Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - HTDE: One-Liners and Free Throws

Episode Date: December 10, 2025

Ian and Mike help a listener lighten the mood with her clients, help another listener mess with an opponent’s free throw shot, and Peter Sagal shares his secret for falling asleep on an airplane.You can email your burning questions to [e-mail] To Do Everything won’t live in this feed forever. If you like what you hear, scoot on over to their very own feed and give them a follow.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 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 and Heena Srivastava. Technical direction from Lorna White.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

It's been a great year for TV, movies, and music, and we are highlighting the best of the best, including K-pop demon hunters, and severance. We're talking about our favorite moments of the year, including some of the best pop culture you might have missed. Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody, it's Peter. Coming up the season finale of our sister podcast, How to Do Everything Made by Wait, Wait, Producers, Danforth and Ian Schillachno. This is a particularly important and wonderful episode because it features me sharing my personal trick for comfortably falling asleep on airplanes. And I just want you all to understand that the fact that I'm telling you all about it for free rather than

patenting it and becoming a sociopathic billionaire like I've always wanted to do is just one more sign of my generosity to you. So if you've enjoyed listening to how to do everything, be sure to follow the show in their own feed. And with that, let my generosity commence. We fly for work a lot for our other job producing the show, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. And right now, we're actually in Phoenix, Arizona for a wait, wait, tape. Peter Sagle, the host of the show, is with us now. Peter, you say you have a new hack for sleeping on planes? Yes, although I have to give credit to the person who taught me this. So my elderly father just turned 89, spent many, many winters in Florida. And he recently said to me, Peter, we have to go meet a friend of mine. The friend was a woman

named Annie. And Annie's business is driving cars back and forth from Florida where she lives to the homes of snowbirds, people who come to Florida for vacation. So this woman walks in. She's there in the Chicago area to pick up somebody's car. And she is wearing a backpack with a pool noodle in it. A pool noodle. Although not a whole pool noodle about say a two foot length of pool noodle. And she's like I said all business. She's there to pick up the car, get going. She just flew in. But I say Annie, why do you have a pool noodle in your backpack? And she says, oh, it's how I sleep on planes. I asked her to demonstrate. She takes out the pool noodle and she sticks it in her vest so that it's pointing up right under her chin. Okay.

And then she mimed falling asleep with her chin falling in the pool noodle and being suspended there, as opposed to the chin falling forward and waking you up. So it's like the pool noodle makes a pedestal for your head to rest on. Exactly right. You can, you know, the classic Roman pose of putting your fist under your chin. Do that, but just imagine it's a pool noodle instead. Okay, so it's like a goatee, basically. No, I don't think a goatee provides any structural support at all.

Is it more like a pedestal? Yeah, this sounds crazy, but you tried it. I did. It just so happens that we had a trip coming up, and I have children, so I have pool noodles. So I took one of these pool noodles, and I cut one down to about a two-foot length, and I put it in my carry-on bag. And sure enough, I got on the plane, and I was sleepy, so I took it. I put it down my jacket and put my chin on it, completely ignoring what other people might be thinking loudly as they looked at me, and had a lovely hour nap.

Seriously? It worked brilliantly. You showed me, and I love you, you looked like an idiot. I have no doubt that I look like a complete fool. But what's interesting about this is people do not look good with the airline pillows around their neck? No. Fools, right? I mean, it's not a good look either.

So I think it's just because it's novel. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I mean, I think what it needs is really just to explain to other people. what it is, because otherwise they just think you're kind of insane. But if it had like how an emotional support dog has a vest that says, you know, I'm working, you could just say emotional support pole, do not pet. Exactly.

I'm a pole sleeper. I think if this catches on, you know, the way that they come up and down and they hand out headphones to people to do bring, well, they're going to start handing out pool noodles. This is How to Do Everything. I'm Mike. And I'm Ian on today's show. how to help out your favorite basketball team while also spreading diseases. But first, hey, Kelly, what can we help you with?

