The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 270: Chuck Klausmeyer—Holy Crap, It's Thomas Crapper's Birthday!

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

Today's episode honors the man who unwittingly inspired Mike's career by inventing the first flushable commode, Mike shares a David Sedaris story about a turd that won't flush titled Big Boy then, in an homage to eighth-grade humor, Mike and Chuck swap embarrassing stories involving the necessary.

Hello, friends. This is the way I heard it, episode number 270, and this is a special one. Oh, yes. Holy crap. It's Thomas Crapper's birthday. September 28, 1836. That was the day. On this day, 186 years ago, one of the greatest plumbers of all time was born. Contrary to popular belief, Thomas Crapper did not invent the flushed toilet. A lot of people think he did. He didn't. That honor belongs to Surgellors. John Harrington, who actually was a distant ancestor of the Game of Thrones star Kit Harrington. Another story, but he built the original flush toilet in 1596 for his godmother, who happened to be Queen Elizabeth I. She didn't like it, said it was too loud. Krapper got the credit for that invention, though, partly because of his name, but mostly because of a book that was published in 1969 called Flushed with Pride, the story of Thomas Craper. which has been roundly dismissed as a work of complete and total fabrication. In other words, the way a lot of people heard it is completely wrong.

What Thomas Crapper did was a lot more extensive than what John Harrington did. Crapper held all sorts of plumbing patents, including one for the ballcock, which is fun to say. The ballcock prevents toilets from overflowing. Krapper also designed new and improved versions of the early flush toilets, along with manhole covers and pipe joints and all sorts of drain improvements still used in every major city today. Krapper also plumbed for royalty. Krapper's plumbing company was commissioned to do plumbing projects for Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Sandringham Estate, and so forth.

Unfortunately, the rumors that he was knighted by the queen are also rumors. Totally untrue. His greatest claim to fame, though, was opening the very first bathroom showroom in 1870. This was a very, very, very big deal. At a time when it was considered improper to publicly acknowledge bodily functions, Thomas Crapper's Marlborough Works Showroom, boldly placed functioning toilets on public display. And customers were even invited to try them out before buying them. He gave us the first test drive commodes.

According to an article in plumbing and mechanical magazine, Krapper should best be remembered today as a merchant of plumbing products, a terrific salesman and an advertising genius. Point being, civilized life would be a lot less civilized. without Thomas Crapper, and dirty jobs would have never been a thing. So I wanted to mark the occasion of his birth with a dramatic reading from one of the greatest short stories ever written about the miracle of modern plumbing, in my view, and the deep and abiding disappointment that occurs when it doesn't work as intended.

The story is called Big Boy, and it was written by the one and only David Sedaris, who, to my surprise and delight, has given me permissible. mission to read his short but powerful homage to a stubborn piece of poo that simply would not go away. I then share from the annals, or the anals maybe in this case, an homage that I wrote a few years ago to a couple of construction workers in San Francisco who were putting in a new sewage line, coincidentally, when they saved me from abject humiliation by allowing me to use. their personal porta potty during an early morning jog that went horribly, horribly wrong. If potty humor is not your thing, this is probably not the episode for you.

Then again, if you can't laugh at the potty, my friends, there's something wrong with you. Because in these divided times, our pressing need to squat and hope for the best is surely one of the few things that's still unites. And my goal today is to reinforce that great truth. Chuck will join me momentarily for a little added color, as it were, and some additional thoughts on Mr. Crapper's birthday. Anyway, it all starts right now. And by right now, of course, I mean, right after this.

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Hello, my friend. Yes, hello, Michael. How are you? Uh-oh. You hit me with Michael. That means I'm going to get mother-type questions right out of the gate. Hang on one second here. I don't mean to poo-poo your preamble.

I'm glad you appreciated the pun. I didn't mean to kill you, though. You waited until I sip some delicious black rifle coffee out of my amber mug. Curse you. But everything is wrong about it. Everything is wrong about it. Thomas Crapper was not born on September 28, 1836. that was the day of his baptism.

No one knows when he was actually born. So to call this episode 270, holy crap, it's Thomas Crapper's birthday, while a clever, you know, title, it isn't entirely accurate. Wait a minute, but this is an excellent example of why we call this thing the way I heard it. Where are you reading this?

It says right here on Wikipedia, born September 28th, died January 27th, which coincidentally is Thomas Crappie. Day. I should probably be doing this on July 27th on Thomas Crapper Day, but we don't have an episode for this week, so I thought maybe we'd do it on his birthday, but you're saying it's not his birthday? It's his baptism? Well, I read that on Wikipedia. I'm not kidding. I know it says born 28 September, but that's not entirely true. If you look on the Wikipedia somewhere, it said that that was the day he was baptized, or maybe that was another article I read.

Oh, my God, dude. You call yourself a producer. Isn't it possible? A, that he was born and baptized on the same day, and B, that Wikipedia, as I have steadfastly and consistently maintained, doesn't know its ass from a hot rock. Yes, that's entirely possible, true. No, it was another article that I read. I should have, I rebooted my computer right before I got on, so I lost everything. Your excuses are not unlike the large roll of toilet paper that every modern toilet comes with. What are you going to pull down next?

What are you going to rip off next? What are you going to wipe with next? You rebooted your computer. You go to Wikipedia to confirm that, which cannot be confirmed, and you hit me right over the head, right out of the gate. You don't want to poo-poo it, but you challenge the veracity of my title before I even get to the point. I've got David Sedaris's permission to read one of my favorite stories,

and we're talking about this instead. And that's just ridiculous. You're right. So let's just carry on as though it actually is. Thomas Crapper's birthday. I think that's what we should do. It's the best way to do it. Thank you. You've named it. Great. So let's just, I'll cut all this out. Right. You don't cut anything out. Hi, Mike. How's it going?

