Pod Insights Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks Neurotoxins: They Hurt - A Batch of Listener Stories Including a Snowmobile Moose Flip, Multiplying Bears, and More About this episode In this episode, the guys read through and react to a few more incredibly entertaining, funny, and informative stories from listeners concerning their various wild run-ins with animals.
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Transcript 16,377 words · 6 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:12 Jeff Larson? Hello Tooth and Claw listeners. We have Tooth and Claw Podcast here.
0:18 Speaker 01 Where's here?
0:19 Jeff Larson? Uh, we are in Asia.
0:22 Speaker 01 Yes.
0:23 Jeff Larson? Indonesia.
0:24 Speaker 01 Okay. What's the name of the island?
0:26 Jeff Larson? Komodo.
0:27 Speaker 01 No. Ooh, close.
0:29 Jeff Larson? I don't know.
0:29 Speaker 01 Flores.
0:30 Jeff Larson? We're on Flores?
0:32 Speaker 01 Yes. But it's in like the Lesser Sunda Islands, which are commonly kind of referred to as the Komodo Islands.
0:38 Jeff Larson? And why is that?
0:39 Speaker 01 Uh, because one of the islands is named Komodo.
0:42 Jeff Larson? Hmm.
0:43 Speaker 01 And we're going close to that island, but not actually going to that island.
0:47 Jeff Larson? Is there Komodo dragons on the island we're on right now?
0:51 Speaker 01 Yes, but they're not common on this island.
0:53 Jeff Larson? Oh, wow.
0:54 Speaker 01 But I may have seen one today, actually.
0:56 Jeff Larson? Really?
0:56 Speaker 01 A little one. And it is usually younger ones that are on this island. Yeah.
1:01 Jeff Larson? How big is a little one?
1:02 Speaker 01 Like about three feet long.
1:04 Jeff Larson? You sure it wasn't?
1:05 Speaker 01 It could have been another monitor. It wasn't a cat. I'm sure it wasn't a cat. Could have been an Asian water monitor, but it was definitely a monitor lizard.
1:13 Jeff Larson? Last night, though, you saw a cat and you yelled at the whole group.
1:17 Speaker 01 I did. It was a little bit much because I was in between two of, like, two of our groups that it's kind of split up. And I saw eye shine and I thought it was like a leopard cat. And I didn't, I didn't know if there was any wild cats in Komodo. And so I thought it was one of those little leopard cats we'd seen in Borneo. And I got really excited, over excited, and you guys had already seen it.
1:38 Jeff Larson? Did you spot anything first on our little night hike?
1:41 Speaker 01 I saw one of those baby vipers first.
1:43 Jeff Larson? Oh, yeah. We saw some vipers. Um, not as cool as Dodge version.
1:50 Speaker 01 I think that's fair.
1:51 Jeff Larson? You do?
1:52 Speaker 01 I, yeah, like Dodge vipers are pretty sick.
1:55 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:55 Speaker 01 I really liked the vipers we saw, though. We saw the Lesser Sunda Island pit viper. It's commonly known as like an insularis viper, because that's his Latin name. And we saw the yellow and the green, and there's also a blue. That we might see on this trip. And if you've seen Zootopia 2, the blue snake in that movie is based off of the blue.
2:15 Jeff Larson? The one with the missing thing?
2:16 Speaker 01 That's missing the thing. But ours hopefully have both things. Yeah, it was voiced by what's his name?
2:21 Mike Smith? Uh, Kiwi Kwan.
2:22 Speaker 01 Short Round.
2:23 Mike Smith? Short Round. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, his real name, Short Round.
2:27 Jeff Larson? You think those are better than the car?
2:30 Speaker 01 Yeah. I'll put those over the car.
2:32 Mike Smith? That was surprising for a minute, because I, so you would rather see a Dodge Viper than those other car and Vipers that we saw last night?
2:38 Speaker 01 I don't think I'd rather see a Dodge Viper.
2:41 Mike Smith? Yeah.
2:41 Speaker 01 But I.
2:43 Jeff Larson? On that hike last night, I'd be more interested in seeing a Dodge Viper.
2:46 Mike Smith? Like a baby one on the branch?
2:48 Speaker 01 We're walking through the jungle and there's just a Dodge Viper parked out there.
2:52 Mike Smith? Yeah, that would be pretty exciting.
2:53 Jeff Larson? Well.
2:54 Speaker 01 It was great.
2:55 Jeff Larson? Um, but yeah, so today, I mean, I had an idea of comparing all seven continents with like some different parameters of like birds, cats, attack stories, and just like which continent has the best wildlife, uh, worst to best? We were gonna do that, but then we're like, wait a sec, we go to Antarctica and we will bend to all seven continents. So it makes more sense to do that later.
3:24 Speaker 01 It does.
3:25 Jeff Larson? So we have some really great listener stories that we're gonna do today.
3:30 Mike Smith? Last time we did this, we had a really fun time. I remember. I don't know about the listeners. We had fun.
3:35 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:36 Jeff Larson? Well, and when we went on National Park After Dark, Wes was like, this girl doesn't have a scar from a goose.
3:43 Speaker 01 Yeah, you. I was proved wrong.
3:45 Mike Smith? Yeah.
3:46 Speaker 01 Actually, I wasn't, I wasn't proved wrong by her, but I was proved wrong that geese can actually like do some damage.
3:53 Mike Smith? For sure.
3:54 Speaker 01 So I do believe her.
3:55 Mike Smith? Yeah.
3:56 Jeff Larson? Wes, you wanna start us off?
3:57 Speaker 01 Sure. Yeah, I'd love to. This one's actually a story that someone had kind of mentioned the basic details of this story to us and it's stuck in our heads. And, um, I think Jeff or our mom reached out and got, um, this listener to send in the complete story. So we're excited to read it. This one's from Mel. And Mel says, hi Tooth and Claw hosts, I'm submitting my animal attack story in quotes. It may not be what comes to mind with the most extreme wildlife attack, but it is definitely unique. And we do agree with you on that. I was flipping logs for salamanders in Illinois during the spring with friends. We were having some luck and a lot of fun catching them. I flipped one log to find a small mammal, the size of a mouse, scurrying for the next place to hide.
4:42 Speaker 01 And you know, I've been there. You find a small mammal. You don't really feel like there's any danger or something. You might get like a little nip or something if you pick it up or do something. You shouldn't pick it up.
4:53 Mike Smith? Do you ever think in the Scottish High Games during the caber toss event, they find salamanders?
4:59 Speaker 01 Uh, maybe.
5:01 Speaker 01 I don't know how many salamanders there are there, but probably. They're probably killing a lot of salamanders if they are there. Yeah. Uh, I reached out, uh, instinctively I reached out and actually managed to scruff the critter, grabbing the skin behind the neck with my thumb and forefinger. This is actually pretty difficult and dang near impossible thing to do without getting bit. It is like a little tiny shrew or mouse or something trying to like grab it by its neck skin. That's pretty impressive. I should preface, I study small mammals, bulls, shrews, mice and bats for a living. So I'm used to handling these small wiggly animals and know that you just have to scruff in the right spots so they don't escape or bite you. Sometimes this is hard to do when you have them in a bag and can position them any way you like.
5:46 Speaker 01 I was so stoked I managed with my bare hand and reflexes alone to catch this mammal without getting bit. It was a northern short-tailed shrew, a really interesting and unique species found throughout North America. You may actually see them occasionally on sidewalks or on pavement during cold spells or times where food is difficult to find because their metabolism is very high and they must constantly eat and without food they'll just die. Uh, I, I've seen these before. I actually went to a, like a mountain man camp when I was like a teenager. Oh, I've seen those where they like make you into a man. Yeah. And it's like the ones where they like, you have to go into their tent and like whatever they want to do. No, I'm just kidding.
6:28 Mike Smith? Hold on.
6:30 Speaker 01 The Alpha Camps. No, this was, it was like a Boy Scout thing, but there was like mountain men there too. And there was this guy who had caught a prairie rattlesnake. And I caught a shrew. I caught one of these shrews and I put it in with a prairie rattlesnake and watched it kill it and eat it. It was really neat. Wow. Wouldn't you say that you stressed out that shrew? I would say that I wouldn't do that anymore. But yeah, I don't think, I for sure. It had a very stressful experience. Yeah. Um, I wouldn't give it a wild animal anymore. I don't think it's fair. But I did do it when I was a teenager. I was probably fifteen. Okay.
