Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - HTDE: Haircuts in Space, Tutus, and the Nasal Ranger

Episode Date: September 4, 2024

Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me! producers Mike and Ian are back with their podcast How To Do Everything. On their first episode: how to cut your hair in space, how to clean your tutu, and how to tell if you smell.You can email your burning questions to [e-mail]. How 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 exclusive games, behind-the-scenes content, and more. Sign up and support NPR at plus.npr.org.How To Do Everything is produced by Heena Srivastava. Engineering by Patrick Murray.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from the Center for US Voters Abroad Foundation. If you're a US citizen living abroad, the Center for US Voters Abroad Turnout Project's online form will walk you through requesting your ballot in just five minutes. Visit internationalvoter.com. Hey, it's Peter. So a while ago, two of WaitWait's producers, Mike Danforth and Ian Chillock, told me they wanted to add something new to our relationship, a new podcast they would be doing on the side called How to Do Everything. It wasn't an easy adjustment for me to make. I thought we were all committed to monopodcasty, but one of the rules of healthy relationships is you have to let your partners move on and grow. So, sure enough, they created How to Do Everything,

a younger, more exciting podcast in which they could express themselves in ways that just seemed close to them in the podcast that I thought had been enough for all of us. Well, it ran its course, as these things tend to do with young people, and we had settled back into our happy routine when they told me recently, well, they had been thinking about podcasting again. But this time, they wanted to make it part of one big blended family. So, How to Do Everything is back, and new episodes will be in your WaitWait Podcast feed for the near future. And you can follow their own feed and submit questions for them to answer at

howtoatnpr.org. It won't last forever. These things never do. But in the meantime, enjoy the first episode of How to Do Everything. It's hard to clean a tutu. We've all been there. You can't just throw it in the washing machine. Eddie Grundy is costume production supervisor

for the Dutch National Ballet. Eddie, you've got a tip for us. Tutu, obviously, you can't, like you said, you can't throw it in a washing machine. A lot of what we do during a run is we'll, at the end of the performance, we spray it with vodka, and that's basically to kill the bacteria. The alcohol kills the bacteria in the costume. You use vodka? Yeah, it's an old trick actually that comes from Russia, funnily enough. They used it in all their

companies, and it's been taken over basically through theatres all over the world. So all you do is you take a spray bottle to each tutu, how many squirts? Like three or four? Yeah, I mean it depends. So you put the vodka into like a plant spray, sometimes we mix it with a little bit of water. Depends how much they've been used. The soloist costumes at the end of a ballet, they're soaking wet, so you have to really drench them in the vodka and it evaporates, so it kills the bacteria. Have you ever used vodka on your own non-ballet clothes? I've used it for suits. If I have premieres here at work, sometimes then I'll come back. Sometimes in the theater it's hot and you come back and you're getting changed and then I'll put some

in my suit before I hang it away for sure. Yeah. Really? And there's no smell with vodka, right? No, that's one of the reasons we use it because once the alcohol evaporates and then it doesn't leave a smell behind. So you can't really use gin for this. No, no, no, no. I think vodka is the one that doesn't have any scent really with it. We don't use the blueberry vodka or raspberry vodka.

Oh, that's good. Yeah. None of those. Does anybody who uses this technique, does anybody do like one for me, one for the tutu? We've had, we've had not recently I mean, I've been working in nearly 20 years now and when I first started we had a couple of Russian girls that would say can I just have a shot before I go on?

So in the end we had to tell them but we mix it with a special chemical so it's not drinkable Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have to guard the bottles of vodka you never know otherwise Yeah, yeah, we have to guard the bottles of vodka. This is How to Do Everything. I'm Mike. And I'm Ian. And we are here for you. Whatever question you have, send it to us and we will try to answer it. Whether you're a listener of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me and you found us that way, or you

accidentally clicked on this show intending to listen to something else. Yeah, thanks for listening. Thanks for sticking with us even, what, through these four minutes so far. Might as well just keep going. Send us your questions. We look at all our emails. The email address is howto at npr.org. We literally have nothing else to do but look at your emails. On today's show, how to tell if you smell. But first... to do, but look at your emails. On today's show, how to tell if you smell. But first, when astronauts Sunny Williams and Butch Wilmore arrived on the International