Hey, Chuck, I'm glad you asked. I had a heck of a week. Go ahead and ask me what made it special. What made your week special, Mike? Gosh, I'm glad you asked. I went back home, hunt, to my hometown, to our hometown. I saw them pictures on interwebs. I had so much fun this week, dude. I don't even know. know where to start. After a year, my granddad's whiskey, Noble, Tennessee whiskey, is finally making its way onto shelves. As you well know, we've been selling it online to those 26 or 27 states that will allow us to ship it. And I've been trying with Sisyphian efforts to negotiate this three-tier

system, which will eventually give me permission to get it on shelves of America's finest liquor stores. So we started with Baltimore and it worked. So I just went back to thank the people who bought it. Before we carry on, can you briefly explain the three-tier system? Because I've sat in all the Zoom meetings, you know, when we were putting this thing together and the shape of the bottle, the label and all those fun, fun, fun meetings. But what the heck is the three-tier system? Honestly, the smart aleck in me wants to tell you to Google it, but I know you'll just find something and say, now it's actually a four-tier system. You know what?

It says on Wikipedia, it's two tiers. I hate to be pedantic, but... So what happened was a great hue and cry arose after prohibition. And while liquor was once again made legal and available, there were a great many hoops through which the sellers had to leap. In short, you can't be a manufacturer and a distributor and a retailer. There has to be a line between those three things. And then the state gets involved.

So, right, some states have state stores. Some have different types of package stores. Some states are subject to blue laws and some aren't. I went to a place in Dundalk that you know very well called Drug City. They did one of the most ingenious workarounds I've ever seen, man. In Drug City, you can walk in. You can get anything you could find in a drug store. But they also have an ice cream parlor in the back of the place.

and the guy who runs the ice cream parlor is called Chuck. He's got one of these giant Civil War beards. I think he might be the mayor of Dundalk, actually. He knows everybody in a 10-mile radius, and somehow or another, he can sell you whiskey with your ice cream. At a drugstore. In a drugstore. And they also make what might be the best crab cake in Dundalk,

maybe in all of Baltimore. Opinions vary. But you walk into a drugstore in Dundalk, and you can get, whiskey, a COVID shot, a crab cake, an ice cream Sunday, and then you can walk upstairs to one of the coolest tasting rooms I've ever seen, where the proprietors, a guy named Eric, A-R-I-C, because he's Irish, and Whiskey Mike, who looks like Abe Lincoln's brother, have the best whiskeys you can get your hand on. So the next thing you know, they bought a couple cases of my granddad's whiskey.

I signed them while I was there. we sold out on the spot. People walked in. It was amazing. And then I wound up in the tasting room, eating crab cakes and Sundays, just be messing with Chuck and just having a day. I wish you were there. My invitation got lost in the mail, I guess.

I'm being metaphorical. Oh, okay. You know, that reminds me, like, where I was in August in Carolina Beach, North Carolina, the best burger in that. It was like top ten burgers in North Carolina is at a gas station. This seems similar that you can get. a really good crab cake at Drug City. But, dude, it's also Dundalk, which, as you know, like nothing is exactly right in Dundalk,

but everything is kind of perfect. It's like looking at a town through the bottom of an old Coke bottle. It's all familiar, but just a little different. You know, I posted on Facebook because I was just so delighted by the whole experience, and I wound up going down memory lane, and I posted a picture of the old, Dundalk course of the Chesapeake that you and I sang in. You know, I posted pictures from a play my dad and I did over at Dundalk Community College. Posted a photo of an old dirty jobs with McShane Bell Foundry, you know, old man, McShane, Henry McShane came over here 290 years ago

and named Dundalk for the little town in Ireland from whence he came. So, you know, it's with all that nostalgia in the back of my head that I walk into Drug City. Look at this hat. They gave... Only in Dundalk do you get a blue and white, the colt color, stock and cap that says drug city on it. Check it up. Colts haven't been there for like 30 years, huh? You know it.

They gave me a little shot glass that says drug city. So, anyhow, since you ask... Yeah. Well, it's not just Drug City. It was also grape and grain. Uh-huh. A couple of Marines who run this liquor store. not far from where I grew up, right there in Perry Hall.

In Perry Hall, off Ebenezer Road. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, Sean and Bruce, they took a couple cases because they liked dirty jobs. I swung by to thank them, and the same thing happens. I walk in, I start signing these bottles. Everybody who walks in takes a bottle.

These guys order five more cases on the spot. Right. Meanwhile, something else similar happens. Down in Federal Hill, I walk in a harbor view, and there's Miss Liz. Miss Liz, like, oh, my God, Mike Row, I can't believe you're here. I bought a case of your whiskey. I said, well, that's sweet.

So, you know, I sign it. Then I wind up going next door because one of her customers is having a birthday party. And I spend an hour and a half drinking my granddad's whiskey in Federal Hill with one of Miss Liz's customers. So the whole week turned into this crazy connection of people who bought the booze. really based on dirty jobs. And I just wanted to thank them for it. But then, so I'm staying downtown in Harbor East. This happens right before I go.

I got a call from Whiskey Mike over at Drug City. And he's like, hey, Mike Rowe, guess what, man? They're all gone. We sold every last one of them. I just ordered 10 more cases. Is there any way you could swing by and sign them? Sign them all. I said, geez, Mike, I'd love to, but I'm literally running for the airport.

He goes, well, what, if I came down there to you and just had you sign him down there at your hotel. I said, brother, if you're willing to drive 10 cases of my granddad's whiskey down here, I'll stand in the middle of the streets of Baltimore and sign him. So he does. And I posted that video too. I'm literally standing in Harbor East with this guy who looks like every bootleger you've ever met. And he's handing me bottles out of the back of his SUV. I'm signing him. He's putting him back in. I just call, they're gone. Everything's gone.

Everything in Baltimore is selling out. And I'm like, this is so amazing. If I can only get past this cursed three-tier system and get this whiskey, which everybody seems to love on more shelves and more places, well, then we'd have something to talk about, wouldn't we? Yes, we would. Yes, we would. Now, I'm assuming that Whiskey Mike is not his Christian name.

Is that correct? No, it's actually Whiskey Tum. He changed it to Mike. Now, everybody calls him whiskey Mike because this guy, first of all, his palate is very sophisticated. He's forgotten more about whiskey than you or I will ever learn. And his knowledge, it's just encyclopedic, and he holds these tastings over there at Drug City. So, you know, I was a little nervous once I found out how smart he was. I was flattered that he took the whiskey, but I didn't know if he tried it.

You know, it's Tennessee whiskey. And people from Dundalk are not inclined to tell you what you want to hear. They'll tell you the truth. They'll tell you the truth. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So I said, look, honestly, this is after we've been tasting some other brands. I said, what do you think of the noble?