7:10 Speaker 01 They are about the size of a mouse, but they stand out with beautiful velvet fur, tiny eyes and ears, pointed snouts and an extremely short tail. Don't be fooled. These shrews are carnivorous and mostly eat insects, worms, snails, spiders, and even other small mammals on occasion. In order to tackle prey, keep up with the high amount of food they need, they secrete venom. They are the only venomous mammal in North America. Wow. Yeah. The venom will paralyze and kill prey so the shrew can eat it or store some for later. I had managed, in my excitement for catching critters, to do this without getting bit by the shrew. I was so excited telling my friend all the biology about this super cool mammal, just dorking out for a second.
7:52 Speaker 01 I wanted to point them to the teeth, which are iron red fading to black, a very unique characteristic in shrews. As other biology students, they were impressed and excited too. As I pointed to the shrew's face, it reached its neck out surprisingly far and bit into my pointer finger hard with its front teeth. It latched on. Oh no, she did such a good job until she was showing off at the end. Yeah, you know, she flew too close to the sun.
8:19 Mike Smith? I don't know, like if it's like an Inspector Gadget neck, like you're ten feet away, you don't expect a neck to be like extended. Yeah, I want to know how far this shrew can stretch its neck.
8:29 Speaker 01 Like dulcimer again.
8:32 Speaker 01 I'm gonna, from now on, I'm gonna try and get a dulcimer reference in every episode.
8:36 Mike Smith? I encourage it.
8:37 Speaker 01 It latched on. I tried to pull my finger out while still scruffing with the other hand. It let go after maybe ten seconds and I set it back on the ground near the log. It's a long time to have a rodent biting you. My friends were like, whoa, are you okay? I brushed it off and quietly squeezed the tip of my fingers as we walked. I thought if I squeezed it, I wouldn't get any potential venom, which we know isn't really effective. Once that venom's in your bloodstream, it's in there.
9:03 Jeff Larson? I didn't know that was shrews, though.
9:05 Speaker 01 Pretty much any venom. Yeah.
9:07 Jeff Larson? Because like a snake, they get their teeth way into you.
9:10 Speaker 01 Yeah.
9:11 Jeff Larson? A shrew, it feels like I could get some of the venom.
9:13 Speaker 01 Yeah. I shouldn't speak like authoritatively on that, but from what I understand, like, pretty much all venom, because it has to get in to either like your tissue or your capillary system or your blood. You can't like get it out once it's in.
9:28 Mike Smith? Hmm. Even if you pee on it? Are these shrews, is the administration, method of administering their venom basically the same as what snakes are doing?
9:37 Speaker 01 No, it sounds like it's more, I don't know, again, I don't know too much about them, but it sounds like it's more secreted almost. So to me, that kind of feels more like maybe like what we would see with a helo monster or like a monitor lizard, where they have to like bite down and that pressure kind of just like secretes it out.
9:55 Mike Smith? Okay.
9:55 Speaker 01 But I'm not sure. That's a good question. As we hiked back to the car, the tip of my finger was kind of red, but I'd also been pinching it. So I figured it was just irritated from the bite location. By the time I got home, the redness was traveling down my finger onto the back of my hand. I started getting nervous and thought I would call my supervisor. She is someone who's driven every dirt road in Minnesota in search of rare, small mammal species. I thought if anyone had ever been bit by one of these before, it would literally be Gerda. Gerda. It's a good name. Yeah. I called her up.
10:28 Mike Smith? Whenever I hear it, that's just like gird up your loins is I always think about, right?
10:32 Speaker 01 Yeah. Gird.
10:33 Mike Smith? Yeah.
10:34 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:34 Mike Smith? What, what is a loin specifically? What am I girding?
10:38 Speaker 01 I don't even know what either of those really mean, but I always knew it meant kind of like pick yourself up.
10:44 Mike Smith? It kind of sounds like give yourself a front wedgie.
10:46 Speaker 01 Yeah, it kind of does. Like, pull up your pants as hard as you can.
10:51 Mike Smith? Yeah. Is that like pull yourself up by the bootstraps?
10:53 Speaker 01 I don't know.
10:55 Mike Smith? Well, a lot of mysteries out there for science to solve.
10:58 Jeff Larson? A lot of people needing to be told to put their pants on.
11:04 Mike Smith? Wes?
11:06 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm not wearing my pants.
11:08 Jeff Larson? You haven't girded your loins.
11:10 Speaker 01 I haven't girded my loins. We are in a hot hotel room in Indonesia, so I'm pantsless.
11:17 Mike Smith? Great, like Dawson.
11:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, just like Dawson. I called her up, Gerda, and told her what happened, expecting a yes, that's happened to me. Instead, she said, "Hell, no. I've never let one of them hang on long enough to pump venom into me." Crap. So I Googled what happens when you get bit by a venomous mammal and found an account from Minnesota, where I'm originally from. Mel connected us to an actual, like, paper about it, I guess.
11:45 Mike Smith? Okay.
11:46 Speaker 01 And it's called, "Some Effects of the Bite of the Short-Tailed Shrew 1973", that describes some pretty terrible symptoms associated with a bite from a short-tailed shrew, with their whole body eventually experiencing pain, spending at least one day in bed and feeling weak, no appetite, not being able to work or use their hand, the whole nine yards. Know how he describes getting bit in the first place with the hand he is scruffing, because these shrews are dang hard to scruff with their long necks. And that's something I never would have expected from a shrew, because mammal venom usually is just like defensive and not really like something they're using all the time.
12:25 Mike Smith? Yeah.
12:26 Speaker 01 And so it's surprising to me that it would be that potent.
12:28 Mike Smith? Yeah, that is interesting.
12:30 Speaker 01 I watched as the redness grew from the back of my hand creeping up my arm. I did have some similar symptoms initially described in the account, like a throbbing feeling, oh, and the red and inflamed skin that was also near my elbow. I did feel some pain on the upper side of my arm into my hand, like a dull ache, as if a stack of books had been dropped on my arm. It's very descriptive. It's a great analogy. That happens all the time.
12:54 Jeff Larson? Coyote Peterson never bit by a shrew.
12:58 Speaker 01 Yeah, so it's probably pretty bad.
12:59 Jeff Larson? Hard to say if it's better, worse than a banded hornet.
13:04 Mike Smith? Yeah, yeah. Thanks for doing that research, Jeff.
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15:41 Speaker 01 The next day I kept an eye on the redness and it seemed to remain in my elbow. I did not want to see a doctor because what are they going to say about venom from a mammal that they likely didn't even know existed. It's a good point. And you're gonna have to pay like 30 grand just to talk to him. I didn't want to be pumped full of meds and thought I'd just wait it out. Maybe write an updated account from the 1973 article. It's a true scientist. I'm vaccinated for rabies and that wasn't a concern with the species. So I kept an eye on the redness, which didn't move any further, and the bite wound for infection. My arm had that dull ache for probably three days, but I was able to use my hand just fine. Was able to walk, did not lose my appetite or feel drowsy. And that's pretty weird that they got bit in the hand, but the arm and the elbow was
16:25 Speaker 01 like the achy thing.
16:27 Mike Smith? Yeah, that is interesting.
16:29 Speaker 01 I felt pretty normal other than the dull ache. The bite did not become infected and I started to heal. I asked Gerda about the article and she laughed, saying the person was a little over the top, maybe known for dramatics. I laughed at the fear it induced in me, but also the comparison of our two experiences. So I survived a bite from a northern short-tailed screw and I screw and lived to tell the tale. I would not recommend anyone to try to get bit and find out. And I certainly don't recommend avoiding the doctor if you have been bit by a wild animal. I've had my fair share of, and you know, if you get bit by like a mosquito, you can avoid the doctor. There's other wild animals, I think, a frog.
17:09 Mike Smith? Hmm.
17:09 Speaker 01 Garter snake.
17:11 Mike Smith? Yeah.
17:11 Speaker 01 You don't need to go to the doctor.
17:12 Jeff Larson? What about a poison arrow frog?
17:14 Speaker 01 A bite from one?
17:15 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
17:16 Speaker 01 I wouldn't worry about it. Unless it bit you on like an open wound.
17:21 Jeff Larson? I'd be a little worried.
