Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - HTDE: Burritos and Handshakes

Episode Date: April 29, 2026

Ian and Mike help a caller solve a handshake issue. Plus, how to mourn the loss of a favorite dish.You can email your burning questions to [e-mail] To Do Everything is available without sponsor messages for supporters of Wait Wait…Don't Tell Me+, who also get bonus episodes of Wait Wait Don't…Tell Me! featuring show outtakes, extended guest interviews, and a chance to play an exclusive WW+ quiz game with Peter! Sign up and support NPR at plus.npr.org.How To Do Everything is hosted by Mike Danforth and Ian Chillag. It is produced by Schuyler Swenson. Technical direction from Lorna White.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Hey guys, it's Peter once again in your wait, wait, wait feed. I am so pleased to present to you another episode of How to Do Everything by Wait, Weight producers, Ian and Mike. Now, remember, you can only get these episodes of how to do everything in our feed for a short while. So if you love the kind of mysteries that Mike and Ian are revealing, make sure you subscribe to how to do everything at their own feed. Thanks. Andrea is an athletic trainer.

she wrote into us with a technique for stopping a nosebleed, something we'd never heard of. Andrea, what's going on here? So there's this trend in athletic training called the heel thump for stopping nosebleeds. And basically you figure out which nostril the patient is bleeding from, and then either have them lay down and like whack the bottom of the opposite heel with your hand, or you have them stand up and you have them stomp on that opposite heel on the ground. I don't know how it works. Some athletic trainers really swear by it.

And I've actually tried it once or twice. This works about 50, 60% of the time for me. Some people, like I said, swear by it. But nobody really knows how it works. You said it's called the heel thump. Yeah. So if I'm bleeding from my right nostril, you would either whack me in my left heel

or I would stomp my left heel on the ground. Yeah. And typically when you have a nose blade, it does come out of one nostril. I think if you have a double nose blade, you're in real trouble there. You might as well just start jumping up and down. Wait, would that work actually?

Could you just jump up and down? I'm not really sure. I've only really seen it work out of one. It feels like if somebody's bleeding from both nostrils and they start jumping up and down, it feels like just the blood splatter would be something you would want to avoid. Oh, that gets pretty gruesome, yeah. Andrea, what happened the last time you had a kid with a nosebleed and you said, All right, lay down.

I'm going to start banging on your foot. They do look at me pretty curiously. They look at me like I've got two heads. But most of the time, I've developed a really good relationship with my athletes, so they trust me when I tell them to do something. They'll usually do it. What is that dialogue like? Most often, when I work with high school athletes, I work with high school wrestlers.

Unfortunately, nose leads are very common in high school wrestling. Yeah, sure. You know, because you get your face shoved in the mat. You're face to face with an opponent. And in a lot of high school wrestling, you only have about two minutes to solve whatever injury you have on the mat before the athlete has to go back or they're disqualified. So time is of the essence. And really in that situation, they don't really question what I tell them to do. So I say, hey, lay down real quick.

And then I take a hand and make a fist. And then I whack them on the bottom of their wrestling shoe a couple times. I have them sit up. I say, okay, you're good to go. and they look at me funny, but they go back and they finish their match. If you thump the wrong heel, does the blood flow increase?

That's another good question. I don't think there's a way to screw it up. Okay. Oh, shoot, I hit the wrong foot, but my tooth just fell out. I was very curious. We looked into this. There's actually been,

it's classified as a folk remedy. There's no. So, you know, peer-reviewed research into why it might work. And if you try this, if you have a bloody nose or if you know someone who does and you want to give this a shot, let us know what happens. Don't go out and induce a nosebleed just to try it. We don't want that. We can't be, we're not going to be held responsible for that. This is How to Do Everything.

I'm Mike. And I'm Ian. On today's show, how to say goodbye to a burrito. But first, hey, Isaac. What can we help you with? All right. So I'm missing a hand. And it makes handshakes very awkward.

And whenever I meet someone, the first thing I'm supposed to do is extend my hand. And if I don't say anything, they grab it and get startled and then try to pretend like they weren't startled. And it's an awkward start to a relationship. and if I say something, like missing a hand, it's a weird thing to say as the first thing I ever say when I meet someone. Yeah. So when you say they grab it, they grab your left hand, your other hand? I'm missing my right hand. I can put my right hand out.