Tell me the truth. And he said, well, the truth is I was really nervous because I'm not crazy for Tennessee whiskey in general. You know, it's just not for me. And I said, my God, I hope Mike Rose whiskey doesn't suck. And I said, well, he said, I got to tell you, honestly, it is great. It's delicious. It's so good that I ordered another case, not knowing that you were going to come in town

and not knowing if I was going to sell it or not, I just knew that I'd be able to drink it myself if I couldn't. Which I thought was about the greatest compliment. High cut. Yeah. Yeah. It was great. That's pretty good. So did you do anything else besides drink whiskey in Baltimore?

I ate crab cakes. I drank whiskey. I went and saw my mom and dad. My dad, you know, is over there at the home. He's going to be 90 years old in a month or two. And he's taking this wood shopping class. And my mother said he was working on these candle votives, you know, these candle holders. So I wanted to go watch him do that because afterwards there was a high stakes botchy tournament. My dad's killing it on the botchy court. Now, when you say high stakes, can you just narrow that down a little bit? I'm just curious what that means. It's like the old lacrosse games. The Mayans used to play. The opposing team is butchered. Yeah, if you lose, right? The other team, yeah, and you eat them. Wow. Those are really pulling for your

dad now, but am I? I don't know. Ooh, wow. Either way, you see why I drink. Wow. Okay. No, it was, it's, it's, there is so much to do at this retirement home. I mean, if it's not darts, it's pool or a book club. The whole body. Bocchi league, my dad. My dad's in all of them. Plus, he's taking wood shop classes. My mom, meanwhile, is just writing it all down. She's working on her fourth book. So I stopped over. I saw them, went to wood shop class, watched dad triumphant in a Batchie tournament. Right. Then I went over to grape and grain, signed some more bottles, and so forth, and so on. And what does this have to do with Thomas Crapper again?

Well, I'll tell you, if you eat enough crab cakes and enough ice cream chuck and throw enough Whiskey behind it, you're going to need one. Stat. No, look. Thank you. Thank you for getting me back on track. Thomas Crapper, as we've established, was either born or was baptized on this day, 1886 years ago in 1836. As we have further established, to the shock of many, he did not invent the toilet. He just made it a hell of a lot better.

I have no idea if he enjoyed whiskey or not. I was simply bringing you up to speed on my comings and goings. And in the spirit of full disclosure, and with respect to you, when I realized it was Thomas Crapper's birthday, my first thought was, I'll get a plumber as a guest. And I will talk with a licensed plumber about many of the myths and misperceptions and stigmas and stereotypes, you know, that currently are leading to our giant labor. shortage in the plumbing field. But then, then I just thought of this story that I read an Esquire by David Sedaris, who as you know, I believe is the closest thing you or I are ever going to see to a Mark Twain. Mark Twain. Reincarnated. His writing is so good, and it's been such a part of my life for so long that I kind of hate him for it. Because... Well, I hope he's not listening to

I want to get him on to get him to be a guest. Well, that would be an amazing production coup and something that make me think, you know, this word you use to describe yourself, producer might actually have some verisimilitude to it. But my point about Sedaris is he's so good that for a time he inspired me. And then I realized I was never going to be as good as David. That angered me. And then as anger often does, it turn to resentment. And then as resentment often does, it morphed into.

opportunity. And so here we are on the occasion of Thomas Crapper's baptism or birthday. We reach out to David Sedaris and we say, hey, that story you wrote for Esquire years ago about that giant piece of poo in the toilet that you couldn't get rid of. Can I read that on my podcast? Spoiler alert. Well, you'll learn very quickly what it's all about. But I couldn't believe it. But he said, yeah, go ahead, read it. So I'm going to do it right now. I was recording something in the booth the other day, the last episode of Deadliest Catch, and I had some time with the engineer, and we laid this story down. And he said, hey, you want to, like some sound effects in it? I'm like, we don't really do sound effects on the show or anything. He goes, let me just do a couple.

It might be fun. So what you're about to hear is kind of unusual for the way I heard it, but it's David Siddhors. And I have a chance to read a story about a toy. it on Thomas Crapper's birthday, which is precisely what I'm going to do right after this. Do do do do do do do do do. I love stories like this. Seven years ago, a guy named Ben Still was a musician. He had zero interest in running a food company. But he was annoyed that so much imported meat was being deceptively marketed and labeled as domestic and decided to fix the problem.

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into the top tier of meat delivery companies, it's fueled enormous awareness among meatiers like me that we have all been affirmatively deceived by policies that allow imported me to be marketed as domestic. That's the reason I switch to good ranchers. If I'm being honest, though, I doubt that I would have stayed this long had the quality not been so exceptional. Every single cut I've devoured from good ranchers has been straight up delicious,

and every morsel was raised on a small American farm or ranch. Give them a try. Subscriptions are affordable and flexible. In fact, if you start your plan today, you'll get free meat, for life and $40 off your first order. Just use code mic at good ranchers.com. Free meat for life, 40 bucks off your first order. Good ranchers.com. American meat delivered. If you could eat a steer, if you could eat a cow, don't take a chance on a foreign ranch. Get good ranchers now. It was Easter Sunday in Chicago and my sister Amy and I were attending an afternoon dinner at the hall.

of our friend John. The weather was nice and he'd set up a table in the backyard so we could sit out in the sun. Everyone had taken their places when I excused myself to visit the bathroom and there in the toilet was the absolute biggest piece of work I have ever seen in my life. No toilet paper or anything just this long and coiled specimen thick as a burrito. I flushed the toilet and the big boy roused around the It shifted position, but that was it. This thing wasn't going anywhere. I thought briefly of leaving it behind for someone else to take care of,

but it was too late for that. Before leaving the table, I had stupidly told everyone where I was going. I'll be back in a minute, I said, I'm just going to run to the bathroom. My whereabouts were public knowledge. I should have said I was going to make a phone call. I just wanted to pee, maybe run a little. little water over my face, but now, now I had this to deal with. The tank refilled, and I made a silent promise. The deal was that if this thing would go away, I'd repay the world by performing some

unexpected act of kindness. I flushed the toilet again, and the beast spun in a lazy circle. Go on, I whispered. Scoot! Shoe! For a moment, it slipped from view. For a moment, it slipped from view. and I claimed a giddy victory. But when I looked back down, there it was, bobbing to the surface in a fresh pool of water. Just then, someone knocked on the door, and I started to panic. Just a minute! At an early age, my mother had sat me down and explained that everyone has bowel movements. Everyone, she said, even the president and his wife.