17:22 Speaker 01 I don't think I would at all. I've had my fair share of volbites and it felt all right to keep an eye out for infections. Seems unbelievable? Question mark. Seems unbelievable?
17:34 Speaker 01 I've attached a video of the shrew while I'm scruffing it or sitting for my phone and a pick up shrew teeth and skull from the Google attached. Sorry, this story got so long. It's okay, Mel. It was a great story.
17:46 Mike Smith? Shorter than freaking William Shakespeare wrote a whole book about taming that shrew.
17:50 Speaker 01 That's true.
17:51 Mike Smith? Yeah.
17:51 Jeff Larson? It's why I like these listener stories, you know? I never even knew there's a venomous shrew until a listener wrote us and told us.
17:59 Speaker 01 Here's the teeth.
18:00 Jeff Larson? I got bit by one.
18:01 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:02 Jeff Larson? That thing.
18:03 Mike Smith? Holy mackerel.
18:04 Jeff Larson? That's just a zoomed in picture of it too. So honestly, it could be as big as a T-Rex skull for all I know.
18:10 Mike Smith? That's true. Yeah. Or as small as a bullet ant, which hurt.
18:15 Speaker 01 That's closer to the right size. Yeah.
18:18 Jeff Larson? Wes, it with a zoomed in picture of a bullet ant just to make us think it was worse.
18:25 Mike Smith? Uh, thanks, Mel. Good story. Venomous shrews. Go figure.
18:30 Speaker 01 Yeah, there's a few venomous mammals out there. The slow lorris.
18:34 Mike Smith? Yep.
18:34 Speaker 01 Uh, platypus.
18:35 Jeff Larson? Yes.
18:36 Speaker 01 Shrews.
18:37 Mike Smith? Right. Is there a fast lorris?
18:39 Speaker 01 Uh, probably like a woman named Loris that's fast.
18:43 Mike Smith? Loris is a name, right?
18:44 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's acceptable answer. Am I thinking of?
18:47 Jeff Larson? Lois?
18:48 Speaker 01 Lois. There's probably people named Loris, right?
18:52 Jeff Larson? If there is, I don't think they're fast.
18:55 Mike Smith? Okay. I'm just a slow person name.
18:57 Speaker 01 I'm gonna get on Facebook really quick. Okay. Loris.
19:02 Mike Smith? Uh, yeah, sure. Thanks, Wes. Uh, should I go?
19:06 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
19:06 Mike Smith? Okay. Here's the story. It starts off like this. Hey, guys, I just had to tell you this true story.
19:15 Mike Smith? We assume all these stories are true. Right. So, um, we'll start off with just assuming that he's telling the truth here.
19:22 Speaker 01 This guy's named Loris and he looks hella fast to me.
19:25 Mike Smith? That guy is running like a four two forty. Are you kidding me?
19:28 Speaker 01 Yeah.
19:29 Mike Smith? Jeez. See you next year on the Chargers, I hope. Okay. I'm confident I'm the only person to have ever been bit by a swan, an ostrich, and a piranha all in the same day. Here's the story. Do you think?
19:42 Speaker 01 That's what I'm excited to hear.
19:43 Mike Smith? Wild combination of animals all in one day.
19:46 Speaker 01 Probably.
19:46 Mike Smith? Yeah. When I was in college at Grand Valley State University in the nineties, I took a job at the Humane Society for extra cash while attending school. My brother-in-law was the manager at the time and hired me. Nepotism.
20:00 Mike Smith? This is probably why they got bit. Yeah, that goose was whatever we. Someone more qualified would not have gotten bit by these animals. One day, one day, a swan, hold on, I gotta. Brony.
20:17 Mike Smith? It really is like, it's like exactly the same situation.
20:22 Mike Smith? One day a swan had been brought in that had been hit by a car and injured. I was asked if I could bring it to a nearby bird sanctuary to be treated. I agreed. The swan had been placed in a cage and I was given a portable dog carrier to place it in for the travel. I opened the cage and was immediately bitten by the swan, which I had no idea they actually have teeth. There you go. They do. That's another fact for all you guys out there that didn't know, guys and gals. I grabbed the swan around the neck. Good move. I grabbed the swan around the neck with one hand and attempted to reach around its body to carry it out of the cage. The old wraparound move. The old. The old reach around. The old undertaker. Right, that's a better, maybe. Definitely better than the old reach around.
21:07 Mike Smith? At this point, sorry, I'm gonna get serious here. At this point, the swan started flapping its wings, striking me in the face with the power of Tyson in his prime. I took a beating to the face, but managed. This guy's making it hard. This is like not my fault.
21:23 Mike Smith? The reach around comment was 100% your fault. There's like nothing. Yeah, I shouldn't.
21:30 Mike Smith? Shouldn't have said that. Oh. Okay, at this point, swan started flapping its wings, striking me in the face with the power of Tyson in his prime. I took a beating to the face, but managed to lift it out of the cage. Swans have numerous defense mechanisms and the teeth and wing flapping aren't the worst. They also shit instinctively and my jeans were stained by the bird's foul excrement. Foul excrement, funny wordplay. Uh, which I was never able to get out. Was it spelled F O W L? Unfortunately, no. Shoot. Never got it out of his pants. Finally, I was able to get it into the carrier. I placed the carrier in my two-seat Pontiac Fiero and proceeded to drive to the bird sanctuary. It was more of a farm and was incidentally run by my high school algebra teacher, Mr. Kemi. More connections.
22:13 Speaker 01 Yeah, he's teaching the wrong subject. Mr. Kemi is teaching algebra.
22:18 Mike Smith? It's Mr. K E M M E.
22:20 Speaker 01 Oh, okay.
22:21 Mike Smith? Kem. I arrived to find him out in the pens feeding his prize group of about 12 ostriches. I got out to meet him and he waved me over. While walking to him, the group of ostriches then decided to crowd around me. Sensing my nervousness, Mr. Kemi stated that, quote, "Not to worry, they won't hurt you." The birds towered over me and began, quote, "pecking" at my head and shoulders as I tried to explain to him that I have an injured swan for him. He said okay as the ostriches continued striking me with their beaks, knocking me in the head before I retreated. Mr. Kemi laughed it off. He was also the high school wrestling coach and didn't care for... dot, dot, dot, pansy. Let's just put it. He took the swan from me and I headed home to where I had pet piranhas in a tank. This has gotta be where the piranhas get them, right?
23:06 Speaker 01 Probably. He's like, "I also had a ticket to Brazil that day."
23:11 Mike Smith? Yeah. Uh, we'll see though.
23:15 Speaker 01 Yeah.
23:19 Mike Smith? Okay. This was in Michigan, you could buy... This was in Michigan, you could buy them at the pet store because they couldn't survive the cold Michigan waters. I had two of them. The bad thing about piranhas as pets is they make a mess out of the tanks. I had previously impressed a friend by feeding them a hot dog and the tank was now filthy, so I decided to clean it.
23:38 Jeff Larson? I'd be impressed as his friend. I'd be like, "Oh."
23:41 Mike Smith? Sweet, do it again.
23:41 Jeff Larson? I mean, if you're gonna have piranhas, you might as well show them off a little.
23:46 Speaker 01 Yeah. And a hot dog's a good thing to...
23:47 Mike Smith? Yeah.
23:49 Speaker 01 What would you name your piranha?
23:50 Mike Smith? Joey Chestnut, right?
23:51 Speaker 01 Ooh, that's a good name.
23:52 Mike Smith? Gotta be.
23:53 Speaker 01 That's a really... I would... I like Kobayashi better for a piranha, though.
23:56 Mike Smith? Me too.
23:57 Jeff Larson? Hot dog's a good thing to...
23:59 Speaker 01 I feel like it's like a fun, impressive food to throw in there to see how fast they can eat. Like Mike, we're trying to figure out how fast he can actually eat a hot dog.
24:08 Mike Smith? Yeah.
24:09 Speaker 01 And like a piranha, it seems like they could do it pretty quick.
24:12 Mike Smith? Give me 15 seconds, that dog is gone.
24:15 Speaker 01 I don't think it's.
24:15 Mike Smith? Watch me.
24:16 Speaker 01 We gotta do this.
24:16 Mike Smith? Yeah. I don't chew. I don't chew a hot dog.