It's like, it's like just a small deformed hand. Okay. And they grab it and it feels weird to them and they didn't expect it. Got it. I can also stick my left hand out, which I did for a while, but that ends up being like a kiss the back of my hand sort of help me. into a carriage kind of situation. Oh, uh-huh. Yeah.

You don't want to start off with on a dainty foot either. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Is there a time, like a specific instance that you remember when it was particularly uncomfortable? It's been happening my whole life. But, like, I've had a few job interviews where I walked in looking for the manager of the pizza place as a teenager and met the guy and tried to start.

shake his hand and it was weird and it was like the only chance I got to ask for a job. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so it's a lot of things like that. It's a lot of professional relationships that just start off on a weird foot and I'm not really sure what to do about that. Yeah. Are you ever in a situation where you fist bump with the left hand? Is that any better?

That's the best option I found. Okay. Unfortunately, that doesn't always work in formal business situations. Yeah. This might be Isaac the time to bring back a kiss on both cheeks. Yeah, it could be, or maybe a hip bump. Oh, that's fun. Yeah. So I guess the question is, are we looking for just like a good way to kind of break the ice on this? Yeah, sure, like a good strategy. I've tried a lot of different things.

I'll decide I'm going to try a new thing. Like right now I say, missing a hand before someone shakes my hand. Yeah. It doesn't really work. I've been using that. for like a year. If you've got a new idea I can try, that'd be awesome. Well, I want to say that you've come to the right place, but I can't promise that. But we're here, and we're going to look into this for you. Okay, I appreciate that. Yeah, I figured you'd have some interesting thing to say about it. If nothing else. We think we have the perfect person to talk to about this. It's Mike Conley of the Minnesota

Timberwolves. And as we speak, they are up three, two. over the Denver Nuggets in the NBA playoffs. Conley is, I think it's fair to say, the greatest handshaker of our era. Yes. Corner pocket for Mike Conley. What you're hearing here is Mike Conley hitting a three, then walking along the bench

and giving a different elaborate handshake to every single one of his teammates. Mike, how many handshakes do you have? I should have one with all of them. If not, it's because they're probably newer to the team or I'm still trying to develop. But I got like at least 45, 50 amongst the whole organization right now. So that's a lot. Whoa.

Wait a minute. Just with the Timberwolves, you have 40 handshakes? It's up there. It's up there for sure. Wow. How do you remember them all? Honestly, it's gotten to a point where I like, It's like a facial recognition thing.

Like as soon as you see the person, it just comes out. Like, you just, it goes to reach for their arm and hand or whatever, and they'll start doing a handshake, and you just start doing a handshake, and it's like, oh, yeah. You know, it's just like second nature. You don't even think twice about it. What's the most recent handshake you have? Most recent one.

Probably IEO is probably the most recent one. Because I came in a couple weeks after he was straight here. This is probably impossible to do. in audio, but can you describe one of your, one of your favorite handshakes, just everything that goes on from start to finish? Yeah, so since we were talking about I-O, it was fresh on my mind. So each one has a life of its own. It's kind of dictated upon like your relationship with that person. So if there's something that y'all have in common or if you like the golf or whatever you, your hobby is, whatever it is, you try to like find something that fits to both of us.

And then I.O., we play cards on the plane. That was like one of the first interactions I had with him was being on playing, playing cards. So our handshake literally is like, you know, you go to slap hands and you go one pass by, you hit the back side of your hand, and you do two times on the front side of your hands, and then we act like we're dealing cards. So we'll deal like three cards or like deal five cards, whatever it is that we need for that day. So it's kind of like a fluid handshake, but each day it could be, you know, we'll ask for them. I'll ask them as soon as I'm getting like in the middle of handshake, I'll be, you know, dapping them up.

And then after we do like two or three passes with our hands, we'll start dealing our cars and like how many you need. And it's like one or two or three or five, whatever it is. And we'll just kind of go from there. But everybody's got their own special deal and something like that. on the lines of something that's familiar with each other. Wow. And like when you are, so you and I.O. You're getting to know each other.

At what point in the relationship, or how does it happen that you guys work that out, that you get to a point? Does everybody know you've got to get a handshake with Mike Conley? Right. It's got to be organic. We don't sit there and like stare at each other and say, all right, we've got to figure this out.

