeah, and I'm six months older than you me which makes me a Year older than you me right now. Oh, is she your age? Yeah, I didn't know I think it's so funny It's okay when you say that because you are way way older than me, but it's funny when people say that about people who are like A year or two different. They're like, you know, somebody Who's they're almost our age like our age is a year Maybe a year and a half on either side of your true sure maybe two years But I often think we're the same age until you do something that reminds me. It's because we both act like we're eight

Right, it's where we're that's what we're on the same page. Yes case in point Where's the worst place you've ever had a tick? Well, Josh, I know you know because we share a Commonality and I should aside from the show I should warn you I'm not going to fess up to anything on this one before you do. I just want to give you fair warning Well, since I said that we share this then I don't know what you're talking about, dude Josh and I have both had a tick in a very unfortunate place. If you're a man, it was they were different ticks though Okay, as far as we know

Was years apart mine was last summer. This is the worst birthday ever when was yours. Oh Mine was years and years ago at two ticks last summer. Did you really yeah horrible places? Well, no one was on my thigh and it's still Itches and like swells into a little bump every now and then Like a year later. You may want to get that checked out. No, it's fine. I read up online sound fine No, I read and they said it doesn't sound fine at all. It said tick tick bites can still bother you for like years evidently Yeah, without having a Lyme disease or something like that. Yeah, okay. Well, we're talking about ticks Oh, can I say the inspiration for this real quick? Sure because I'm curious myself

As you know Josh are an official house band the Henry Clay people. Yes out of LA Are they tick infested? It came through town about a month ago. Yeah, stayed at my house. Yeah About a week and a half later. I get a call from Joey the lead singer and songwriter guy. Mm-hmm And he said hey, you got ticks in Georgia. I said sure there's ticks all over the place in this country You got ticks in LA and he said Jordy our keyboard player has Lyme disease Holy cow. He thinks you probably got it from your house. Wow, cuz you know I live in the the wooded section of Atlanta. Yeah, actually most of Atlanta is wooded. Yeah I think George is one of the most wooded states in the country from what I understand. Yeah

So Jordy got Lyme disease and I am very sorry Jordan if you got that from my House and residence. Yeah, it is likely but although you were on tour dude. You could have gotten it from anywhere Yeah, it's likely because he's like, you know, the eighth or ninth person this year to get Lyme disease You're like, it may be you know what that would make your house Chuck a Infested Haven of disease a disease vector. Yes Let's not get ahead of ourselves. All right. Here is my original intro. You ready? Sure. That was great Chuck Thank you. That was great. I was gonna say

Chuck Josh there is a tick species called epinoma Komodo and say Komodo ends epinoma Komodo ends this is fascinating It is a tick and it looks almost Completely like the scale of a Komodo dragon. Yeah, it's only host the only

Animal that it feeds on is the Komodo dragon, right? If it's sucking this the life out of a Komodo dragon You can't tell just by looking at it That it's a tick. It looks like a scale crazy. That is the most interesting thing Anyone has to say about any tick anywhere Okay, that's it Does that explain why the Komodo dragon the tech Sharon Stones husband? Yeah, it does. That's what I read It was mad with in the Daily Mail disease. Yeah

Um, well since we've already gotten the most interesting part of this podcast out of the way Chuck's um tick story the Henry Clay people's Lyme disease drummer, right? Keyboard player keyboardist and I should mention you can buy the album somewhere on the Golden Coast. You're such a shill How much how many what percentage are you getting of gross sales? Nothing? Um, and and then we've got the epinoma Komodo ends story, yeah, so we're gonna get to explaining ticks just because You know what we're doing here is explaining every aspect of the universe, right? Yeah

Ticks are a part of it one at a time and everyone stuff. You should know lovers We have to trudge through this together. Yeah, and I kind of see this as sort of a half kind of interesting and half public service announcement Yeah, because it's summertime and ticks are everywhere. That is a great idea and a lot of people there's a lot of Misinformation out there about ticks and how to remove them. So we're gonna say straight. Yes. Thanks Chuck way to frame that sure There is a lot of misinformation out there misunderstandings Specifically with ticks being insects, right? They are not insects. They are arachnids. Yeah, they have eight legs Yeah, well, they're born with six. Yeah, that's an insect, right? But they will ultimately develop eight unless they're they're