Well, I have breast cancer. I'm getting chemo. I have no hair. And so, and I'm in real estate. So I'm constantly meeting clients and building long-term relationships and I'm out in the community and volunteer and all the things. And I just like to make things fun. and funny and comfortable for people, and I'm totally content with where I'm at, and I would like preferably a humorous or light-hearted way to address the elephant in the room, which is my baldness because I no longer have long curly hair. Oh, that's awful. And how are you doing with all the treatment and everything? Great, yeah. Just, I mean, chemo's a beast, but yeah, Doing as well as I can.

Well, good. All right. So do we just leave that aside now and we joke about not having hair? Sure. Or joke about all of it. Yeah. So have you, as you've sort of been out in the world, have there been times where, you know, an interaction has made you feel like, oh, I need to think about this? Or are you just sort of like predicting that?

I think I've been predicting it when I knew I was going to see people and, you know, They were seeing me for the first time, bald, actually texted them in advance. Oh. But, like, you know, I'm constantly meeting new clients who haven't seen me with hair, although they may have seen my email or my photo online or something and thought, wow, this is super different. There's no long curly hair there. Yeah.

Yeah. So with people that I know when I had hair, and I say, hey, didn't want you to be surprised. by my stylish new look. So what are you doing? Like, how are you handling that then? What's the approach with the head? The approach is beanies. Okay.

I'm here in Spokane, Washington. It's winter and it's beanie season. Yeah. So I can get away with tucking it down, but it won't be beanie season here forever, and it's going to be a long time before I have there again. Yeah. Before all this happened, did you think about your hair a lot?

I mean, I've always had long curly hair, and I've always gotten compliments on my hair, from young, from old, from strangers, from new people I meet. So I knew it wasn't going to be a big change to not have that as my identity because it was such a part of who I am. Yeah. But like all of this, I'm just embracing it. It's like, okay, let's just go for it. I'm not dwelling on, you know, the negative and anything like that. But, you know, in writing into your show, I figured I can't be the only one. I mean, people go bald from chemo all the time and people are in public or long-term client

relationships like me. So I'm like, I'm not being the only one with this problem. I mean, I would say, Mike, if you're comfortable. So Mike is a cancer survivor and also really likes not making people uncomfortable and likes making people laugh. Mike, did you, we haven't really talked about it, but like, did you think about this when you were going through it? I, well, I don't know. I loved it. I loved being able to shave my head because I didn't have to worry about it.

But unlike, unlike Kelly, I wasn't, I didn't have cool hair. You don't. Right? Like, you've seen my head. It's fine. But, like, having a shaved head, and again, I recognize for a man, it's different maybe than for a woman. I never want to assume anything.

But, yeah, I thought it was fun to have a shaved head. And now, since then, when I just have my dumb hair that I have now, I've often felt like, man, if only I could just shave my head, but my kids don't want me to shave my head because they don't think that would look good either. So it's really a no-win, no-win situation for me. Yeah. I mean, is there any, Kelly, is there any, are there any positives to this? positives to having no hair and positives to beanballs?

You know, the one thing I thought of is like, I've been carrying, and I don't know how this was for you, but I've been carrying around this cancer diagnosis and knowing all these treatments were calming, and yet I looked fine on the outside. And now I kind of feel like, wow, maybe you should cut me some slack because look at what I'm going through. So I was a tiny bit looking forward to being who I really am, which. is a person going through cancer and chemo. So, yeah. And, yeah, I mean, I guess because I'm trying to look on the bright set of everything.

So it was like, okay, here's the next phase. And here's what I really look like. So, yeah. Well, we'll keep our fingers crossed. Everything goes as well as it can. Yeah, we'll be thinking about you as we try and solve this project. Oh, thanks. Yeah, we're solving it for me, but I know there's others.

So let's help all of them. All right, Kelly, good to talk to you. Okay, you as well. Okay, so Kelly wants a funny joke, a one-liner to make things comfortable for people when they see her for the first time without hair. So right now, we are going to call up some very funny people to see if they can help. We'll start with a voice memo that Jeff Hiller just sent us. Jeff just won an Emmy for his role in somebody somewhere. Hi, it's Jeff Hiller, and here are my thoughts.