She'd mentioned our neighbors, the priest, and several of the actors we saw each week on television. I'd gotten the overall picture, but natural or not, there was no way I was going to take the rap for this one. Just a minute! I seriously considered lifting this monster out of the toilet and tossing it out the window. It honestly crossed my mind,

but John lived on the ground floor, and a dozen people were seated at a picnic table 10 feet away. They'd see the window open, and they'd notice something dropped to the ground. And these were people who would surely gather around and investigate. Then there I'd be, with my unspeakably filthy hands, trying to explain that it wasn't mine. So why bother throwing it out the window if it wasn't mine? Because no one would have believed me,

except the person who had left it there in the first place. And chances were pretty slim, the freak in question, would suddenly step forward and own up to it. I was trapped. I'll be out in the second. I scrambled for the plunger and used the handle to break it into manageable pieces, all the while thinking that it wasn't fair,

that this was technically not my job. Another flush, and it still didn't go down. Come on, pal, let's move it. While waiting for the tank to refill, I thought maybe I should wash my hair. It wasn't dirty, but I needed some excuse to cover the amount of time I was spending in the bathroom. Quick, I thought. Do something. By now the other guests were probably thinking I was the type of person who uses dinner parties as an opportunity to defecate and catch up on his reading.

Here I come, just washing up. One more flush. And it was finally over. The thing was gone and out of my life. I opened the door to find my friend, Janet, who said, well, it's about time. And I was left thinking that the person who'd abandoned this man-made object had no problem with it. So why did I?

Why the big deal? Had it been left there to teach me a lesson? Had a lesson been learned? Did it have anything to do with Easter? I resolved to put it all behind me. And then I stepped outside to begin examining the suspects. Okay, that was very, very good. First of all, I read that book.

It's from Me Talk Pretty One Day, I believe. Is that right? I believe it's in there, yeah. He really is a modern day Mark Twain, very funny guy, and that's a very funny story. There's a couple of things about the end that I just jotted down as I heard it. He's wondering as to why this turd,

why this happened to him. And he said, did it have something to do with Easter? And I was like, what? Because they're, you know, they're having an Easter dinner. That's right. Yeah. No, he puts a bow on it perfectly. It's that combined with how is this my problem? What did I do to deserve this? I'm just living my life. I just walk in to the crapper for crying out loud. And now this, this. And so that's really the first thing. It's not just the reality that everybody poops, which he talks about, of course. My mother told me the same story that his mother told him, you know? So we're united by that. In fact, do you remember everybody poops the book?

Yeah, right. It was a kid's book, right? It was like 30 years ago. This book became all the rage, all over the place. I used to give them out as Christmas presents. It's interesting, right? Back in Thomas Crapper's Day, you couldn't even have a toilet in public. You couldn't even talk about the business of doing your business. And then we wind up with

books for kids. And then a guy like Sedaris writes an homage to it. And then I re-recorded. So we're obviously a lot's changed in 186 years since the baptism of Crapper. But the other thing that unites us, aside from the fact that, you know, we're all relying on that same unreliable O-ring, is the fact that we've all had to deal with somebody else's mess. That's what I think is so funny. in a moment. The thing that was formerly owned by someone else is now entirely his problem. Their poop becomes his property. And that, I mean, if that's not a metaphor for our times, dude, what is?

Well, I really like the last line of the piece, too, where he says, I resolved to put it all behind me, and then I stepped outside to begin examining the suspects, which just, tells you that this thing is going to go on. He's going to be walking around that party, trying to determine who left him that little gift. Of course. You can't let it go. It's no different than being in an elevator with seven or eight people for the long ride to the top. And in a moment, that which was in someone's lower GI tract is now in your bloodstream. And everybody in the elevator can smell it. It's a great uniting principle. Someone fart. And a second later, everyone knows that someone farted.

But unless somebody raises their hand or says, excuse me, then what we have on our hands is an immediate mystery. We have an episode of Colombo meets McMillan and wife meets murder she wrote. We have in a moment, in a heartbeat, we have a great and common who done it. And I thought, how many times have you looked around the cabin in an airplane or in the back of a crowded van? Somebody did it. Of this, there can be no dispute. Somebody did it. But no one's going to own it.

And then the game begins, the real game. Examining faces, you know, examining the suspects. It's like, I totally know what that is. I got that. I mean, that's amazing. and common and uncommon at the same time. I don't know what to say to that. Well, I'll tell you this, man.

I thought of this about three months ago before I knew Thomas Crapper's birthday was coming. I was flying back, I think, from San Antonio. And I went to use the bathroom. I got upgraded because I got a gazillion miles on United. So I'm in first class and life is pretty good. And I'm sitting there. And, you know, we're about halfway through

the flight, I'm thinking, oh, maybe I could go. Maybe I don't have to. But I'm going to have to probably before we land. So let's just do it now. So I, um, I close my computer and I walk up the aisle and I walk into the bathroom and I swear it looked like a crap balloon had exploded. This was shameful what happened in this bathroom. It was just, it had not been flushed, for starters, but everything, at a glance had been tattooed and bedazzled with scat. It was just awful. Like, there was crap on the mirror. What happened?

There is no explaining that. It was so off-putting, and the smell was still low and heavy in the air. Like, it gets on your teeth right away. It's just, who would do that? Right? How does it get? Your teeth. Why do you bring your teeth into it?

That's crazy. I talk in pictures. You know, it's like the first time I went in the sewer. I remember on Dirty Jobs, just taking a deep breath and feeling like this isn't just a smell. This is tactile. This is, there was some crime novel. I forget which one, but there was a great line that said the guy was coming out of a crime scene. It was a very, very bad scene, and people were nauseous from the stench.

And he said, you know, that's the thing about a real stink. It's a smell. And all smells are particular. it. Right. That's such a gross thought. Yeah. It's not just some gas, even though we call it.