Disfigured They are not spiders though They are in the same group arachnids as spiders but spiders have segmented bodies and ticks is just one nasty bloody lump of a body That's right. And there's about eight hundred and fifty species of ticks. I didn't know that in the world and They I didn't either I thought it was just like I hate you when I hit you more, right? And they're generally you can divide ticks into two general types the hard tick and the soft tick Yeah, and the hard tick I get the impression that if There is such a thing as intelligent design. Yeah, the hard tick was like version 1.0 and the soft tick is version 2.0

Yeah, hard ticks are they're like the Philistines of the arachnid world. They they are an example of just the single-minded Ruthlessness, yeah of genes to answer promorphis, right? Yeah, their entire purpose in life is to suck blood So they can reproduce and die Right, they can make babies that suck more blood. Yes, blood suckers are I mean, I'm a big animal guys You know as are you and I even save insects, you know, I won't kill a bee You know or a spider. I will usher them out somewhere else I want either but flies. Yeah mosquitoes. Yeah ticks and fleas. Yeah, no use for them You and I are on the exact same page. Those are the only four insects that I'll kill. I won't kill a roach

I'll kill a roach. I won't kill why I'll kill the hell ever did anything to anybody It's just it just happened to be unfortunately ugly and like scuttle. That's what it is roaches scuttle That's why we don't like them. Yeah, you can't kill something for scuttling Yeah, you know with a roach something for being a parasite if it moved really slowly across the room I probably wouldn't kill it but the fact that they run like they've they're like they're looting exactly makes me want to kill them Yeah, all right So those are insects. We hate I don't mind roaches. Don't I'm not going on record with you on that one Well, what does you me do when she sees a roach? I try to keep roaches out of me

If we ever see him, I'm like, hey look over here and I'm like kind of brushing it out like Oh So Chuck We're talking about we were talking about the differences the hard-tick and the soft-tick, right? Yeah Let's talk about the commonalities that ticks are pretty basic creatures. Mm-hmm, right? They are one-celled organisms, right? No, they're not Just trying to jazz us up a little bit. Okay. They are

The the commonalities are a body eight legs. Yeah, I think eyes on either side Generally, most of them have eyes and then the Capitulum which is the mouth part, right? Yeah, mouth parts is actually a word a single word so gross Yeah, mouth parts blood sucking and gorge everything about ticks are wrong. It's a blood meal. Yes and then you've got on the hard-tick a something called a dorsal shield or a Scuttle, right? Uh-huh and That's pretty much it unless you want to get into the details of the mouth parts

Which really just to add a little more time to this podcast. We probably should Nah Now they get in your body. That's what matters What it was interesting though my friend is the legs are covered in little spiny hairs and it has the legs have a tiny little pincher claw at the end and they use this to you know climb up grass blades and Vegetation sticks trees. Yeah, and we'll go ahead and talk about questing. Should we since we're right there Why not ticks how this is how the hard-tick feeds it goes on a quest and it literally will wait on a blade of grass

With this little pincher claws up in the air Mm-hmm for somebody to brush by them and then they'll go And then they'll latch on to your pant leg or shoestring or whatever for your face. Yeah, and then it's all over right But we'll get into questing more, but that's what they use their little pincher. I don't think there's anything more to questing Yeah, you're right. Um, we I got a veto you man We should talk about the mouth parts, right? Okay, so you've got like the little what looks like their head That's actually their mouth parts, right? Right. Um, you have two Flaps on the side that are called palps. Yes, right? Yeah, that's a beautiful

Illustration you have there full color shiny. Yeah So the palps when when a tick gets on you, right and starts digging in the palps move to the side Yeah, they're they're not part of the eating and digging in process. Then you get the chelicerae. Yes, which are two I guess kind of cutting boring mouth parts and not boring like More like yeah boring into your skin, right? And then you have the hypostome, right? Yeah, which is this Barbed needle like protrusion that they just go vroom and start sucking blood Yeah, but it's barbed and the hooks curve backward toward the tick

Which makes it harder to pull out. Yes, like a fish hook if you if you pull a tick out the wrong way You just pull its body right off of its head. Yeah, it stays in there We'll get into how you can you can get rid of a tick Appropriately. Yeah, right speedily safely. Yes with with the whole thing intact So you can do what I do and drop it into a glass of bleach and alcohol and just let it die Oh, I put mine in a Ziploc So I could suffocate them. Well now just in case I needed to take it to the doctor if my vice had a bullseye rash on it Well, yeah, I mean you can take the glass of the doctor, but yeah, that's true. Yeah, good point