You could say, I like my hair. but I thought it was distracting from my bold lip color or you could say cancer is bad but looking like Cynthia Arevo is good or you could say I always thought I could pull it off

because of my long neck and now I know I can Pat and Oswald you got anything for Kelly well it's based on my interest in my area of the world but just maybe she should go Hi, I'm Kelly. I'm your realtor. If it helped you, pretend that Professor X is selling you a house. Thanks, Patton.

Okay. We got Tom Papa up next. Do you ever, do you have, have you ever had to talk about hair in your act? Has your hair changed over the course of your career? You know, that's mean for you to ask that as a question. Well, it was the way he really talked around what he was trying to say. I wasn't trying to say. What I was trying to say was, what I was trying to say was, What I said. If you're going to say what you're going to say, at least treat Tom Poppa with the respect and be direct with him.

That was really, that's the way my wife, like, asked me to do something. Tom, you know I have only the greatest respect, the greatest respect for your wife and her methods. I'm thinking it kind of depends on who she's talking to. if you're dealing with a Republican magavide I would just lean in and say sorry about this I blame the vaccine you could

say sorry if I look a little different this is just in general one you could just lean in and say sorry if I look a little different I started trimming my eyebrows and I couldn't stop I know what you're thinking

do the current Mattes match the drapes. I'll tell you after we get through escrow. That's all I got. Tignitaro, do you have any ideas for Kelly? I would say to Kelly, the response I had immediately was to say something like, I just got back from the hairstylist. I feel like maybe they went a little too short.

What do you think? Maybe I should have brought a picture. That's great. That's what I would say. If I was looking for a way to diffuse a situation like that, that's what my gut says. That is wonderful. I think that that's going to be really good for Kelly. Were there other things at that time that you thought about or that you tried that

remember? Well, I was never bald, so there was no reason for me to say that. But I don't know if it's the opposite or what, but I did an HBO special and took my shirt off. And I didn't give any information. So I guess it is the opposite. Do you, from that time, like right after your diagnosis, do you remember, I don't know, do any interactions you have with people as people were kind of learning what was happening to you, people in your life. Were there any awkward or just otherwise interactions that you remember? I think because after my diagnosis, I spoke so publicly about it. It was kind of everywhere in the news, but I would say the most awkward things for me

was my mother had died right before I was diagnosed, and my stepfather was, my parent that I was now contact with in a way that had never happened before because we were very, even though he raised me since I was two, he was just very standoffish and reserved and we weren't terribly close and so everything, all communication went through my mother, basically. So it was very odd to now be sick and having to call and talk to him about my breasts all the time. Oh, yeah. So that was

terribly uncomfortable for me because I barely talked to him about anything, and now we were constantly in conversation about my booze. So that was like a nightmare for me.

Did it get better? Talking to him about my boo? Yeah. I mean, sure. You know, it was, I never was like, oh, I can't wait to call Rick and bring this up again. Yeah. But it was totally fine.

And he was very, he really stepped up after my mother died, which was a real pleasant surprise. That's great. Yeah. Well, TIG, thank you so much for helping Kelly out. Yeah, thank you. Comedian Rachel Koster left a voice memo for Kelly. Hi, I hope that the chemo is effective and that you feel better soon. But in the meantime, while you are bald, you can let people know that you're in your Elmer Fudd era and that it's Wabit season.

I hope that's helpful. And last but not least, Mohanad al-Shehi, what do you have for us? Yeah, I mean, honestly, that she's a, so I assume she's showing people's houses and stuff, I guess you could be like you know I promise the house looks exactly like the pictures though

that's really good yeah yeah I think yeah I think you know there's so many things one could say you know like the picture thing

but also you can just explain to them what happened you know you went to Turkey you kind of stuff got lost in translation and they did the opposite

it. They did reverse hair transplant. Yeah. And this is what you're left with. You should see my back. Yeah. I went to Turkey to be a donor. Somebody, it's not a zero-sum game. Or, you know, sometimes if, like, I just look too beautiful with the hair.