Little bits of poo in your nose. Little pieces of poo in your nose and then in your blood and then by extension into your brain. It's horrifying. That's what's so invasive about a fart from that part of your body into your brain in a twinkling. Anyway, I'm standing appalled in this restroom in first class on this flight. to the point where I was like, obviously, I'm not touched it. None of this is my problem, you know. So I did, because I think I'm still basically a good citizen, I flushed the toilet, right? Because it had not been flushed. It was just a mess. All right. So hold on a second. I got just so I'm clear, you walk in, you open the door, you walk in, there is fecal matter on the mirror in the toilet. Not a lot, but some. But speckled. It's, yes.

Bedazzled, I believe is the word I used. Which is a very, very good, very fun word to use for fecal matter on the mirror. But, and you stayed in there? You flushed the toilet and did other things? I didn't set up camp. Look, here's what happens, Chuck, when you're flying first class, okay? I know you're probably not used to this. No, not at all.

You walk in and you got to kind of turn yourself around. I mean, I'm six feet tall. I weigh 200 pounds. There's not a ton of room. So you kind of go in sideways. You close the door and then you turn around. to address the crapper. My God, what would Thomas Crapper think of an airplane restroom?

Talk about advances. I mean, it weren't even planes back then. Now his invention, there it is, at 37,000 feet, miraculous. Anyhow, you stand there, and it takes a second to get yourself oriented. And during that second, your eyes come to terms with the crime scene before you. With a bespeckling? And you realize some animal came in here and just did an awful thing. thing. They didn't clean up after themselves. And whatever explosion passed for the bowel movement

at hand, that was in the past. But now it was in my present, right? Now three seconds have gone by, maybe five, long enough for me to go, I'm not using this facility. I don't want to be in this facility. I need to. Right. Right. But I'm telling you, it happens quick. But over the course of five seconds in a moment like that, it drags out in slow motion. So rather than just turn and leaving right away, I paused and I leaned down and I hit the flushing mechanism just because I wasn't going to invest 15 minutes into tidying up the place. You're just being a good scout.

The least I could do is flush the toilet, right? Right, okay. But of course, had I thought about it, that wouldn't have made any sense either. What I should have done is immediately left, told the flight attendant that something criminal had gone down at 37,000 feet. All right, in the first class. A bowel crime scene.

Yes. But I didn't. Instead, I flush the toilet and it made that flushing sound. Yeah, that air. It works. It's fine. But it's loud, you know. And whatever was in the toilet went away.

Now maybe we're, like I said, five, six, possibly seven seconds. There was no way I was more, I wasn't in this thing more than seven seconds. No way. No how. Okay? Okay, so seven seconds. You've walked in. You've seen what I've seen. You know, you've seen what you've seen. You've witnessed hell. You push the button. Seven seconds gone by. And it's disappeared, by the way. Well, the worst of it, the toilet has flushed, but the seat is still up. It still looks like some sort of Rorschach test on the back of it. Some kind of da-da, some sort of Salvador dolly nightmare. There's toilet paper stuck to the back. of the commode, partially used. Okay?

Come on. I swear. It was awful, Chuck. Trust me, it was awful. And trust me... It sounds awful. That I wasn't in there for more than seven seconds. Okay.

I'd say somewhere between four and seven. Anyway, Shameless plug. Long before she was Peggy Roe, my mom was Peggy Noble, daughter of Carl and Thelma Noble. It was her father, who inspired me to pitch a show called Dirty Jobs to the Discovery Channel

and later start a foundation that honored the kind of work Carl Noble did for a living, trade work, skilled labor. That foundation is called MicroWorks, and today I'm proud to tell you that we've helped thousands of people get the training they need to begin a career in the skilled trades. In fact, we'd love to help you. You can apply for a work ethic scholarship right now at microwworks.org. We've set aside $10 million for this year's applicants.

thanks to a number of very effective fundraisers, including the one with my grandfather's name on the label. I refer, of course, to Noble Tennessee Whiskey, K-N-O-B-E-L, which is now available in a variety of delicious mash bills, all of which you can peruse at Noble Spirits.com. In fact, if you spend 100 bucks and use code Carl, C-A-R-L, you'll get one tube of orange-bitter-infused sugar cubes for first. That's Code Carl with a C to get nine sugar cubes ingeniously engineered to make nine perfect old fashions every time. It's my favorite way to support microworks and my favorite whiskey to sip responsibly after a long day of interviewing people on this podcast. Pick up a bottle at noblespirates.com. K-N-O-B-E-L-Spirates.com.

Soon may the nobleman come to bring a bottle for everyone. When the waitin is done, we'll take a drink and go. I opened the door and standing there is one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. She looks like, I don't know if you remember the old Wrigley's double your pleasure, double your fun ads. Ads, yes. She looked like one of the beautiful identical twin skiers. Yes. Just fresh-faced and friendly, a sparkle in her eye, you know, big toothy,

grin, I opened the door, and two things happened. Really, three things happened. The first thing is, I think she recognized me. Or if she didn't recognize me, she knew that she had seen me somewhere before, right? Gotcha. So you see that look of acknowledgement and awareness flash across her face, and it's a beautiful face, right? And then she smiles as if to say, hey, aren't you that guy? Or... No idea what she's in store for. Just no idea. The second thing that happens is the funk, the indescribable stench of that awful bathroom comes wafting by me and hits her right smack in the face. So now she's got it on her lips too, right? Now she's dealing with this thing.

So that all happens in the same second. So what's going through her brain? Hey, I know that guy. Oh, my God, that smells like the end of days. And then, then the worst thing. She cranes her head slightly to the right just to look beyond me. And she takes in everything I've just described. And so that registers.

The bedazzlement. Yes. And so all I could do is watch the five stages of grief flash across her face as I stood there. I can't move forward without knocking her down. I don't want to back up because that's just returning to the scene of the crime. So all I could say was, hey, hey, that wasn't me. That wasn't me. That's all I said.

I didn't do that. Now, meanwhile, if you're her, A, now she's figured it out. That's the dirty jobs guy. B, I heard him flush the toilet. I heard it. You can hear it when the toilet flushes. So she's putting all this together. She's going, you know what?

I think he's a liar. I think it was him. I think the Dirty Shop's guy went in the first class, Kevin. Not anymore. Oh, no. I realize in the space of these same fleeting moments that there's nothing I can do or say to redeem myself. There's absolutely nothing to be done. All I did was, excuse me, I stepped out.