Yeah, you just wanted to kill it in a cruel way. Yeah, okay. I hate those things man Well, who likes ticks? So you'll notice then that you've got the barbed hypostome. You have the hooked legs Right. Yeah Everything these everything that has to do with ticks has to do with like hanging on right and digging in parasite Right as Tracy Wilson put it in this article. They are basically like a living blood pump Yeah, the all they feed on is blood Right so gross and the entire point of their life is to eat so they can grow up and Reproduce and die like we said, right? Yeah, and when they eat Josh their body their idiosomia if you want to get technical it

expands a Mail tick has the the the scutum or scoot them on the back. I'm not sure what it is I said scutum, but I couldn't tell which way either way No, we're both too lazy to go on to myriamwebster.com aren't we? So what happens is the the body of a hard tick male hard tick can't stretch that much to hold the blood Soft ticks don't have the scutum But they don't require a whole lot of blood to live and lay eggs right the real nasty one of the bunch is the

Female hard tick that's the one that goes from the size of about a sesame seed Yeah, to you know something like this is an orange male Nice Chuck. Yeah, I saw one of my dog when I was a kid and that it stuck with me a big and gorge tick that was I Mean it was a big look like a big purple balloon. Mm-hmm. It was disgusting Their body is also very flat so they can lay flat while they're feeding This is especially important for a hard tick. Yeah, because the hard ticks are born they feed They reproduce and they die, right? Yeah, so a hard tick actually What the hard tick female especially will sit there and feed for 24 hours?

Yeah, and that's that's really dangerous as far as survival goes because you're just sitting there feeding hoping no one notices Right as you get larger and yeah, and you get bigger and bigger and bigger and then finally if you make it until you're done with your blood meal Yeah You can fall off and lay some eggs after mating as many as as many as 18,000 eggs Yeah, did you see that picture? Yeah, there's a picture in this article. It's a lot pretty boss I don't know those ones it looks like caviar coming out of the bottom of a tick You don't want to put that on like it just pooped out a bunch of caviar Can we talk about two amazing facts Josh about how the tick?

Does its work when it when it rips into your skin and dives in I thought we got the amazing facts out of the way No, no, no, these two are pretty amazing to me lay a mommy string bean ticks do two things when they feed that blow me away They excrete a cement like substance Into your body where they attach to make it harder for them to fall off Mm-hmm, and that dissolves when they're ready to fall off. Mm-hmm fact number one I know they're like spitting up like that shot that tastes like cement in your mouth. You know I'm talking. Oh, yeah It's awful and number two is they have a substance to prevent your blood from clotting So they can just continually drink and it won't heal and that's all in your so they're saliva

and this this happens from a tick's mouth they have cement and Blood thinners basically and they're spit Chuck. Let's talk about the tick life cycle All right, clearly you weren't as blown away by that That's me. No The a tick is born from caviar, right after the stork brings it to somebody's skin Maybe a lizard skin after the quest and latch on to your gene pant. Yes, right your pant leg. Yeah Your gene pant your gene pant leg Um, so you're born you are a tick larva

Yeah, right. Yeah, and at that point you are about the size of a period And I couldn't find the font size for this, but you're about the size of a period at the end of a sentence 12 point fine Maybe there's a big difference between 10 and 12 point and I mean what if it's like 144 point? Yeah, but this you know, let's go 12 standard. All right Thanks for that You have six legs remember yeah when you're born you get six legs if you got good genes You're gonna have eight eventually But first you have to go find yourself a blood meal and do that you have to crawl along the ground

Yeah, and maybe find a mouse with its tail hanging out or lizard something with blood and in the closer to the ground the better Because you can't really crawl that well yet Yeah, this is just before you can if you want to grow up to be an adult tick if you don't get that first meal You're done. Yeah, it's like a sea turtles sure after you get that first meal. All right, say you are a Soft tick, okay, you get that first meal You're gonna do it pretty quick and you get off nom nom right you go back down to the ground You drop off after you have your meal you hang out. You're like, okay. I'm really that that mouse tail was packed with energy I'm growing. I'm growing. I'm literally getting too big for my shell. Yeah, I'm gonna molt and now all of a sudden