You know what I mean? It's not one of those things. It's one of those moments. You know, when it normally happens is like, normally happens like either during a practice day or like a right before the game when, you know, I am giving handshakes out to everybody and you're going down the line as you get down the bench, you start tapping up everybody and you get to IEO and I look at it. I'm like, man, we ain't got a handshake yet.

And so this, you know, from that time, I'm like, all right, here, I got it. I got, I got it. And then we'll just like, boom, boom, boom. And then he'll think it's, you know, it's all right. I'll think it's all right. And kind of go from there. So it kind of happens spur of the moment. but there's a little bit of thought that goes into it though.

Yeah. So, Mike, you heard Isaac's question. What advice might you have for him? Man, I can say, like, from experience with, like, guys who, like, this certain guy, like you might injure a hand, right? Like, injure, break a finger or break a wrist or something like that. So you're unable to use one side. And so you still try to do hands.

shakes and it's like you know people will still go grab your hand real hard it's like bro my fingers broken or whatever you know just kind of like a lot of stuff like that can can occur and most times when when like we're in that situation like we do try to go like lead lead the dance with that other hand whatever hand that's not injured or whatever or not having an issue like well like if you're meeting somebody you like immediately jump out of it and be like what's up bro and like bring that hand out immediately like to where they have no choice but to bring their left hand out. Or, like, depending on how close you are with them or if it's closer people, like,

doing stuff with, you know, chest bumps and elbows and, like, all kinds of stuff. And we got some guys who get sick a lot on our team, too. So we'll bypass the hands and go straight to elbows, like, taps and stuff like that that'll make it really easy to bypass having to shake hands, but it's still, like, greeting each other. So, yeah, you know, I'd probably look into something like that. Yeah, I think that's right. I think the elbow coming into play seems really, really smart.

Isaac was saying that it's particularly hard, like in a business setting, a job interview. As somebody who designs a lot of handshakes, what's the most business-like thing you could do with an elbow, do you think? What would you do, given that assignment? Wow. I mean, literally, like, you know, it's the fist pump with the elbow, you know, because I meet people a lot in different settings. and sometimes you're meeting so many people and you might be in a situation like I you know my hands are sweaty

I just got in you know from doing this I just want to you know you throw out the fist pump really quick it's very nice to meet you you know making eye contact and all that stuff and it could be very similar to that with an elbow and like I think Isaac said is you know trying to announce whatever that is you know at the start of your conversation

you know is always I think a good idea and whether you have success or not, so I think it's probably the right route. Let me ask, this is a dumb question, Mike, so bear with me. Have you ever hurt your hand and has it impacted the game because of a handshake?

No, but the one person who can kind of, you know, hit a knuckle the wrong way is Rudy, Rudy Gobert has, he wears, like, if he's not playing in the game, yeah, he wear, like, these big old, like, rings that have, like, you know, his hands are big, anyway, but these huge rings with, like, jewels and stuff on.

I don't know what, they're, like, rocks or something. And when he hits, like, the back of my hand sometimes, like, I'll catch a ring on my, like, knuckle. And I'm like, oh, my God, I can't play. You know, it's, like, that painful. But other than that, everybody else's handshakes are pretty nonviolent. Well, Mike, thank you so much for talking to us about this and helping out Isaac. Yeah, anytime, man. I hope it helps.

and glad I was able to be on. Hey, if you have any questions and you want our help, go ahead and send them to us at how-to at npr.org. We're about to take a little break, but during that break, we're going to build up all of your questions into an almost insurmountable pile that we will then answer until the end of time.

We will make a question pinaata, and then every episode we will take a bat, we will beat that pinaata, and whatever questions come out, we will answer. We will treat that question like a piece of candy. We will unwrap it, and we will take it on. You can be one of the first questions that we stuff inside of that paper-mache donkey. Get it to us at how-to at npr.org.