I just want you to focus on the house. Yeah. And not me. This is for you as a service. This is, I like this for Kelly. I feel like these are like, they're funny, and they're also, like, I feel like she's going to seal a deal with these. Yeah, 100%. And Kelly, just, FYI, if you seal any deals using any of these jokes, I'm getting 10% out of that 10%.

Okay, so we have Kelly on the line with us now. So what's going on? What's the, is it too personal to ask for a health update? No, no. No, I finished breast cancer treatment in June. So, hippie. So, congratulations. Yeah, yeah, I'm super excited, super grateful. Is there anything practical from there that you feel like you could use? Any phrases you could adopt? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Like, oh, I went to do my eyebrows, but apparently I did too much. And then I swear the house looks just like the picture, even though the picture you saw of me looked nothing like what's standing in front of you.

And then something Tig said she said she had to talk to her dad about her breast. And my kids are young adults. They're 19, 21 and 22. And so having to talk about my kids, about my breasts. And I'm sure they don't want to hear the word breast coming from their mom. Yeah, that's a tough one. Oh, yeah. So those are my favorite.

All of them were fabulous. And I can't believe you've got some of the best people to comment. I really appreciate that. Sure. Well, Kelly, it's so good to talk to you. And we wish you continued good. health. Yes. Thank you very much. I have enjoyed continued good health. Hey, if you have any questions you'd like us to take on, go ahead and send us an email.

You can send us an email at how to at npr.org. We are, this is our last episode of the season, so we're taking a little break. But in that break, we're going to be working hard for you. So even though you won't be hearing new episodes of the show for a little bit, send us your questions, and we will get back to you probably long after your emergency has already been resolved. But know that we are hard at work, doing something. You can also leave us a voicemail. We have a voicemail box. It's called a phone number. We have a voicemail phone number box, and the phone number is 1-88-G-G-A-X-5. That's G-A-G-A-X-E-5. Hey, hey, it's Brittany Luce from It's Been a Minute.

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Well, I've had this question kind of pondering around in my brain for a long while now. You know, at basketball games, especially free throws, you know, people in the stands kind of act crazy, scream, wave signs, and things like that, try to distract them. And I've always thought, you know, like, they're professionals, they do this, you know, a million times, it's not going to work. But what if there was something that would actually work? and the best I could come up with would be like an entire section of fans like blowing air some way or another

to try to like adjust the path of the ball as it's going towards the basket blow blow you're imagining everybody behind the basket blowing at the ball it'd have to be perpendicular not behind

and yeah like either like you're blowing out a birthday candle, or maybe everyone has those little, like, handheld fans, you know, like in the summer, you know, something like this. Kind of like, you know, if you're at a concert and they turn the lights out, but everyone does their, like, cell phone light. Sure. It's like, you know, if enough people are doing it, is it enough to matter? So create resistance that would impact the ball enough that it would throw it off and they'd miss the shot. Exactly, yeah.

Let me ask you this. When you're at a basketball game, do you try blowing during a free throw just to see if one man can make a difference? Not a chance. No. I'm not. First of all, that definitely wouldn't work. And second of all, like the person in front of me would be like, what the heck's happening here? So you don't believe in the butterfly effect, I take it, Jeff.

No, I guess not. You know, I feel like the right person to help with this is, uh, people. Ph.D., an expert in fluid mechanics. David, who is a professor at Georgia Tech's George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. David, could people blowing at a basketball affect a free throw? Yeah, this is an interesting problem. I worked this out at my kid's orthodontist the other day. It all depends on how far they're sitting away. So if someone's making a free throw, they're in the middle of this whole, this state.

I mean, you've got 50,000 seats around you. I mean, people have a lung capacity about three liters. Okay, so they could, if you exhale that, the issue is they're not going to get close enough to generate a strong wind near the basketball. Maybe you've heard of saying, like, you can blow out a birthday cake, but you can't suck out a birthday cake candle.