I have an extra pair of legs look at that and you might call me a nymph That's exactly what you would be right and then you say well, you know what being a tick nymph Now that I've molted and it's not a little bigger. It's kind of nice. I like your extra pair of legs, right? I'm faster. Hey, right I'm hungry again, so I'm going to go get another blood meal It's so gross. Okay. Yeah, so then you go you get another blood meal and then you Drop off again. Sure you you stop hardening and clotting That your hosts blood from your you know, um saliva. Yeah, you drop off you go grow again You molt now you're an adult

Now you're ready to reproduce but first give you a little tick bar mitzvah, I guess sure or bot mitzvah or bot mitzvah But first you need a blood meal, so you go get another blood meal. Yeah, right and it's about here that the life cycle of most Ticks begins to end right most ticks are three host ticks is what they're called Yeah, but you know Tracy pointed something out. I thought was interesting is that a tick that does not get their blood meal Will die, but it could take like a year to starve to death to starve to death So they might be just in nymph stage or adult stage or whatever Just pining away on that blade of grass waving their little claw. No one ever walks by and they can't they can't reproduce They can't lay eggs. They can't they can't do the the the bump with their little female tick friends

Right, they can't do anything if they don't get their blood meal. Yeah, so they just dice It's like on the couch basically right and so you would think well then ticks are just stupid for being Questers, you know, it's such a willy-nilly way to go look for food, but as we said ticks do have eyes and they can Differentiate shapes that kind of thing so they can technically hunt us as parasites, right, but not really. Yeah, nice They can see colors Yeah, so Tracy said they can they they use that to get in on a good blade of grass with a high likelihood Right of some schmuck camper like me. Yeah walking by They also can sense carbon dioxide that animals exhale. Yeah, so that's kind of cool. Yeah, actually

Oh, yeah, so let's say you are a tick that has you're a female hard tick and you're engorged you've Just mated the male you mated with just went off and died right after mating Yeah, well you both eat first right and then you come together and you're like hey, I'm super full and then you made That's why I called them the Philistines. They're like, let's go eat and then have sex and then I'll die. Yeah, so you're the female Okay Where are you going? He said I'm the female Oh, and then after the guy goes off and dies. Yeah, like oh, I better go lay my eggs and then there's all this caviar that comes out

Right and now you're dead. So and then the life cycle begins anew, right? Generally, I don't think they always die, but generally the female dies after they lay eggs and the male dies after they do do that thing Yes Do the thing do that thing? Um, yeah, so Chuck, that's the life cycle. I wish we had some sort of applause Right that was riveting it was If at any point let's say you remember I said that most ticks are three host ticks Yeah, if at any point one of those hosts, especially the first or second host Happens to be a diseased host

Then ticks become their diseased vector. They're a diseased vector, right? Yeah, but you can also I don't even think you said you can be a one-host tick If you find a very gracious host, you might stay there your whole life, right? If you are a Hard tick. Yeah, you can be a one or two host, right? But if you're a one-host like you said you're born and then you go start feeding wherever you're born and yeah, you Reproduce and die. Yeah, you're like this is this interior thigh is nice. I think I'll just stay here for a little my whole life Yeah, so Chuck If they do become a disease vector and by the way ticks are the number one disease vector in the animal world and If among humans, they're number two only to mosquitoes as bugs that spread disease crazy. Yeah

If you are a disease tick How what are some of the things that you're gonna spread? Well, Josh, you can Spread, I know everyone's heard of Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Mm-hmm. That is if it started out obviously in the Rocky Mountains But now it's kind of in many places in the US because of animals that migrate and move around, right? You can get if you're in Australia You can get coin lens tick typhus or Finlanders Island spotted fever. Yeah, or You know the big one is Lyme disease

Yes, which Jordan has yeah, I think he got the kind that goes away with some antibiotics You can think you can get it for life. I'm not mistaken. I think so I didn't do a whole lot of Lyme disease research research, but I worked with a director one time that um Did a short film on Lyme disease? No, no, he had Lyme disease. I think forever and Needed to take like a little afternoon naps Because it would wear or if he was just a lazy liar. Yeah So Lyme disease the big giveaway for that one is a bullseye rash It's an inflamed or raised area wherever the bite was. Yeah, that's the center