Hey, Rachel. What can we help you with? Well, I am mourning a burrito that I had for about 10 years and then went away when the restaurant changed ownership and their menu changed as well. You said you're mourning the burrito. I am, yeah. It's something I think about a lot and that I'll probably never have again. I mean, it's, yeah, like, I feel like it was an Indian-Mexican fusion burrito. And so I think it's something that's sort of hard to recreate on my own because I would

have to develop like a mastery of cooking Indian food, which seems unlikely. Yeah. Have you tried to either recreate it or, you know, go to different restaurants and see if they can, you know, try and match your expectations? I tried to go back to, so the place, the way I discovered that it was dead is I went to the place where I had been going for many years, only to discover that it had changed hands, that the menu had changed. And I tried to order what I had previously ordered, which was no longer listed on the menu. It was, yeah, a panir-a-cicam masala breakfast burrito. So it was like panir-tikamasala, eggs, hash browns. Wow. All inside, like a really massive tortilla.

It was like a three-pound burrito. Dang. And the other tough thing, too, was they had really amazing mint chutney that was like a, you know, like the color of the coolant that you put in your car, basically. Nice. That is no longer in existence either. And so that's another problem area. Yeah. That sounds hard. So when was last time you had it? The last time I had it, probably like, I guess it would have been about two, like a year and a half ago.

Okay. And I guess you didn't, and I guess you didn't know that was the last time you were having it. No, I didn't. Yeah. That's how it is. You know, you never know what might be your last moment with a person or a burrito. So, hmm, I guess the question for us is. like, so what, how can we help you? Do you want us to help you process this loss or find a new burrito? I mean, I feel like this is a common phenomenon. You know, people have this problem all the time where like a dish that they love, you know, disappears because a restaurant closes or like a product in stores, like a food product, you know, is discontinued. And there's no, like, I feel like there should be a grieving ritual for processing that kind of a lot. All right.

Rachel, we're going to see what we can do. Cool. Oh, yeah. Thank you, guys. We got off the phone with Rachel, and we thought it would be fun to have a priest deliver a eulogy for her burrito to help give her the closure she needs. So we called up Father James Martin. He's author of the new book, Work in Progress, Confessions of a Bus Boy dishwasher, Caddy Usher, Factory Worker, Factory Worker, Bankteller, Corporate Tool, and Priest. So, like I said, we had the idea that he would give a eulogy for this burrito.

We talked to him, and the conversation actually got more serious, more sincere than maybe our usual how to do everything interview. But we want you to hear it because what we have here is actually helpful for people who are mourning, no matter what it is. Burritos or not? Probably not a burrito. Okay, so here we go. Father Jim, what do you have for Rachel who says she's... Morning a burrito. And she's serious, right?

Yes. In as much as anyone is, I think, she told us that she would have this lunch. I think, Ian, correct me if I'm wrong, for like 10 years, this is what she would eat. And then something happened with a restaurant. It changed hands. She's gone back, and they are not able to recreate it. Yeah, well, it sounds like she's also grieving or mourning those 10 years, too. So it probably represents something that's larger for her.

Yeah, so maybe it's a question of just letting go of that part of your life or that period in your life, you know, more than letting go of the burrito. Yes. Wow. Yeah. She, you know, so she had it for the last time a year and a half ago. She didn't know this was the last time she was going to have this burrito. So she didn't really have a chance to say goodbye, which I think is, you know, that echoes with some of my experience of grief. when, you know, you often don't know that you're spending your last moments with a person or with, in her case, a burrito.

Yeah, I don't want to trivialize what she's talking about because it, you know, like Proust's Madeline, right, it can kind of star up memories. And as I said, it does sound like she might be grieving the last 10 years. You know, I lost my mom a couple weeks ago and I was actually with her on the last day of her life. So I was able to say goodbye. But for people, like letting go of people, I think, you know, as a Christian, I believe, you know, they're in heaven and we can say goodbye to them in our prayer. One of the things that we can do to sort of help us say goodbye to something was something that was recommended to me by a trappist spiritual director. My mom had moved out of her house. And he said as a meditation, why don't you imagine yourself going through the rooms with God?

Or if you're not a believer, just kind of going through those rooms. and remembering all the things that happened in those rooms and letting it go, which was really quite powerful in your house, your bedroom, the living room, kitchen, all that. And what happened to me in this meditation, which I found very powerful was, as I imagined myself leaving the house with Jesus in my prayer, I expected in my meditation I would shut the door, right, and that would be it. But the door was open and I realized that I could go back any time I wanted to. Right, I could go back to that imaginative recreation of my house and sort of live there and dwell there and remember things there.