Oh. I haven't heard that, but it makes sense. We move in different circles. But basically, air jets, they travel certain distance, but then air has very low density, and it's basically got all this stationary air around it. So as you're pushing the air around you, pushing the air out of your mouth, you can't create this jet. Like, you can blow out a birthday candle pretty well if you're just within like two or three inches of this candle. But if someone puts that candle a foot away

from you or two feet, all the air that you pushed out is basically, it's slowed down by the air around it, and it just does not get very far. And if you could concentrate all the all these 50,000 people into like, I don't know, somehow have one giant person that would be almost having like a leaf blower, or maybe some really big, like a couple really big strong people coughing right next to the person, like right next to the ball, then maybe you could deviate a little bit. So it sounds like the crowd is going to be too far away, but, you know, there are the players, the defensive players standing right next to the free throw shooter, they could probably

lean in and be a couple inches away as the ball leaves the hand. And as far as I know, that's legal. Could they blow the ball enough off course? They'd have to time it really, really precisely, right when that person's releasing the ball just to change the directory. You'd have to have, not just even one person, but I think a few people, I think, if they really focused and really coughed or sneezed on the ball, but that probably has more effects on the person trying to shoot, shoot this thing, too.

If you have three defenders waiting for that shot to go up, and I think, Dr. Hu, this is a question I have, these are not regular people, right? A lot of these people are seven feet tall. Does that, do they still only have three liters of lung capacity, or do they have slightly more because they're giants? Yeah, the average person, uh, as three leaders, I mean, volume goes as height to the one-third. So if you basically get someone that's 50% taller, 50% taller 100, 1.5 to the third. Yeah, you could, maybe you get double,

maybe you get double that. Okay, yeah. What if you had, six leaders. If you had then, just imagine this, imagine a scenario where you had three shacks, two on one side, one on the other side, blowing on that basketball. Do you think they could affect the

trajectory of that ball? They've got to get really, really close and get their timing right. And if they, all sneezing and coughing, you know, it's those, you'd have to do some kind of, like the body can only generate those speeds outside of our conscious control. Like when we cough, it's, I mean, it's almost like, it's like a third of a leaf lower, 15 meters per second. It's like, it's like many, many miles per hour. Wow. Okay. If you're close enough, so three shacks, sneezing, I think someone has to put that to the test. Well, Dr. Hu, thank you so much for

helping us, helping us out. Well, I'm happy to. Well, that does it for this week's show. What'd you learn, Ian? Well, I learned that you can use a pool noodle to sleep on a plane. Yeah. If you're willing to look like an idiot. Here's a thought I have that I think could make sense, could make this doable.

What if you just brought a baguette on the flight? Because a baguette is something you can eat. You could even, if you do following Peter's method, tuck the baguette in your shirt, rest your chin on it, and you, I think you have an excuse that would take away the embarrassment. You just fell asleep while eating a baguette. You're right. You're right. And it is incredible. I think very telling about the pool noodle method that it is less embarrassing to tell everybody around you, you fell asleep while eating a baguette. Well, that just opens up the world to any number of foods. You could say you fell asleep eating a foot-long sub. You could do. I fell asleep eating a pool noodle.

This bread is so hard, I just got exhausted. How to Do Everything is produced by Skyler Swenson with Hina Shravastava. Technical direction from Lorna White. This is our last new episode for a little while, but we will be, as we said, working hard to help. you with your how-to questions. Keep them coming to how-to at npr.org. Or use our phone number and leave a voicemail at 1-88-gag-ax-5. Just trips off the tongue, 1-8-88-gagaxe 5. I'm Ian. And I'm Mike. Thanks. a little out of control.

I interviewed a woman who had been a bridesmaid in 13 weddings. She had spent so much money and gotten into so much credit card debt that when it was her turn to say I do, they eloped. How much is a wedding actually worth? Listen to the It's Been a Minute podcast on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Wildcard is where big name interviews feel like conversations with a friend. I mean, I can't believe how lucky I've been. You didn't say goodbye the right way. McConaughey. She told me, I don't think you're Princeton material. I'm nothing if not open, I guess.

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