Space Station back in June, they were only supposed to be there for eight days. But due to some problems you may have heard with their spaceship, they're going to be there much, much longer. Last week, NASA announced they won't be coming home until February 2025. Frank Rubio holds the record for the longest time in space, 371 days. We're gonna see if maybe he can help Sonny and Butch out. They probably for instance weren't counting on needing a haircut up there. Frank for starters how do you get a haircut in space? You know, we plan

for everything, right? And so for cutting your hair, we actually have a pair of electrical shears and we connect that to a vacuum system. And basically the vacuum just suctions up the hair as you're cutting it. It's not a pretty haircut for sure, but it's functional. I say that my hair, you know, my wife and I have this ongoing argument. I say I was starting to get some gray hair before I launched and it all turned black again when I got there. I think that's because of the fluid shifts that happened and the increased blood flow to your scalp. That's my theory. I don't know if I'll ever be able to prove it.

That's amazing. I would think, you know, you're wearing NASA gear up there the whole time. I imagine for 371 days, you want to do something to maybe spruce up the outfit just for variety? Well, we do get a variety of shirts, t-shirts, workout gear. And unfortunately, we haven't developed a laundry system in space yet. And so we have a periodic replacement system basically where you just fly new things. And as things kind of come to their wear out date, you just replace it with another one. What do you do with the dirty clothes? Yeah. So eventually along with all the other waste, we basically refill the resupply ships with all the trash and waste that's produced on station. And then once that un-docs, it does not have a heat shield and it'll's produced on station. And then once that undocks, it does not have a heat shield

and it'll burn up on re-entry. Fantastic. You incinerate your dirty laundry. Well, yes. We have. Do you still do that today, Frank, now that you're back on earth? No, I have never incinerated laundry here on earth.

Okay. At 371 days, you must have spent a birthday in space. I imagine it's a huge hazard to blow out candles. What is a, what's a birthday party like in space? Yeah, your crewmates do a fantastic job of doing things like celebrating your birthday. We basically put some yellow tape on top of a flashlight and that becomes your candle. And so turning it off is a lot easier than blowing it out. But it is really important to just be each other's family while you're there. And so we try to do that for each other throughout the year.

So we have a couple astronauts who are going to be in space longer than they want to be. They're not going to have laundry. They're not going to miss. they're going to miss haircuts. What's one tip you would give them? Well, you know, they are trained astronauts and they are experienced astronauts. So they've been there and done that, right? And so from that perspective, it's nothing new to them. And they're doing, really the one tip I would give them, they're already doing, which is just stay as positive as possible and focus on the mission. Super proud of them, super proud of how they're handling the situation and I can't wait to have them back home. Maybe you're stuck in space. If so, send us a question. Send it to us at howto at npr.org

and maybe we can help you out. If you're stuck in space and we're the best you've got, things are not looking good, but we are still gonna try our best. Again, that email address where you can send us an email is howto at npr.org. Okay, so tell me if this sounds like you. You love NPR's podcasts, you wish they weren't interrupted by sponsor breaks like this one, and you want to support NPR's mission of creating a more informed public. If this does sound like you, then it's time to sign up for perks across

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digging into the history behind some of its most pivotal amendments. Listen to We the People on the Thru Line podcast from NPR. Every weekday, NPR's best political reporters come to you on the NPR Politics Podcast to explain the big news coming out of Washington, the campaign trail, and beyond. We don't just want to tell you what happened, we tell you why it matters.

Join the NPR Politics Podcast every single afternoon to understand the world through political eyes. You care about what's to understand the world through political eyes. And you can make this journey while you're doing the dishes or driving your car. State of the World podcast from NPR. Vital international stories every day. Hey, Marcy, what can we do for you? Well, here's my question. I'd like to know how do I get someone to tell me if I smell? And like smell in a bad way. So okay.

Do you think you smell? I do, yeah. And I think no one has the heart to tell me. Wow, what makes you think that you smell? Well, I guess like I use natural deodorant, and I figured that's probably not doing the trick. And no one's just gonna tell you. And even if you ask them,

they're not gonna wanna tell you, because they don't wanna be rude and it's also uncomfortable for them. Have you had the experience of asking somebody if you smell? Yes. Yes, I have. And they always say, no, you don't. Let me flip it on you. Have you ever told somebody that they smell? My husband, yeah, and my children. Okay. Anyone outside the family? No. Yeah.