And maybe for your caller, you know, it's an invitation to go back and look at what happened in the last 10 years and kind of grieve that and say goodbye to it. Wow. That's really beautiful. That is. Yeah, it was very helpful for me because I think the door to our memory is always open. and, you know, with something even as simple as a burrito. And, again, it's like Proust Madelan or something that can sort of trigger memories. You can always go back in your memory and thank God for that time,

or if you're not religious, just be grateful, you know, for the time that has been given to you. I'm just, I feel like I just want to acknowledge the feelings that I'm having right now, which is that is so beautiful. I also, I feel guilty that we have brought you this question. about grieving a burrito when you have experienced this very real loss in your life. And I'm very sorry for your loss. And it feels funny that we've brought up this burrito. No, that's okay.

You know, I would say everybody, that's why I asked specifically at the beginning if she was serious, because I want to make sure she was serious. Everyone has different things that they grieve. And, you know, not everyone has lost their mother in the last couple of months. But, you know, the loss of a job, the loss of relationship, the loss of a familiar way of life, which it sounds like this burrito represents. And, you know, I would say to people, everyone's suffering is meaningful to them.

Right. So we have to take it seriously. Everybody's sort of experiences are meaningful to themselves, so we have to take that seriously. This is a surprisingly profound response to the loss of a burrito, but I think it, hopefully it will help Rachel. I hope so.

And I hope she's, you know, it's also, you know, there's lots of new burrito. that you can try, right? It's also about moving ahead, too. It's funny, because it almost sounds like we're speaking euphemistically, but we are talking literally about a burrito. I'm speaking a little bit more euphemistic, maybe metaphorically.

Look, I mean, there's kind of gradations of grieving and saying goodbye and sadness. You know, in the middle, there's lots of stuff going on for people, and everybody has to say goodbye. You know, I think that's part of growing, saying goodbye to something. Yeah. Yeah. Which means saying hello to something else.

If you were to, if you were tasked with eulogizing a burrito for someone, where might you begin? This burrito, even, this paneer-ticka-masa-masala breakfast burrito. Eulogizing it, meaning kind of composing something that. I guess a homily, is that the right word? Yeah, I would not, just be blunt, I would not do a homily about a burrito. But I might say, you know, you might say something to Rachel. that maybe it would be good to write down the pleasant memories that were associated with that. Because it can't be just the burrito.

I'm sure it's people she knew in the store and stuff that was going on in her life at the time. And maybe people she ate the burrito with just to recall those things. There's a Jesuit prayer called the examination of conscience where you recall things. You and St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuit, said you savor them. You actually savor them like you're savoring a meal. And then you thank God. So part of it's just kind of calling that to mind and maybe listing the things that you're grateful for in conjunction with that experience. Well, this is great.

Father James Martin, thank you so much for entertaining this question for us. My pleasure. Thanks for inviting me on. Well, that does it for today's show. What we learned today, Mike? Well, I learned that high-fiving or coming up with a cool handshake can actually hurt people. It can be dangerous if a player is wearing fancy big rings. Yeah, be careful what you have on your hand when you're high-fiving someone. Actually, I do think if you ever, like if you're somebody who's never won a championship,

you never have that championship ring, in some ways it makes it easier for you to be someone you can do a high-five with. Yeah. So to the NBA team, who in a few weeks loses the chance to fulfill your lifelong dream and you go home with, Nothing. Yeah. Keep in mind, you're going to give better handshakes. Better handshakes, better high fives. Gentleer handshakes.

No one's going to want them because you lost. Yeah. But in the rare opportunity, somebody puts their hand up for you. You can rest easy knowing you're not going to hurt them. If you ever run into Charles Barkley, have no fear. You can give him the hardest high five ever because he never won a championship. Reggie Miller, you're welcome here. Let's shake hands.

When Charles Barkley and Reggie Miller hear this episode, They're going to be really sad. How to Do Everything is produced by Skyler Swinson with technical direction from Lorna White. Go ahead and send us your question. Send them to us at how to at npr.org. We're going on a short break, but we'll be back soon and we'll get to your questions. We promise. I'm Ian.

And I'm Mike. Thanks.