24:19 Speaker 01 I think, I think that should be like a bonus content for Patreon. We need to film you eating a hot dog and see how fast you can actually do it.
24:27 Mike Smith? Okay.
24:28 Speaker 01 Okay.
24:28 Mike Smith? Sure.
24:29 Speaker 01 We can blur your face.
24:30 Mike Smith? I carefully placed, please do. I carefully placed one piranha into a net to transfer it to another tank so I could clean theirs. The fish leaped out of the net and I instinctively grabbed it in midair so it wouldn't slam to the floor. It's great reflexes. I landed, it landed in my hand, mouth first and closed its jaws around the skin, just below my pinky finger, causing it to bleed for what seemed like hours.
24:52 Speaker 01 Ouch.
24:53 Mike Smith? I meant, yeah. Uh, one to 10 ouchies?
24:58 Jeff Larson? With all three?
24:59 Mike Smith? Yeah.
24:59 Jeff Larson? One.
25:00 Mike Smith? Okay.
25:05 Mike Smith? I managed to finish the cleaning and took a much needed break. It was a long day for all, what's this guy's name, Chris? This happened in 1996. After finding your podcast, I felt you guys would appreciate the story more than anyone. Chris Barkman.
25:20 Speaker 01 I like that story.
25:20 Mike Smith? That's a great story.
25:21 Speaker 01 That is a great story. Yeah.
25:24 Jeff Larson? I have one.
25:25 Speaker 01 Let's hear it.
25:26 Jeff Larson? Okay. Angry Moose and the Snowmobile.
25:30 Speaker 01 Ooh.
25:31 Jeff Larson? Uh, by Matt Calderon.
25:34 Speaker 01 Are we doing last names?
25:35 Jeff Larson? Yeah, I did.
25:36 Speaker 01 Okay.
25:36 Mike Smith? Yeah, me too. I was, I hesitated, but I mean, they put it in the email. We'll bleep it out.
25:41 Jeff Larson? Nah, they don't care.
25:42 Speaker 01 Well, now I have to.
25:43 Mike Smith? My room's just did it.
25:46 Jeff Larson? Okay.
25:46 Speaker 01 Okay.
25:47 Mike Smith? All right.
25:47 Speaker 01 We're going for it.
25:48 Mike Smith? Yeah.
25:49 Jeff Larson? So this story's from January 2009, when, okay, I'm gonna read it like I'm him now. This story is from January 2009, when I was snowbo, snowmobiling with friends in Groton State Forest in Vermont. We'd been riding all weekend and we were getting ready to consider leaving to head back to Connecticut. When my friend said, let's go for one last ride. Famous last words, right?
26:16 Speaker 01 Right. One last case.
26:17 Mike Smith? Yeah, getting too old for this.
26:19 Jeff Larson? Except for ironically Fast 7, when they go on one last ride.
26:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:24 Jeff Larson? And it, they leave, like.
26:27 Speaker 01 It was one of those.
26:28 Jeff Larson? Best friends forever.
26:29 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:29 Mike Smith? Hmm.
26:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:30 Jeff Larson? And that's ironic because in real life, he was dead.
26:33 Mike Smith? Yeah.
26:34 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
26:34 Speaker 01 And the guy in the movie was just a computer.
26:37 Jeff Larson? And his brother. We were about halfway through the ride and traveling at a pretty good rate of speed, probably between sixty-five and seventy miles per hour on some straightaways that were basically long, straight tunnels. Both sides of the trail were lined with heavy, drooping pine trees that were laying low due to all the snowfall that year. So you really couldn't see anything if it were to cross in front of you on the trail. The trails in this area were only wide enough to allow two snowmobiles to pass each other, maybe ten to twelve feet wide. My friend was ahead of me by about two or three hundred feet and was coming to a turn where he disappeared. Just as he was about to leave my sight, something else caught my eye, entering the trail about
27:21 Jeff Larson? a hundred fifty feet in front of me. It was a bull moose.
27:27 Jeff Larson? You said bald eagle?
27:28 Mike Smith? I said snowmobile. Isn't that the other option here?
27:32 Speaker 01 Yeah. That wouldn't be as good of a snowmobile.
27:35 Jeff Larson? About six feet tall at the shoulder, just casually standing there. If you know anything about snowmobiles, they generally don't stop very quickly. Did you know that, Mike?
27:45 Mike Smith? No, I'm not overly intimate.
27:47 Jeff Larson? Did you, Wes?
27:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, I rode a lot of snowmobiles doing polar bear work, so I knew that.
27:51 Jeff Larson? How quick do they stop?
27:52 Speaker 01 It takes, it takes a second.
27:54 Jeff Larson? If you're going fast?
27:55 Speaker 01 It really depends on the type of snow you're in. But yeah, they, they do kind of slide to a stop.
27:59 Jeff Larson? So the brake controls the track of the sled. When you try to stop fast, you grab the brake as hard as you can, which locks up the track and causes you to simply slide, which makes sense.
28:11 Mike Smith? Yeah.
28:12 Jeff Larson? I was probably traveling around sixty-five miles per hour at this point and knew I didn't have enough distance to slow down before hitting the moose. With no way to go left or right off the trail without hitting a tree, the only option I had was to try to jump as my sled was about to hit the moose.
28:30 Speaker 01 Wait, to like jump over the moose?
28:32 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
28:32 Mike Smith? James Bond. That can't have been his only, that's, that was the coolest option.
28:38 Jeff Larson? That's what, I mean, I think it's a pretty tight window.
28:41 Mike Smith? Sure, yeah.
28:42 Speaker 01 Do you think he meant like jump to the side, though?
28:44 Jeff Larson? Yeah. Well?
28:45 Speaker 01 Okay.
28:46 Jeff Larson? I'll tell you.
28:47 Speaker 01 All right.
28:47 Jeff Larson? All I remember is jumping as hard as I could off the running boards, letting go of the handlebars, and my knees and quad muscles hitting and sliding over the moose's back.
28:59 Speaker 01 Oh my gosh.
29:00 Mike Smith? Crazy.
29:00 Jeff Larson? Yeah. As I went over it, this essentially turned me into a giant lawn dart. Now going headfirst into the trail ahead of me. I don't think I had a concussion or blacked out, but there was a moment where time seemed to slow down.
29:16 Speaker 01 For sure. I think that kind of turns you into any projectile. Not so much like just a lawn dart, but I do like how.
29:24 Jeff Larson? You got another one? One of the little people in Wolf of Wall Street?
29:29 Speaker 01 Yeah, sure.
29:31 Speaker 01 Velcro. Yeah, a missile. A regular dart? Yeah, dart.
29:36 Jeff Larson? I got up. I got up from the trail and saw that my sled had veered off and to the left and crashed into a tree. When I turned around, the moose was lying in the middle of the trail, thrashing because my snowmobile had broken one or two of its legs. I was standing there in the cold, empty forest. My friend was gone at this point and I had no idea what had just happened behind him. I watched the moose struggle to get up, which it eventually did, and it ran off through the four to five feet deep snow off the trail. One of its legs was definitely very badly broken, but moose are incredibly tough animals. It made it about 150 feet away while I sat there trying to assess whether I had any major injuries.
30:19 Jeff Larson? Other than having the wind knocked out of me and my knees and legs being pretty sore, I was okay. Then I quickly realized this entire event was not over. The moose, having come to its senses and realizing it had just been hit by a 400 pound snowmobile, was clearly upset. It started snorting at me and staring through the thick winter tree line. It then began coming back towards me. I started looking for a tree to climb because I had no idea what else to do. There was nowhere to run except up the trail since the snow off the trail was far too deep to make any headway. I started jumping up and down, yelling and waving my arms, but the moose kept approaching and was probably about 30 feet from me at that point.