Only do you smell good. I was on an elevator once in a hotel and I just said, somebody in this elevator car smells really good. Well, that guy actually, he liked it. He was like, yes, it's me and I'm wearing it. And then he announced what he was wearing. Was the guy in the elevator who smelled good, was he wearing natural deodorant? That's a good question. I don't know. I can answer that. Yeah, he probably was not. All right, I think we have a way to help Marcy.

We need an objective measure of whether or not she smells. And our producer, Hina, has got her hands on something called a nasal ranger. A nasal ranger is an industrial caliber device. It looks like a megaphone and you hold it up to your nose and point it at whatever smells and it gives you a quantitative number representing how bad the smell is. And this is not something normally used on people. City inspectors use nasal rangers when they get a complaint about smell pollution. Yeah, these are this is the assumption we're making about Marcy,

that she might be the kind of thing someone might call 311 about. She might be producing a suspicious odor. Mike and Hina are going to take this industrial disaster smelling tool and point it at Marcy, but first they're gonna go to Mike's house to calibrate it. We are at my house.

We have a cat, and the cat is named Stinky. And that is a name that the cat earned. I'm just gonna bend over into his litter box and sniff. So first I have to smell it without the nasal ranger. Bear knows. If I can get a reading, bear knows I can get a reading with the nasal ranger. I really feel like a city inspector. Oh, God. It's definitely a cat's litter box.

100% smells like a cat's litter box. Okay, I'm gonna stick this thing on my nose, and I'm gonna give it a big whiff. I'm doing my first reading at 60. And when Hina says 60, that is the highest possible setting of the Nasal Ranger. The worst smell in the world is gonna hit 60. How it works, the Nas ranger has multiple filters in it

and a dial that you shuffle through them. So when you're using it, you start with the highest setting, the thickest setting, that's the 60. And if whatever you're smelling can make it through that, you give it a 60. If you don't smell anything, you dial it down to the next setting, the lighter filter, and see if you can smell it there.

And you keep going lighter and lighter filters until you can smell the smell for the first time. And that's the rating of the thing you're trying to smell. A person should be in the two to seven range. You know what? I'm gonna give this one 30. Okay, so that's actually good for us to know before we smell Marcy that a cat's litter box came in at 30 out of 60. Can we just, just real quick, can we just smell me real quick? Now we know what smelly is. Let's see how I do. So the people at St. Croix Sensory who gave us this wonderful nasal ranger, they recommended that for smelling humans, I have to put a Dixie cup to your armpit in

order to funnel your amazing odors into the nasal ranger. I took a pair of scissors and I cut the bottom from the cup so that if I stick this on your armpit, it'll funnel the smell straight into the nasal range. All right, let's go. Let's get in there. Are you okay with this, Mike? It's not me I'm worried about. It's you.

All right, here we go. I'm fine. I feel so bad. You have nine and seven. seven. All right. All right, reading you at four. Oh, I kind of got a reading at four. Let's try you at two. Okay.

All this deep breathing makes me feel like I'm in a yoga class. It's a hot armpit yoga. Yeah, I would say between a two and a four. Alright, I won't even ask if I smelled good. I'll just say, okay. You smelled like a human being. Thank you. Thank you very much. Can I jump in here? How did you learn to use the nasal ranger? So I had to take a two and a half hour training sent to me by the people who make the nasal ranger and say,

grow sensory that all city inspectors take to get trained up. This is like a mandatory, you can't, you are not authorized to use this tool unless you do a training. You are not authorized to use it. And I actually got a certificate at the end of the training that certifies me as a nasal ranger inspector. Did you frame it? I didn't even print it out. It's just a PDF that's saved on my computer. And now I feel like I'm missing an opportunity to really celebrate my greatness. Well, I think in order to get something better,

you'd have to enlist the services of the certificate ranger. Hi there. Marcy? Hi, it's Mike and Hina. It's so good to meet you. I'm Hina. Hi Mike. It's so good to see you. Thanks for welcoming us into your home.