So it's real red and then kind of pale skin or regular skin color and then real red again Yeah, like a ring around it, right or bullseye, right? Exactly. So if you have that you are in big trouble and And Rocky Mountain spotted fever. I don't think Lyme disease is but Rocky Mountain spotted fever is a rickettsiel rickettsiel. Yeah Illness and I looked this up. So basically you have a fever general malaise Headaches muscle cramps. You're tired. You're just not you're feeling lousy Yeah, you can actually die from Rocky Mountain spotted fever if you don't get treated if you're like out, you know Doing the Ted Kaczynski thing and you never get treated for anything. You could die

That's the second time today. You've mentioned Ted Kaczynski. I know he's coming back. Are you bringing him back? He's not really coming back. Don't worry It does if you're bitten by a tick that say is spreading a protozoa or a bacteria that's going to give you some sort of infection You Are not necessarily going to get it immediately Apparently the rule of thumb is it takes about four hours. Yeah for a tick to transmit a disease, right? Mm-hmm, and it does so in a number of ways. The first way is through its saliva All right, but another way is if you squeeze a tick it can regurgitate blood back into your skin

Oh, that's what I was doing, but right. Okay. Yeah, and Either one of those ways could spread the disease again. It takes about four hours So a good way to combat ticks if you're in a tick combat situation Yeah, is to look every couple hours and you want to look around your scalp sure you want to look in the Folds like your armpit right? Holds your neck on the ears. You have like one of those hot dog packs like for a neck I do Or on your collar the band of your whitey tighties that kind of stuff

nether regions. Oh, yeah, which you know We don't need to get back to that story, but no we don't that is they those are dark Spooky damp places and ticks like to go there, right? So if you find a tick There's a certain way that you want to get rid of it, right? Only one way Pretty much all those wives tales are no good. Take it Chuck. Yeah, if you hear the you know put a nail polish on it and it'll suffocate it or Put a hot match on it and it'll it'll release from you. All that stuff is going to make it do is

Right, yeah, and it will vomit blood is blood into your body So none of those things are right. So what you want to do Josh you want to get some tweezers and You want to grasp the tick very firmly right as close to where it attaches to your skin as possible what you don't want to do is twist it or Yank it out real fast you want to pull firmly and really slow and straight up and straight back or straight up from your from your body Straight up and you want to pull it remember a tick a tick's body is flat Yeah, so it can lay flat

This is straight up if you if you were holding the tick up by its bottom and its head was going straight down Yeah, so straight up from where its head is burrowed into your skin. Yeah, so if he's flat on your skin You need to get up under him and pull him Right like a perpendicular and then out, but you want those tweezers making contact with his mouth parts, right? Oh, yeah, not his head or his body because you're gonna pull his body right off of his head Yeah, or you can squeeze the abdomen and that will make it go right right, so you don't want to squeeze at the belly of the tick Immediately afterward you want to wash the area with soap and water. Oh you left out a step What's that you want to drop the tick and a glass of alcohol and bleach? Yeah

But like I said, don't do any of those other stupid home remedies There's really only one way to get the tick out And you know we mentioned the cement like substance in the saliva. Yeah, it It actually works better the longer it feeds, right? So if the ticks been in there a little while, it's gonna be harder to remove for that reason Yes, because the cement is you know working right because you have the cement you have the barbed Hypostome you have the the hooked legs That the thing doesn't want to let go until it's ready, too

So you have to you have to make it want to with your tweezers, right? Yes So there are some ways to protect yourselves from ticks in the first place Light colored clothing helps because ticks show up against them very easily And if you see some ticks crawling on your light colored clothes Take some packing tape and make a ring around your forefingers and then just Like you're getting hair off you. Yeah, that's like the the cheap lint roller. Yes poor man's lint roller, right? Yes, or in this economy just about everybody's lint roller. Am I right? You want to wear long sleeves and

The rest of the sentence is the best visual that I got from this entire article. You want to look like a dork basically Wear long sleeves comma and tuck your pants into your socks or boots. Yeah, can't you just see Tracy Wilson working out in the yard with like Her pants tucked into her socks. Yeah with a hat. Yeah, wear a hat number three should wear a hat and wear gloves And you can use insect repellent with deet and if you're interested in learning more about deet I wrote a pretty interesting article about deet not long enough to do a podcast But I would recommend reading it. It's nasty though. Dude, check out my article. Isn't it like really harmful? Just read the article. Just type in deet in the handy search bar So that's you know, obviously the gloves thing is if you're working in the yard and that's where you're gonna find a lot of ticks around woodpiles and