31:04 Jeff Larson? Luckily, another snowmobiler, Mike. Yeah. Snowmobile, you're just a little too early. Yeah, yeah. Uh, happened to come down the trail and the sound of the sled caused the moose to turn and continue the opposite direction. As a side note, I tried to get the snowmobiler to stop so I could tell him to go and like, find help, but he didn't stop and barely acknowledged me. Wow. Even though my sled was smashed into a tree off the side of the trail. People can be absolutely terrible. Hmm. Eventually, about half an hour later. Saying that too. My buddy realized I wasn't following him and came back to find me and the sled in
31:46 Jeff Larson? a mess. We hooked the sled together and with a tow strap, he pulled me about seven or eight miles back to his cabin. He also didn't believe me initially, but I had grabbed a small pile of snow with blood and moose hair in it. Also, there is a giant moose body print in the middle of the trail. Yeah. I mean, it is like. A crazy. You jumped over a moose? Yeah, hard to believe. Yeah. Um, and then he attached some pictures, said, "That was probably the closest I've ever thought I was to dying. Once I got back, everything started to sink in. I became very sore and had a small breakdown where I just started crying." It was kind of funny in a way, though, because they had a small cattle farm on their cabin
32:31 Jeff Larson? with these fuzzy Highland cows with huge horns. I was crying while looking at these cows and they were just staring at me like, "Dude, suck it up."
32:42 Jeff Larson? Thanks for reading and I'm a huge fan of the podcast. And then he sent a picture of a sled and his Highland cows. So personally, I believe. I believe him. I do want to see the bloody hair and snow. So he's got to still have the snow or I don't believe him. That was, I just, this is insane. They like. But like going that fast, had he not jumped?
33:03 Mike Smith? Yeah.
33:04 Jeff Larson? Like, he could have died.
33:06 Mike Smith? Right.
33:07 Speaker 01 Yeah.
33:07 Jeff Larson? Like hitting some moose are thousands of pounds.
33:11 Speaker 01 Not thousands, but yeah.
33:12 Jeff Larson? A moose can be a thousand pounds.
33:13 Speaker 01 Yeah.
33:14 Jeff Larson? Two thou- it can be two thousand pounds.
33:17 Speaker 01 I don't think so.
33:18 Jeff Larson? A bull moose?
33:19 Speaker 01 I think the biggest they get is about a thousand pounds.
33:21 Mike Smith? Hmm.
33:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
33:22 Mike Smith? Either way, that you're not winning that collision.
33:24 Speaker 01 No.
33:25 Mike Smith? Like, yeah, even with the snowmobile and everything, it seems like.
33:28 Speaker 01 And then also, like, if you're not jumping, you're getting stuck around their legs.
33:32 Mike Smith? Yeah.
33:32 Speaker 01 So you get kicked or whatever. Yeah.
33:34 Jeff Larson? A thousand six hundred is what?
33:36 Mike Smith? Yeah.
33:37 Jeff Larson? It says they get up to.
33:38 Speaker 01 That's the biggest?
33:39 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
33:39 Speaker 01 Okay, that's bigger than I thought.
33:41 Jeff Larson? But yeah, so, I don't know, it's kinda crazy, like, it's one of those things that is kind of a movie, movie logic, like, that doesn't work in real life.
33:51 Mike Smith? Right.
33:52 Jeff Larson? And it worked.
33:53 Mike Smith? That's crazy, yeah. Good reflexes.
33:55 Jeff Larson? And if the moose end up dying, hopefully a mountain lion ate it.
33:59 Speaker 01 Yeah, if it walked off, I don't think its legs could be that badly broken.
34:04 Jeff Larson? Hmm.
34:05 Speaker 01 Even though they, Chris, or who is this guy's name again?
34:08 Jeff Larson? Matt.
34:09 Speaker 01 Matt. Even though he said it was badly broken, I, they are really tough animals, but its leg was like really badly broken, I don't think it would have been able to walk around like that.
34:18 Jeff Larson? Maybe his friends call him Chris.
34:20 Speaker 01 Yeah. It's possible.
34:22 Mike Smith? The moose?
34:23 Jeff Larson? No, Matt.
34:24 Mike Smith? Oh, yeah. All mixed up. Uh, I wanna clear something up.
34:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
34:30 Mike Smith? I said earlier that I'm not overly intimate in regards to snowmobiles.
34:35 Speaker 01 Yeah.
34:35 Mike Smith? I'm not intimate at all with them, let alone overly. I was trying to say I'm not intimately familiar with
34:41 Speaker 01 Okay.
34:41 Mike Smith? snowmobiles. So, sorry.
34:43 Speaker 01 I don't even think I heard you say that.
34:44 Jeff Larson? That's one of those times where you just don't need the word intimate, I don't think.
34:49 Mike Smith? Intimately familiar is, like, people would, yeah.
34:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
34:53 Mike Smith? It's, I shouldn't, I shouldn't have even brought it back.
34:55 Speaker 01 I think intimately familiar is like, an okay way to say it.
34:59 Mike Smith? Yeah.
34:59 Speaker 01 But yeah, sure.
35:00 Mike Smith? I don't even know how you would be intimate with a snowmobile.
35:04 Speaker 01 I mean, there's probably someone, someone's done it.
35:06 Jeff Larson? Hey, Mike, how familiar with snowmobiles are you? And you're like, I've never had sex with one.
35:11 Mike Smith? Right.
35:12 Speaker 01 Yeah.
35:12 Mike Smith? And that would tell you all you need to know.
35:14 Speaker 01 Not intimate. If someone said that, I'd be like, oh, this dude's had sex with a snowmobile.
35:19 Mike Smith? That's true, right?
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36:21 Wes Larson? How do you feel about organizing your finances on your own? For me, it feels really overwhelming. It just feels like such a huge challenge to know exactly how I'm spending my money, how I should be spending it, how it's coming in. It just kind of starts to become really complicated, especially when we're getting close to tax season. So for me, Rocket Money has been so helpful. It's a personal finance app, helps you find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps you lower your bills so you can grow your savings. And money's been tight for a lot of people lately, so I think that last point is really important, that you're actually tracking your spending and your bills. Rocket Money will actually help you lower your bills so that you can spend less. For me, the thing that's just been super helpful is finding those unwanted subscriptions.
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39:12 Mike Smith? All right. This next one is from Harrison Holesgang. And this story is called Bear Math in Glacier National Park. My wife Sarah had won an Amtrak gift card at a work raffle. Don't worry about Dox, and plenty of people have that last name. Holesgang. Yeah. Harrison Holesgang. So we don't need to worry about that.
39:32 Speaker 01 All right. We did not know what to do with the card, but with an expiration date coming, we started looking where this gift could take us. That's kind of fun. Like, if you get a gift like that where it's like, we really want to use this, it's kind of a good way to make someone go on a train, which is cool. We excitedly discovered the Amtrak could drop us off right at Glacier, at Glacier National Park. With transportation secured, we put our names into the park's backcountry permit lottery, and we were awarded our dream trip itinerary. For seven days and six nights, we'd backpack across the park from west to east.
40:05 Jeff Larson? More nepotism, I bet.
40:06 Speaker 01 Why's that?
40:08 Jeff Larson? I mean, that just sounds like someone helped him out.
40:10 Speaker 01 She won an Amtrak gift card at a work raffle.
40:13 Jeff Larson? But then Glacier let them go in their backcountry. Some, their dad has to be, sure, Brad Pitt.
40:21 Speaker 01 This was to be our first time in grizzly country, and while excited, we were also nervous. Leading up to our trip, Sarah put on the audiobook for Engineering Eden. For those of you who don't know, that's a book that is very much about bears in national parks. During weekend car trips, unbeknownst to both of us, we were about to listen to a section of the book that outlined the gory details surrounding August 13th, 1967, in Glacier National Park. Do you guys know what happened on August 13th, 1967, in Glacier National Park?
40:54 Jeff Larson? Yes, but I read your email.
40:56 Speaker 01 Mike?
40:57 Jeff Larson? Brad Pitt?
40:58 Speaker 01 67, August 13th, 1967. We went to the moon. In Glacier National Park. That probably didn't happen then. Come on, you got this. Grizzlies? Night of the Grizzlies. Shoot. Yeah, all right. Our first night in Glacier was to be spent at the Granite Chalet campground, one of the attack sites. This, obviously, that's where Julia Rasmussen died. This obviously did nothing to ease any nerviness about backpacking around grizzly bears for the first time. We made our trip from Portland to West Glacier, shuttled to the trailhead, and began our hike. Our night spent outside Granite Chalet did, uh, did not bear, it's confusing, any animal encounters except a baby deer. Any thoughts about Night of the Grizzlies stayed far away as we made friends and talked
41:42 Speaker 01 with the other campers.
41:44 Jeff Larson? That baby deer is probably like, what the fuck, dude?