She immediately walked back to her seat, which by the way, wasn't in first class, so she kind of had it come. What are you doing wandering up here? Anyhow, she makes a beeline for the back of the plane. I step out, close the door behind me. Now people, you know, in the bulkhead and in the second row, they've all watched this weird little dance. So they're not quite sure what's going on, but now they can smell it too.

And I have no idea who went in there before me. But to Sedaris's point, as I walked back to seat five-eastern. I looked everybody in the face as I went. And they were probably looking at me as some sort of criminal. Maybe they knew me. Maybe they didn't. But I knew what I was looking for.

Somebody, one of those persons, went in there and did something that I think was borderline illegal. I even had to say to the flight attendant on the way out, hey, you know, I don't want to belabor the point, but that wasn't me. And she's like, yes, sir. Thank you for flying United. Thank you. Thank you. We really appreciate your business. What I want to know is, did you peruse first class? Did you look everybody in the eyeball and do a Columbo and try and figure out who would do such a horrible thing? Well, yes, like I said, I did that, but I didn't pull out my notepad and I didn't conduct any interviews.

Excuse me. Excuse me. Was that you in there? One more thing. Yeah. I was torn between getting to the bottom of this and, you know, filing charges and just getting back to my seat and pulling my hat down over my eyes and just counting the minutes till this flight was over. Sure. So anyhow. And then as I thought about this more and more, again, not knowing that the anniversary of Thomas Crapper's baptism would soon be upon us, I just thought about all the conversations that we've had over the years. and really every grown-up who I consider a friend at some point, maybe over a shot of whiskey, maybe in a vulnerable moment, maybe just to pass the time, sooner or later, people talk about these great disappointments, these near misses, if you will.

And my God, we all have them. Yeah, I'm trying to think if I've had one. You nearly destroyed the office. Oh, yeah. That was not a near miss. That was just an unusual. set of circumstances. Share. Share, Chuck. Okay. I want to hear it. I believe the audience of the way I heard it needs to hear what you did at the headquarters of MicroWorks a year and a half ago. Oh, I think it was longer

than that. It was when you were writing your book and you were staying in pH3, which is sort of like an apartment that we have attached to the office. Yeah, by all means, tell everybody where I sleep when I'm in L.A. I appreciate that. It ain't first class. I'll tell you that. No. Anyway, you don't always sleep there, but you were there. And I slept on the couch in Mary's office. Right.

Just because, you know, we were there late and, you know, and I didn't want to drive home. So, and I had been constipated for a few days. Okay, I said it. And I could not sleep. You know, it's maybe 11.30 midnight, something like that. You're across the hall in the apartment. I'm on the couch. I'm settling in and I can't fall asleep.

And I lay there tossing and turning and my stomach is just so, I'm just so, it's swollen, it's hurting. And thankfully, I feel like, wait a minute, I think maybe I can go. Let me try. And I go to the bathroom and the floodgates open, metaphorically speaking, to the tune of like, I don't want to go into detail, but I produced a lot of fecal matter. You were no longer. I was no longer constipated and the toilet was full. Maximum capacity.

Yes, there was no more room at the end. And so I gave the old flush and the toilet just said, like that's going to do anything. And, you know, things swirled around and I was like, oh, this is not good. This is not good. And I tried it again. And, you know, you wait until it sort of drains down a little bit. And I'm like, man, that was something.

And then I had to go again. And so I'm like, oh, what do I do? Oh, geez. Let's see. The only other toilet is where you're sleeping over there. And I'm like, no, no, no. All right. You know what?

This will be fine. So I go again. And it's equally disturbing. In the same toilet that you haven't been able to flush. Yes. I'm like sweating profusely. It feels like it's 100 degrees in there. And I'm like, oh, but finally all this is out of me, which is great.

And so again, I'm letting me. And I'm left with now I've got twice the dilemma. I flush again, more swirling, more disappointment. And I'm like, I need a plunger. So I actually just left the toilet, went back to sleep. I forgot that. And then about 45 minutes later, I had to go again. And I came back in and did it again, right?

So now it's the second time or the third time. This is the second time. Okay, good. This is a second time. This wasn't an all continuous thing. Now the toilet is still jammed. And it's now like three in the morning. and I'm like, well, I know someone's going to be in here, you know, around 7.30, 8 o'clock.

Yeah, they're called employees. We have them. And they need that bathroom. They really do. It's got to be taken care of. I'm looking everywhere for a plunger. I mean, we're micro works for crying out loud, right? We should have a plunger somewhere in the office. And I couldn't find one. So I thought, well, there must be one in the bathroom over there. So I go over and I unlock the door. I step in. And you're kind of like, me. And I go, just me, buddy, just, I'm looking for something. You know, and then you roll over. Anyway, you got nothing in there.

I feel a third one coming on. And I'm like, okay, I'm not going to do it right here. I'm going to go back to the lousy toilet. I went back. I laid a third one in there. Unbelievable. And then I said, okay, I got to fix this. So I got in my car and I drove to the nearest drugstore,

which was probably about a mile and a half away. Have you tried Drug City in Dundalk, Maryland? They've got everything. And I bought a plunger, came back, and I started plunging this thing. And it's like 4.30 in the morning now, and I'm plunging the thing. And you know how the cup end will sort of invert and the stick goes all the way down? So the thing's inverted. And it's stuck there.

And so I pulled it. And then that thing snapped back and just all of this filth and disappointment shot. straight up into my face. Bedazzled you were. I was entirely bedazzled. And with your own scat. And horrified. Because I'm grunting and grunt and I'm like,

my mouth is open. I'm just going to leave it there. And I am now ready to vomit. I don't. But it's all over the floor. It's all over the walls. And it's all over me. And so now I take off all my clothes.