I am so glad to have you here. We asked Marcy to do just what she would do on a normal day. That means she was wearing her natural deodorant. And I just want to take a second to give Hina some credit. You made Marcy feel so comfortable, you took a second to make sure she knew what she was getting into. And she even at one point reached out and held your hands. Yeah, and we held hands for quite a while. Should we do like a, do you just want to smell

Mercy kind of bare-nosed first? Yes. So, this is my first time meeting you. Let's hold hands. And I just want to say that we have no boundaries here. I am just going to smell your armpits. And I am so okay with that. I'm glad to be here. I immediately feel going to smell your armpits and I am so okay with that.

I'm glad to be here. I, I immediately feel connected to you. You're the most welcoming eyes. I just feel like you're the kind of person that people would be on the street and be like, it's going to be okay. Like, let's just get it all out there. And so I'm ready to give up in the world. Let's get into it.

You just lift your armpits and I'm just going to take in the world. Yeah. All right. OK. Let's get into it. Do you want me to? No, no. Just like this. You just lift your armpits, and I'm just going to take a whiff. Perfect. Oh, yeah, now I can definitely smell you. Is that lavender deodorant? What is that? Yeah. It used to be called primal pit paste. Now it's called Frank's something.

And it's very like there's nothing bad in it, as far as I know. Primal pit paste is quite the name. Primal pit paste sounds like it's like industrial strength. Oh, it feels like gorilla glue. Yeah. 30. Okay, now this is 30.

This is FYI, 30 was how smelly Mike's cat's litter box was. So. It's cat's toilet box was. So. It's cat's, cat's toilet smell. I don't want to be there. Well, you're not so. Okay, yay. Okay.

There's like a moment of anticipation that's like, you're pregnant. That's what it feels like I'm about to tell you. Either way, whatever we find out, there's going to be no judgment about it. Okay, yeah. It's just a news. I'm like, I'm about to tell you. Either way, whatever we find out, there's gonna be no judgment about it. Okay, yeah. It's just an ace. I'm looking in your eyes, I'm back there.

Okay. All right, okay. I'm so glad my eyes are doing three, that's great. Okay, so now we're going to 15. Okay. What is 15? Pretty smelly for a human being. Okay, mm-hmm.

Yeah. I just, can we, this is such a suspenseful moment. Can we bring in a little suspenseful music What is 15? Pretty smelly for a human being. Okay. Yeah. Can we, this is such a suspenseful moment, can we bring in a little suspenseful music as we get the verdict on Marcy here? Well, let's do it. Okay. All right. So we are doing 15 right now.

Okay. No, can't smell you at 15. Whoa. All right. This is seven. Okay. I can't really smell you. I think that's good. Hold on.

You said you can't really smell. I can't really smell her. Does that mean that you got a little bit? I will say I feel like I did get a little bit. Yeah, I think I got a whiff. Ha ha ha ha. Hey, lavender. Ha ha ha.

I think you're between a seven and a four. So Marcy, after all this, between a seven and a four. That's right. That is basically a normal human range. I think that's something Marcy... Basically. Well, I think Marcy can go out into the world feeling better about her smell now.

Even if she does smell, thanks to her primal pit paste, it's a good smell. If anyone ever complains, she can say, you know what? According to the nasal ranger, I'm between a seven and a four. That's right. I'm nothing like an industrial accident. Well that does it for today's show.

Mike, what did we learn today? Well, I learned that astronauts' hair, if they have gray hair, it starts to go back to its original color when they're in space. I feel like this could be an expensive cure to gray hair. Also, I think maybe keep going with it, and if you stay in space long enough, you return a baby. Oh, you think it's every part of your body regenerates? I guess if you were a baby, you couldn't do the spacewalk.

You would have to do a space crawl. Yeah, you space toddle. What'd you learn, Ian? I learned that astronauts don't do laundry, they just burn up all of their dirty clothes. It does raise the idea in my mind though that maybe sometimes when I see a shooting star, what I'm actually seeing is somebody just burning up their pants. It's so beautiful. Those are technically sad and those are shooting slacks. How to Do Everything is produced by Hina Shrivastava.

Special thanks this week to Lindsay McKenna, Emily Kinslow, Maddie Bauer, and everyone on NPR's project management team. Our intern is Andrew Hillman. Keep it up, Andrew, you're doing great. Whatever it is you do, it was great. I'm Ian. And I'm Mike. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks.

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