41:48 Speaker 01 I'm not an animal? Yeah, am I not the cutest animal in the world? Is that not good enough for you? Imagine what Brad Pitt's saying. What the hell, what do you? I don't know. Somehow. Oh, blame me.
42:05 Speaker 01 We saw the first bears of the trip at Many Glacier. Great place to see bears. We had multiple sightings of black bears along with one potential grizzly cub, which terrifyingly enough was being approached by a very naive photographer. Our hike toward East Glacier continued and on the fourth day, we shared the campground with a friendly Swiss couple. They let us know the huckleberries further down the trail were very ripe. So ripe, in fact, that they spent the previous day snacking on the berries until they were so full that they fell asleep amongst the bushes. It's kind of charming and a funny story, but it also heightened our bear awareness on day five. Yes, if you are camping in Glacier and you eat so many huckleberries that you fall asleep, you're taking a pretty big risk. That's not a good idea.
42:50 Speaker 01 The next day, as we made our way through the berry fields, we came upon a rise in the trail. That's when I noticed up the hillside from us was the top of a brown head with two furry brown ears. Sarah had not seen the bear right away. Brad Pitt. It's gotta be, right? Dulcim, I in my memory hollered clearly, "Stop, there is a bear." However, according to her, I announced the presence of the bear so calmly and nonchalantly that it sounded more like I was pointing out a dog or an interesting flower. She continued down the trail for a couple of steps before my words made sense and just in time for the bear to stand up for a better look at us. With the bear now standing, we could tell it was undoubtedly a grizzly bear. The bear seemed to be a good distance away and in the realm of the parks recommended,
43:34 Speaker 01 oh, and in the realm of the parks recommended distance. We'd quickly had our bear spray unholstered without even consciously thinking about doing so. Good job. Yeah. That again is why we always recommend carrying your bear spray in the same spot all the time because then you just have that muscle memory. So, good job to these. And do like when De Niro and taxi drivers like practicing pulling the gun out in the mirror? Stand in front of the mirror. Do that. Yeah. Few times. Say, "Do you feel lucky, punk?" Are you communicating with me? Yeah. Is that, do you feel lucky punk?
44:06 Mike Smith? No, that's dirty hairy.
44:07 Speaker 01 Dirty hairy, yeah.
44:08 Mike Smith? And are you communicating with me as?
44:09 Speaker 01 Yeah.
44:10 Mike Smith? Uh, the Chris Farley.
44:11 Speaker 01 What is he saying taxi driver? It's a famous thing.
44:13 Mike Smith? Talking to me?
44:14 Speaker 01 You talking to me?
44:15 Mike Smith? Is it?
44:15 Speaker 01 That's what it is.
44:16 Mike Smith? Are you talking to me?
44:17 Speaker 01 And he says it to himself. Yeah.
44:19 Mike Smith? Like forty times.
44:19 Speaker 01 Yeah. But don't, isn't do you feel lucky punk to yourself? No. No, that's to the child. Man, I don't know what I'm saying.
44:25 Mike Smith? He, yeah, he's like, I might have shot all these bullets.
44:28 Speaker 01 You're right. Man. Alright. Simultaneously, we started backing away to gain some more distance while keeping the bear in view. The bear watched us for a few seconds from its stance. Then it bounded down the hill about ten to fifteen yards before standing up again. And just so everyone knows, like, that would indicate a bear that's maybe a little bit stressed out. A bear that kind of is like, has checked you out and decided that you need to get checked out a little bit more. And so you would want to be a little bit concerned in that circumstance. What I would think is there's probably cubs nearby. Negating any of our efforts to back away. A second bear then stood up next to the first, so there was a cub, doubling the bear to human ratio.
45:12 Speaker 01 We continued back away, backing away to regain some of our distance. But we would not, we did not want to drop too far below the hill because we would lose visual contact with the curious bears. Two bears, two people, two cans of bear spray. One cub. Yeah.
45:29 Speaker 01 Math is still adding up, okay. The two bears ran down the hill a little further, maybe another ten to twenty yards, narrowing the distance between us again. Just in front of where the two bears stopped, another two bears stood up. Again, doubling the bear to human ratio. Uh, math is adding up less okay. And the four bears stared at us a few more seconds, and then finally the pack ran off, ran off down the hill. So for sure, this is a family group. Right. Don't say pack, say family. It's alright, yeah. But they're, they're not in packs, but like, this is definitely a female with some cubs. So if if you ever see this many bears together, unless there's like a big resource there,
46:10 Speaker 01 like a salmon stream, or a dead animal, or something else that's like bigger than a berry patch, you you can be pretty confident that this is gonna be a female with cubs, or that it could be like cubs that have just left their mom and still together. But because there's four bears, female with probably some subadult cubs, or cubs that are about to leave her. All right. While this final run was not directly toward us, a part of me was convinced they were going to hit the trail, turn our way, and come mob us. Fortunately, they never came around the corner of the trail. However, no longer, we no longer knew their location, or what was around the arc of the trail, so we waited there collecting our heads and giving the bears ample time to clear out. When we finally continued our way down the trail, it was at a cautious pace.
46:55 Speaker 01 We gave out bear calls, talked loudly, and held tight to our bear spray. The trail passed through the remainder of the huckleberries, then started winding up Triple Divide Pass, while covered in tall brush, providing limited visibility of what lay ahead. I kind of, the thing I like about this story, is that we have a lot of actual tooth and claw stories that start out like this, and then they end up ending badly. But like, for every one of those, there are, you know, hundreds that are like this. So I do think it's good for our listeners to remember, that it doesn't always end badly. Like, sometimes, people are okay. Yeah, I mean, earlier in this story, they talked about it, people like falling asleep by a huckleberry bush. Oh, yeah. Nothing bad happened there. That's true. I'm not saying do that.
47:39 Speaker 01 The Swiss, though, nothing bad ever happens to the Swiss.
47:42 Jeff Larson? Wes just said as a grain of salt.
47:45 Speaker 01 Okay.
47:46 Jeff Larson? Because he hates any story where people don't get hurt by animals.
47:51 Speaker 01 That's true. I need someone here. You're real sicko. Yeah. All right. We hoped the bears had not headed up the trail, had not headed up the trail, and we were afraid we would stumble across them around a blind corner. Suddenly, Sarah stopped and cursed. Pointing to my right through a gap in the brush, she brought my attention to a big brown rump in a stream maybe 50 yards away. Nice. This point. We were all bared out for the moment, so it was a relief when the creature lifted his head up to reveal a large rack of moose antlers. I know moose are quite dangerous, but- Large rack? Yes. Big brown button, large rack. Mike.
48:29 Speaker 01 Mike's getting way too intimate with this story. Uh, could have been dulcement, no, it couldn't have been. I know moose are quite dangerous, but at 50 yards off and minding its own business, that moose was not much of a concern to us. The comic misidentification helped ease our tension. That happens. I've seen moose before that I thought were bears.
48:50 Jeff Larson? Or if they had to jump over it.
48:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
48:54 Speaker 01 The bad part is we were on snowmobiles and we couldn't stop.
48:59 Speaker 01 The amount of wildlife we got to see at Glacier was unparalleled to anywhere else I'd been so far, admittedly not a ton of places. On our trip, we saw four grizzlies, several black bears, seven moose, bighorn sheep, too many marmots and goats to count. That is a really good glacier trip. That's really good. It was an incredible experience. I hope you enjoyed our story of the multiplying bears. I look back at it fondly now, but in the moment, my mind was freaked out because the biggest animal I'd ever seen in the wild just seemed to keep doubling. Thanks for reading my trail tale, or toothy tale on our podcast, and hope you enjoyed it. Harrison Holes gang.
49:35 Jeff Larson? Uh, I have a question, Wes.
49:36 Speaker 01 Yeah.
49:37 Jeff Larson? You know that hypothetical of like, how many kindergarteners could you take in a fight?
49:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
49:43 Jeff Larson? How many bears could you take with one can of bear spray?
49:47 Speaker 01 Uh, probably like two.
49:50 Jeff Larson? If all four bears come at you and you have one can of bear spray, you're in trouble?
49:54 Speaker 01 They all came at the same time, I'd probably be able to get all four of them to leave, but if they were coming one at a time, I think I'd probably get through my can after two of them. You get about seven seconds to spray.
50:05 Jeff Larson? But how many coming at you at once until you aren't okay?