High well, they say to keep your yard in shape because if you have a well-kept mode lawn You're not as likely to have ticks as if you got weeds and piles of garbage Right because remember the the an adult Hard-tick quests right a high up on un-mode, you know grass or whatever So you want to make your little hand right high up you're waiting for So yeah, keep your mart yard mode. You're all set And Chuck, you know what you need to do check my dogs You need to go around your yard with like a piece of white cloth. Oh, yeah, and just drag it

And if you see a bunch of ticks on it, you got an infestation. If not, you tell Jordan that he's a liar Yeah, that's scary. I've had a flea infestation and that was awful When I was in LA dude, we were infested big time And it was one of those deals where I couldn't find where they were coming from So I went out in the backyard with bare feet one day in shorts on because I had a feeling they were coming from outside Mm-hmm, and I just kind of walked around the yard really slowly looking down And we had this shed in the back for a yard with about a two-foot gap between the shed and the fence that no one ever goes Obviously went around there as soon as I walked around the corner. I looked down and I had about 200 fleas on my legs. Oh

Yeah, and I freaked obviously. Yeah, and then I destroyed them with chemicals fire Nice. Yeah fire just kind of puts the Exclamation point on things. Yeah, I can't imagine a tick infestation though. That's like that's even worse Yeah, no, I can't even then fleas But I don't think it looks like a flea infestation I think if you have like five or six ticks on your white cloth, that's an infestation I couldn't tell I thought it might be like hundreds of ticks on your no I think like if you're dragging your cloth through your yard, right? There shouldn't really be that many ticks at all

Yeah, like there should be a chance that there's no ticks But if there's some I know you're talking about the fleas and it is disconcerting because I've looked at my leg and seen that too Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have very similar backgrounds. Are you wearing it? What trashy backyards and infestations? Chuck Josh you and I are going to come up with a t-shirt design that says I listened to the tick episode and We have to figure out a way that people can prove that they listen to this entire episode Okay, and if they did we need to come up with a t-shirt because they deserve one for making it through this one with us

Yeah, this was sort of scabies ask in the itch count and these was way more interesting I'm saying like they made it through it like they are hardcore Davos Hayes. You know what I mean? Oh, I thought this is good. Okay, if you want to learn more about ticks or get a visual of Tracy Wilson with her pants tucked into her socks You just type ticks into the handy search bar at house stuff works calm and now it's time for a new segment an Occasional segment don't freak out. It's not like listener mails going anywhere. We'll still do Facebook stuff But every once in a while we have to say thank you. So this is what we call So yes Chuck this is a new segment right every once in a while we get stuff

Um mailed to us all sorts of awesome stuff and it just piles up I Should say the thank-you's pile up and we just need to knock them out every once in a while Yeah, I would be very grateful for everything right yeah I would have called this fan appreciation or fan. Thank you not administrative detail But yes, you weren't raised in a skinner box were you? Okay, Josh, we'll split these up here. We we've had a lot of wait. What are we doing? We're doing the thank-you's right? Yeah Okay, we've had a lot of people send us things over the past. What is this past six months or so you want to start with stuff?

Yes stuff. Yes, because like ticks Administrative detail thank-you's can be divided into two groups, right and even stuff can be divided into Books we got a lot of books. We did from the authors themselves right including our buddy Ian specter Yes, you created the Chuck Norris fact generator, right? And he just came out with his new book Chuck Norris cannot be stopped and he sent us copies of that He's milking it. I was disheartened that he sent it to the tech stuff guys, too I tried to talk him out of it. He's like no, I'm too nice a tool in my wood We also got how to speak pirate a treasure chest of seafaring slang by

Geordie Telfer Mm-hmm, and we got one called revolutions for fun and profit by Ryan Chautuck I have not listened. I have not read that one yet, but I'm very much looking forward to that Oh, absolutely. I'm also looking forward to molecular gastronomy a book by hair Bay Tess and Hair Bay Tess did not give us this book, but Liz from little bit of sweets.com did remember Yeah, L I D D a B I T sweets.com if you have two brain cells that you can muster up Go there and order her any of the candy bars, but order the peanut butter and jelly candy bar and