So now I'm standing in the bathroom in the office completely naked using my shirt to wipe the crap off the wall and the floor. And four in the morning. And this went on for a while. And, of course, we didn't have a mop or anything. So I'm using paper towels. I finally get the thing flushed and gone. I get the bathroom cleaned up. And by now it's like 7.30 or something like that.

and I go and lay down on the couch thinking, okay, good. You know, now when they come in in the morning, it'll be fine. And wouldn't you know if the door opens and in walks the first person for the day? Rise and shine. I got up and I was like, don't go in the bathroom for a minute. Do not go in there. Here, let me show you a picture. I'm going to, in a minute, I'm going to read you the story I was talking about before

when I very nearly humiliated myself on the, the Golden Gate Bridge, which led to a great many other things, by the way. But before I do that, are you familiar with this toilet, this photo? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's Mrs. What's her name? I forgot. Mrs. Frazier. Frazier, Mrs. Frazier's toilet. Yeah, yeah, that was on dirty jobs. Yeah, yeah, and that's the other reason I'm actually dedicating an hour, which is nearly up, by the way, to Thomas Crapper's birthday. I don't know that I have a career without the toilet, you know. I mean, never mind,

quality of life I've got, but the first season of Dirty Jobs really was an homage to feces from every species. And that woman, Mrs. Frazier, lived in a, I can't remember if it was Staten Island or Brooklyn. I've blocked so much of it out. But we were shooting the first season. And I remember we had a line on a, we had a disaster cleanup crew called Omega. And they were going to take us into a cleanup situation after a fire. And they called Barski the night before and said, hey, that fire thing is still good if you want it. But we got ourselves an exploding toilet if you're interested. And Barski was like, tell me more. Apparently, some explosion had happened in the vast subterranean network of pipes under some random street in some residential area. And the results of that

explosion sent many hundreds of pounds of raw sewage flying through the pipes. And a lot of it exited right there from Mrs. Frazier's toilet in the basement. And when I walked in there, for those of you listening, Mike is showing a picture of said toilets and him in front of it from Dirty Jobs. Yeah. It was, I mean, it's difficult to put your mind. It was like walking into that restroom on the plane except times a thousand because there was two feet of sewage on the floor and an otherwise tasteful wreck room had been completely bedazzled with her neighbor's filth. That's what made it so horrible, Chuck.

When you see a wedding photo, your wedding photo, with your neighbor's poop on it, you start to think, it's a very fine line between Armageddon and the polite society we have. And it's made possible, you know, it's maintained by ballcocks and plumbers and the miracle of modern plumbing. which brings us back to Thomas Crapper.

God bless him. Where would we be without him? We would be sitting in our own stink, I guess. Well, I was going to say, for starters, we certainly wouldn't be doing this episode. When we come back, I'm going to say goodbye to you, but I'm going to read you one more thing. It's not Sedaris quality, but it's pretty funny. It wound up reaching about 8 million people on Facebook and led to a book that was very nearly greenlit. called, oh no, oh no, oh no,

which we will discuss after this final commercial break here on the 186th anniversary of Thomas Crapper's birth and or baptism. Baptism. The federal government is not going to close America's skills gap. They have an important role to play for sure, but if we're serious about reinvigorating the skilled trades on a national level, We need more organizations like Skills USA making a real difference on a local level. These guys have been around since 1965, and today they are relevant like never before,

with hundreds of chapters in schools all over the country and hundreds of thousands of students participating and competing every year. Nobody is doing more to train the next generation of skilled workers than Skills USA. And I'm encouraging you to at least consider being a part of the job. this movement. Skills USA advisors and volunteers aren't just teaching trades. They're launching careers and strengthening the backbone of our country by mentoring the next generation of industry leaders. In high school, you could be among the people who are making this movement explode. Join the skilled trades movement. Support career and technical education programs through Skills USA. There's no

better way to do it. You can volunteer at a local chapter. You can start a chapter in your own town. Or you can just go to their website and see the impact for yourself and see too how easy it is to get involved. Thousands of kids are being introduced to the trades in a way that's absolutely positively moving the needle. The goal is a million members by 2030. I think it's doable. I'm doing what I can to help them. Learn more at skillsusa.org slash mic. That's skillsusa.org slash mic. I'm talking skills, U.S. skills, U.S. skills, U.S. Dills USA I thought that was a terrific ad.

I think I'm getting better at these ad reads. What do you think? Oh, you don't want to know what I think. No, I don't. Did you find the story that I want to read on the Facebook? Yes, I did. I got it right here. This is not the original version,

but I like this because you're answering someone's question who mentions something. You know, everybody has one of these stories and this guy references his wife's. It says intestinal mutiny, all too human revisited. So I guess that's what, it must have been called intestinal mutiny. I guess. I don't remember.

Before. Anyway. So, hey, Mike, you wrote something last March about almost crapping your pants on the Golden Gate Bridge. I remember the date because it was my birthday, but I can't find the story on your timeline. Anyway, something similar happened to my wife last night on the subway. Can you post it again? I think it might cheer her up, Frank Allen. And you said,

Hi, Frank, my sympathies to your wife and to you. This was originally written in response to a guy who was upset because I had been photographed holding a cup of coffee from Starbucks. I'm sure it made him feel better. I hope the same for your wife. Okay. As you listen to this, just know that, you know, I try to put something up on Facebook every day,

and this is just the thing that happened to happen to me on this particular day. Perhaps you'll hear something at it that sounds familiar. Here on the 186th anniversary of Thomas Crapper's birth or baptism. Or baptism.

In my ongoing quest to maintain the illusion of fitness, I got up once again this morning and jogged across the Golden Gate Bridge. Fueled by a venty latte and a double shot of espresso, I left the local Starbucks with my usual levels of energy and ambition, eager to meet the new day, and shed a few pounds. It was a perfect morning.

The sun crept over the San Francisco skyline, lighting up the bridge in that specific shade of orange, unique to the Golden Gate. The bay shimmered below me in hues of silver and blue. The Marin headlands twinkled in the distance like a pile of massive emeralds, and a soft breeze off the ocean cooled the sweat on my face. All was run. right with the world. However, as I reached the Socellito side and turned back for home, something went horribly wrong. Technically, I guess it was a cramp, but it felt more like an ice pick, tearing into what personal trainers now call the core. This was not a runner's stitch brought about by a lack of oxygen. This was something else altogether. A stabbing sensation

that literally knocked the wind out of me before vanishing as quickly as it appeared. Stunned by the sudden pain and gasping for breath, I began to consider the wisdom of that extra espresso when another cramp flew into my guts on the tip of a spear, this one somewhere below my belly button and even more painful than the first. Clearly, the Starbucks Venti latte had made it into my colon,

where it now conspired with last night's prime rib and lobster mashed potato. Their plan, as best I could tell, seemed to involve an immediate and unscheduled exit from my large intestines. Like Al Roker and millions of other mostly continent Americans, I'm all too human. And yes, I too was once betrayed by that small yet critical muscle that preserves our dignity and separates us from the animals. In fact, some years ago, I had a serious conversation with the publisher about compiling a collection of true stories of successful adults who had somehow managed to crap their pants in public. I swear this is true. The details were never flushed out, so to speak, but I couldn't help but think

that a catastrophic failure in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge would be hard to top. Regardless, it was not an honor. I aspired to. The situation was dire, and I was appalled at how quickly things had devolved. I was about two and a half miles from home and began to calculate the time to my personal toilet if I maintained a steady speed of seven miles an hour. About 18 minutes. Not good. I figured I might have ten minutes before the ultimate humiliation, maybe less, and concluded that the odds were very much against getting off the bridge unsullied. As if to confirm my fears, another spasm arrived, and this one brought tears to my eyes. Like, labor pains, the interval between each successive cramp was becoming shorter and shorter.