50:10 Speaker 01 Um, enough to where if I was like spinning in a circle spraying my bear spray, I couldn't get them all or put a wall around me.
50:18 Jeff Larson? Like 12?
50:20 Speaker 01 Yeah, but maybe I could, I might be able to spin a circle fast enough with seven seconds to spray to put a complete circle around me. And then maybe I
50:29 Jeff Larson? You think you have a chance with 12?
50:31 Speaker 01 Yeah.
50:31 Jeff Larson? Yeah. Alright.
50:33 Speaker 01 Thanks for sending that Harrison. Sounds like a great trip. Honestly, like a very productive wildlife trip to Glacier. I think for like Yellowstone in prime season, that's like a good trip, but for Glacier, that's really good. So.
50:45 Jeff Larson? I've always wanted to take that train.
50:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, me too.
50:50 Speaker 03 This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. You can go deep, keep it on the ground, or draw up something nobody sees coming. And whether you want to run a flea flicker or the tush push, you need a plan to fit your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you, so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
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55:20 Mike Smith? Okay, here's, here's another story. I've got one for y'all. This is from Hannah O'Carroll.
55:26 Jeff Larson? Wow.
55:28 Mike Smith? "Good morning, Wes, Jeff, Mike, parentheses, and Mrs. Larson."
55:33 Jeff Larson? Cindy did. She did, like, this was the one that we've done that she put me on to. She was like, "This [bleep] is good."
55:43 Mike Smith? Okay, yeah.
55:44 Jeff Larson? Oh, I just spoiled it.
55:45 Speaker 01 Spoiled.
55:45 Jeff Larson? Bleep that.
55:46 Speaker 01 This story is good.
55:47 Mike Smith? It spoils, it's in the first sentence they're gonna say it. We'll still bleep it, but yeah, I just wanted you to know that you didn't mess up that bad. Here we go. "I'd like to share a story that recently happened to me in the Florida Keys where I had an unexpectedly intense encounter with a winged box jellyfish, parentheses, "Alatina Alata."
56:06 Speaker 01 Ooh.
56:06 Mike Smith? I'm a huge fan of the podcast.
56:08 Speaker 01 I like Alatina Alata too.
56:12 Mike Smith? You do like a lot. A lot of them.
56:15 Speaker 01 Jessie's part Latina.
56:16 Mike Smith? Is that true?
56:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, her mom is, uh, I think, half Mexican.
56:21 Mike Smith? Holy cow.
56:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
56:22 Mike Smith? I had no idea.
56:23 Speaker 01 Yeah. So I think that counts. I think Jessie could, but she's, you know, she's very, like, white.
56:29 Mike Smith? Yeah.
56:30 Speaker 01 So she doesn't say that she's Latina. I want to make that very clear. She's not one of those people that, like, says she is.
56:36 Mike Smith? Yeah, otherwise I would know.
56:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
56:37 Mike Smith? I've never heard that from her. That's cool. Okay. "So Hannah works in conservation wildlife biology here in South Florida, based in the Stewart area." We're really doxxing this person pretty good here. "My days are usually filled with wildlife surveys and prescribed burns across, prescribed burns across the region. Outside of work, I spend as much time as I can in the water spearfishing, free diving, and doing underwater photography."
57:01 Speaker 01 Cool.
57:02 Mike Smith? "My boyfriend and I planned a trip down to the Florida Keys last weekend to go lobstering and offshore spearfishing for mahi-mahi tuna and wahoo."
57:10 Speaker 01 Wahoo?
57:11 Mike Smith? Like Mario. He does that.
57:14 Speaker 01 Isn't that Luigi?
57:15 Mike Smith? Isn't that the chocolate milk? Or that's Yoohoo?
57:18 Speaker 01 That's Yoohoo. I think Luigi says wahoo when-
57:21 Mike Smith? That does sound like a Luigi. You're right.
57:23 Jeff Larson? Mmm. Good call.
57:25 Speaker 01 Thanks.
57:26 Mike Smith? I know those waters well.
57:27 Jeff Larson? That's where Mike's an expert. It's like when we get a bare fact on you.
57:31 Speaker 01 That's true.
57:31 Mike Smith? Yeah.
57:32 Speaker 01 Yeah.
57:33 Mike Smith? That's great. No, I'm proud of you, Wes.
57:35 Speaker 01 Thanks.
57:35 Mike Smith? So Hannah knows these waters really well.
57:37 Speaker 01 I wish my dad would say that just once.
57:39 Mike Smith? I lived in the Keys for four years working- I'm not gonna- I can't do anything for you. I lived in the Keys for four years working as a park ranger at islands near Key Largo and Islamorada. The plan was simple. Drive down Saturday morning, go lobstering that evening, and head offshore early the next day for spearfishing pelagics. We made good time stopping to admire some of my- actually, I want to talk to you. What do you have? Do you have any thoughts or feelings about just people going out spearfishing for their own, um-
58:08 Speaker 01 I thought you were gonna ask about my dad. Um. I- I don't, no. I think like, when it comes to seafood and like, that's probably, honestly, like, one of the most sustainable ways to get it.
58:20 Mike Smith? Yeah.
58:20 Speaker 01 And these people usually understand what is okay to kill and what is not okay to kill. So spear fishermen are usually really ethical and whatnot, and so, I- I shouldn't say that like for every spear fisherman, but I do think especially someone who seems to be very biology minded-
58:37 Mike Smith? Yeah.
58:37 Speaker 01 Like this person, like, I'm sure they're being very ethical.
58:40 Mike Smith? Cool. Okay.
58:40 Jeff Larson? And lobsters are just like eating bugs.
58:44 Speaker 01 Yeah. Were they going for lobsters? Wasn't it like-
58:46 Mike Smith? That's the first- Yeah, lobstering first and then the next day.
58:49 Jeff Larson? Do you want to talk about dad?
58:51 Speaker 01 No. No, it's okay.
58:52 Jeff Larson? Okay.
58:53 Speaker 01 I didn't think they were spearfishing for lobster. I thought they were just like collecting lobster.
58:57 Mike Smith? Mm-mm.
58:58 Speaker 01 But maybe I'm wrong.
58:59 Mike Smith? I'd maybe give your dad a call after we're done recording.
59:02 Speaker 01 I'm just kidding.
59:04 Mike Smith? Yeah, who knows?
59:05 Speaker 01 It's a bit.
59:06 Jeff Larson? Have you told him you're proud of him?
59:08 Speaker 01 Uh-huh.
59:09 Jeff Larson? But he hasn't never said it to you.
59:10 Speaker 01 He has. It's just a bit that we say that sometimes.
59:14 Mike Smith? Okay, on with the story. We made good time stopping to admire some of Miami's more exotic species along the way, including a Hispaniola- Hispaniolan khaki curly-tailed lizard. That's an awesome name for an animal.
59:25 Speaker 01 That is.
59:26 Mike Smith? By 5:00 PM, we were in Key Largo, meeting up with a friend at a park and slipping into the water. It's here that I will admit my primary mistake.
59:34 Speaker 01 Alright.
59:34 Mike Smith? It's big of you, Hannah. My friend and my boyfriend were both wearing protective shirts and gloves. Unfortunately, I was not as smart as them and was just wearing a bikini.
59:46 Mike Smith? The water was warm and clear with a slightly brown, itchy haze near shore. Past the first stretch, it opened up into seagrass with mangroves on one side and shallow flats on the other. We worked a shelf dropping into a boat channel and found plenty of lobsters, but all just shy of legal size, so we had to let them go. Around 7pm, I had borrowed my boyfriend's gloves as he was having issues clearing his ears and was done diving for the day, opting to snorkel instead. I was about 10 feet down after he spotted a monster lobster. I stuck my hand into a rock hole surrounded by fluffy algae and seagrass debris, and a winged, boxed jellyfish lay unseen in that debris. I felt an immediate sting on my left arm and pulled out of the hole, letting the lobster get away. I surfaced and gripped my arm, however, the pain was relatively mild.
1:00:30 Mike Smith? I did not see the cause, however, living in the Keys, I've been stung by a few things and assumed it was just fire coral. I'd been stung by fire coral in the past, and usually for me, it hurts for about 10 minutes or so and then goes away. A large red welt popped up on my upper left arm and a few more started popping up down my forearm as well. I wasn't too worried, though, at this point, as I'd been stung before and figured it wouldn't be that bad. I was so, so wrong.