Thank me later. No, I didn't have that one So good. I had the king. It was peanut butter and banana. Oh, I had one I had that one too. What and a smaller one Well, it's yeah, it's several candy bars. Didn't you I had two I didn't have several she also makes this beer and nut Caramel That's really good. I didn't get any of that either. What'd you you got the popcorn, right? Yeah, I did the popcorn was awesome It had bacon fat in it and you could tell yeah, it was gorgeous

I mean, it's seriously like handmade in New York City with like really nice ingredients. So if you see like six dollars for a Candy bar just shut up and get it. Trust me. Yeah, it's the best candy bar you'll ever have in your life Yeah, so thanks Liz for all that stuff. Keep it coming We also got a catcher's companion the hidden world of Holden Caulfield by Sean McDaniel. Yeah, and I just kind of browsed it I haven't given it a sit-down read yet But Sean put together basically like an annotated Catcher in the Rye. Yeah, it's pretty amazing stuff. Absolutely. And I don't know I'm pretty sure you could probably find most of these on

Amazon, I don't know some of the search. Yeah, definitely some of them might be self-published But I think people should support self-published books. Oh agreed and there was one more book We mentioned it briefly once but we didn't mention the whole thing the zombie combat manual Whoo, a guide to fighting a living dead by Roger Ma. Yeah, it is really really awesome And here's when you don't know about Chuck. I want to say thank you to Stephanie who I went to high school with and was in children's theater with we used to carpool there together sweet Way back in the day. Yeah, she and her fiance Steve Listen, uh-huh Steve turned her on to us

He heard us mentioned spray-berry and he was like wait a minute didn't you go to spray-berry and made her listen? She's like no way. Wow. Yeah Fortunately for us if we got more than just a high Steve makes hot sauces and he's in a bottle of big smoke and I'll give you half of it eventually So you know like use half of it for sure. I'm done with this. Yes, so thank you to Stephanie and Steve for that And hey Stephanie. Hope it's going well. That's nice. Let's look at you when your birthday being kind. I know it feels dirty So those are the books and candy bars and things We got a bunch of CDs from a band in New Jersey called the wag and we want to thank them. Yes our

Best bud in the world Martin Van Nostrand has he's always send in his tons of stuff like a bacon based things Wesley Wesley Willis CD. Yeah. Yeah all sorts of CDs the woodhouse gang. Yeah wood box gang wood box gang Yes, would I say woodhouse? Yes. Anyway Van Nostrand you sick puppy. We love you. No, it's time for postcards. Hey, yeah We got a bunch of postcards. We got one from Vanessa in Japan Todd from the Anne Frank house. Sorry about your umbrella there Todd And there is there's a small group of conspirators found deep within the bowels of the Brigham Young University Library Really? Thank you for listening Interesting. I don't even know what that is

Janelle in Traversity, Minnesota, Michigan, Michigan Traverse We want to say check out shuddercal.com. Yes Rocky and his girlfriend from Hawaii via Hearst Castle. Yes Kate and Stuart who we met at the bell house in Brooklyn when we were there They independently wrote letters to us on the same day. Isn't that weird? Yeah, but Kate's was way better Why is that? Because Stuart like spent his whole letter taking us to task over the traffic podcast Yeah, and Kate's was all like I'm so glad we got a chance to meet you. You guys are awesome and Stuart's like hey

Hey, it's I hope you guys are doing well. It was nice to meet you and here's everything that was wrong with the traffic podcast So case case letter definitely one. Oh and the the fellas from my new Belgian brewery sent us some delicious fat tire Mm-hmm ale. Yes in the mail. So thank you to everybody who's ever sent us anything if we forgot you We apologize you can shoot us an email actually and be like you fat jerks or just send us what you sent us before again Right refresh our memories right if you want to send us something you can get our mailing address by sending us an email We don't expect anything. So if you just want to say hi, that is awesome in and of itself You can correspond with us at stuff podcast at how stuff works calm For more on this and thousands of other topics visit how stuff works calm

Want more how stuff works check out our blogs on the how stuff works calm home page Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? You've been dreaming about this baby your entire life a small beautiful bundle of joy that deserves only the best Everything about your baby is one of a kind from the pregnancy to the birth from whether they're a napper or a baby Who doesn't want to miss a thing at Caden Lane? We want you to make everything as unique as your bundle of joy even that essential hospital overnight bag We're the one stop shop for all things baby mommy and family Celebrate your perfect baby Caden Lane calm

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