This was not the call of nature. This was more like a shriek. Obviously, standing still would not fix the problem, and while running was no less risky, it would at least get me closer to a commode. And so I ran. Like Forrest Gump, I ran for my life. Every step, a new dimension in pain. And I knew my lower july. GI tract would soon declare a complete and total mutiny. So I not only ran, I prayed. I prayed for mercy and kindness. I prayed for control. I prayed for some divine intervention. And miracle of miracles, my prayers were answered. Pictured above me is a porta potty and two guys from Vulcan construction who happened to be working on a sewer main of all things, about a mile from my

apartment. That's Larry on the left. He sent me this photo after taking it with my thanks. I didn't get the other guy's name, but I'm indebted to them both. As you may know, porta-potties on construction sites are not meant for use by the general public, and most of them in San Francisco are locked up when not in use. Thankfully, for both me and for the community at large. The men at Vulcan are not proprietary with regard to their porta-potty. They allowed me quick access and asked only for a simple photo in return. I would have given so much more. I'll spare you the details of what happened inside. Suffice it to say, I made it to a seated posture with maybe half a second to spare and unleashed what Larry called an homage to Bastille Day. Construction workers

are funnier than you'd think. Likewise, the particulars of my final sprint across the Golden Gate are best left to the imagination, though I can tell you that many an early morning commuter caught a glimpse of the dirty jobs guy in full flight, stopping every 50 feet or so to scream frantically at the heavens while making the only face one can possibly make when his entire purpose in life is not to disgrace himself

on a national landmark. On the positive side, I don't think I've ever lost more weight on a five-mile run. Thanks, Starbucks. Yeah. That's a near miss, man. That could have gone so south for you. Can you imagine, have you ever actually crapped your pants? Yes.

Well, as an adult, yes. Yeah, as an adult. Yeah. No, as a child, I was remarkably common. Yeah, I did, sort of. There was an occasion where I thought it was one thing, but it was another. Oh, I'm familiar with this, yes. Yeah, that's, I think that's happened to everyone.

When was that? Just now. Roar. Yeah, no, I was just sitting and typing, and I thought I needed to do a thing. And I did the thing, but the thing was not the thing. You needed to do something else. It turns out it was not dead at all. Straight up my back.

I'm amazing. Amazing. Awful. God, I can't believe we're talking about this. And then you do the duck walk, you know, or the bow-legged cowboy walk, I guess I should say. It was in my old apartment. I was five feet from the toilet. That's the irony. I didn't even think I had to go. I was just sitting there typing. I was writing a story. And I was like, uh-oh, got to take that. And then just suddenly it came and went. And then, wow, what a disappointment. It's so humbling, isn't it?

It's so humbling to realize you think you think you have control. It really is like a metaphor for everything. You think you got it all figured out, you know, and then you poop your pants, and then, my goodness, you don't have anything figured out at all. Not even how to keep that O ring shut. Oh, man. Well, look, those are the exceptions, thankfully. We've all endured them, and to my way of thinking, they bring the species closer together.

But, man, if you're going to go down the list of great inventions, I swear, I don't know how you top indoor plumbing. you know, we just wouldn't have it without crapper. It's so true. Did you by any chance come across those images of the, like, the medieval toilets where, like, just, it's just a hole that you sit on and it goes outside the castle wall into the moat? It was so bad, dude. I mean, it's just hard to imagine. And so, too, is the way we've sanitized it in movies.

I mean, every Western you've ever seen would have featured a street completely. filled with horse dung. But you never see it at all. It's just all magically gone. They say, in Rome, even, the people gave us the viaducts. The raised sidewalks were raised because the streets literally

flowed with the fluvium. Excreda. Amazing. You know, and I mean, they used to yell slops before just dumping buckets of crap out the window. And good luck if you're below, we were literally all of us bespeckled, bedazzled, up to our necks in it for centuries.

And now we're not. Unless or until we are. And isn't that a good thing? Yeah, until we are, right? Again, though, I don't know that I got dirty jobs without it. This is probably a good place to land the plane. I kind of made the point before, but I think it's, I just think it's so incredible that in Thomas Crapper's Day, there was no such thing as a plumbing showroom. You couldn't put a toilet on display anywhere. You couldn't even talk about that business. And today, a show called Dirty Jobs made a whole meal of it, as it were. And here we sit. Does it make us more progressive, more enlightened? You know, is potty humor incredibly funny, totally dark, deeply irresponsible, or something and in between? I don't know. I just know that we spent an hour talking about it.

And leave us a five-star review. Have you enjoyed this discussion? And even if you didn't. No, seriously, thank you all for your indulgence. You know, this is what happens when I can't get an actual guest. I look to the calendar. I try to find an occasion. I sit down with my old buddy Chuck, and we have ourselves a little catch-up. Glad you came along for this one. Big thanks to David Sedaris for giving me permission to read that. I hope you didn't hate it. And a big thanks to you, Chuck, for doing whatever it is you do on this podcast. And by God, for keeping our advertisers more or less pleased and all of it. Just all of it. Here on the anniversary, the 186th anniversary of Thomas Crapper's birthday.

Or baptism. This episode is over now. I hope it was worthwhile. Sorry it went on so long, but if it made you smile, then share your satisfaction in the way that people do. Take some time to go on live

And leave us a review I hate to ask, I hate to beg, I hate to be a nudge But in this world, the advertisers really like to judge You don't need to write a bunch, just a line or two All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review Not four All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review And not three

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