1:00:53 Speaker 01 Yeah, fire coral's pretty mild, but yeah.
1:00:56 Mike Smith? Do you have anything to add, Jeff?
1:00:58 Speaker 01 I, as I added that, I realized I didn't have anything to add.
1:01:02 Jeff Larson? I was just thinking, bikinis?
1:01:04 Mike Smith? Yeah, no, I wouldn't consider that a mistake, personally.
1:01:10 Speaker 01 You know what's funny is when you read that and we got past it without saying anything, I was like, oh, I'm proud of them.
1:01:18 Jeff Larson? Wes, you see that new SpongeBob movie?
1:01:20 Speaker 01 No.
1:01:21 Jeff Larson? You've always had a, what's your problem?
1:01:23 Speaker 01 I was like, I was-
1:01:24 Jeff Larson? You've never, you've always had a thing against SpongeBob. He's a good guy.
1:01:29 Speaker 01 So here's the thing, the difference between mine and your guys' ages is the two big things that you guys were just the right age for that I wasn't were Pokemon and SpongeBob.
1:01:41 Jeff Larson? Could he be a better neighbor? Yeah, sure. But doesn't mean you need to boycott him.
1:01:46 Speaker 01 I don't hate him. I don't hate Pokemon either.
1:01:47 Jeff Larson? You're boycotting.
1:01:48 Speaker 01 I just was like a little too old when SpongeBob came around.
1:01:51 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:01:51 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:01:52 Speaker 01 Alright.
1:01:54 Mike Smith? I shouldn't have asked if you had anything to add in retrospect. On with the story. We exited the water at around 7:30 PM. At this point, I was feeling very tired, which is not normal for me. I typically freedive every weekend and I am very comfortable swimming in the ocean for several hours. I figured it'd just been a long day. With only one keeper lobster in tow, my boyfriend and I rinsed off at the park, changed and said goodbye to my friend. I haven't seen it either. Then. SpongeBob, I haven't either. The new movie? Yeah. That's fine. You will. Uh, we started driving back to our Airbnb. This is when I started to think something was wrong. My chest was really tight and I started to have some pretty painful back pain, feeling much like a muscle cramp.
1:02:36 Mike Smith? The sting was hurting more now. It felt like it was coming in waves through my arm. I started to worry a little bit at this point. I mentioned to my boyfriend that something was wrong and he asked if I needed to switch and offered to drive. I declined, wanting to prove that I was fine to myself and to him. Throughout the 30 minute drive back to Homestead, the anxiety really set in. I was in a lot more pain. My back was excruciating, my stomach was hurting and I was having trouble breathing. I decided that I was just being a baby and sleep would help. After all, we had to wake up at 4 AM the next day to make it on to the spearfishing charter. We loaded our bags into the Airbnb and after some trouble with the lock, I was finally able to lay down in bed. At this point, I was ready to cry. This thing, I would have been, I was, yeah. It's like Wes with the ant.
1:03:20 Speaker 01 I, this ant story is turning into like you guys acting like I reacted to it strong when I had like the smallest reaction ever.
1:03:28 Mike Smith? Right.
1:03:29 Speaker 01 Alright.
1:03:30 Mike Smith? We'll just keep going and let's see how it compares.
1:03:33 Speaker 01 Alright.
1:03:34 Mike Smith? Or when SpongeBob goes jellyfishing. At this point, I was ready to cry. The sting site felt like hot fire and everywhere else on my body felt like hot lava needles being stabbed into my skin. My back was in excruciating pain and my abdomen too. They felt like the worst muscle cramp of my entire life. My legs were cramping and my arms, my muscles started twitching and every time I moved, the pain got worse. I also had a headache.
1:03:59 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:04:00 Mike Smith? Yeah, that's, that's tough. The cramps is worse than the headache, but headaches can be bad. Right, yeah. My head hurts right now a little bit. I'm kinda like Hannah. Um. You're like Wes.
1:04:15 Mike Smith? My boyfriend went to sleep at this point, as I had not shared how I was feeling with him. I relate to that and I understand why that's a bad move, but like it things have to be really dire before I start telling people like,
1:04:28 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:04:29 Mike Smith? I think I'm in trouble here. Ugh. My boyfriend went to sleep at this point as I had not shared how I was feeling with him. I kept telling myself that I, if I just fell asleep, everything would be better, but I couldn't. I watched the clock tick by 10pm, 11pm, 12pm. At this point, I started coughing and sneezing. Each cough was another excruciatingly painful reminder of what was going on. My skin was on fire and each time I moved the fire needle sensation radiated down from my head and face all the way down to my feet. I was crying a lot. At this point, I decided to try and take a hot shower. I have had something similar happen to me after getting sunburned, after which, which I later found out was called hell's itch. It's an abnormal reaction to sunburn where you get extremely itchy and it feels like hot needles stinging you.
1:05:12 Mike Smith? Hot showers had helped with that experience and with past stings I had had. I sat in steaming, I sat in the steaming hot shower and felt my first sense of relief. My back and abdomen were still in excruciating pain, but the hot needle sensation went away.
1:05:27 Jeff Larson? That's crazy because I feel like when I have a really bad sunburn, a hot shower is like the worst thing for it.
1:05:32 Mike Smith? Oh, it's the worst. Yeah.
1:05:34 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:05:34 Mike Smith? I don't like that.
1:05:36 Mike Smith? Cold shower is good for if you're trying to not.
1:05:38 Jeff Larson? Not be so horny because of your sunburn.
1:05:41 Mike Smith? Right. Or if you're a little Mormon boy.
1:05:43 Jeff Larson? Sure.
1:05:45 Jeff Larson? I'm not.
1:05:46 Mike Smith? Um, where was I?
1:05:48 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:05:48 Mike Smith? Hot showers.
1:05:49 Jeff Larson? Cold chat.
1:05:50 Mike Smith? That's right. My back and abdomen were still in excruciating pain, but the hot needle sensation went away. That's nice. I took, I took three more hot showers before I was in so much pain that I decided that I needed to take some kind of medicine. It was 1:30am at this point and the only thing near me that was open was a 7-Eleven. A little ironic. They should be closed.
1:06:11 Jeff Larson? That is.
1:06:12 Mike Smith? Right?
1:06:12 Jeff Larson? Why should it be closed?
1:06:14 Mike Smith? It's 1:30.
1:06:15 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:06:15 Mike Smith? 7-Eleven.
1:06:16 Jeff Larson? Because 11 o'clock? Is that how that, is that what that means? 7am to 11pm. I had no idea. Yeah.
1:06:23 Mike Smith? Uh, maybe we're wrong, but.
1:06:25 Jeff Larson? That's the one close to where I lived. Opened at seven and closed at 11. Huh, I'm gonna look it up really quick. Not because I'm doubting you guys, I'm just curious.
1:06:34 Mike Smith? So a bit of a miracle, kinda, that this place is still open.
1:06:37 Jeff Larson? Yeah. Yeah.
1:06:38 Mike Smith? I drove there not wanting to wake up my boyfriend for a fire coral sting, as she's still thinking it is, and picked up some ibuprofen. I truly feel bad for the 7-Eleven guy. He saw this poor crazy girl who was sobbing and convulsing with every step. He just stared at me for a minute before I said "thanks" through the tears and took my ibuprofen back to the car. I drove back and took three and tried laying down again. It didn't work.
1:07:03 Mike Smith? So instead I decided to figure out why the heck I was reacting this way to what I still thought was fire coral.
1:07:07 Jeff Larson? This is kinda like when my appendix was about to burst. I just like kept taking pills and trying to walk it off. Yeah, just power through it with ibuprofen.
1:07:18 Mike Smith? Meanwhile, your organs just on the verge of exploding.
1:07:21 Jeff Larson? Didn't work.
1:07:24 Mike Smith? I started doing research and I compiled a list of every different stinging creature in the area where I was stung, pictures of their stings, and lists of their symptoms and treatments. In between my fire needles and sobbing, I found the most likely culprit, the winged box jellyfish. At this point, my boyfriend was awake and asked if I was okay. I said "no." I said "thank you for being honest, finally." You know, it's probably what he was thinking.
1:07:48 Mike Smith? Finally get the truth out of you.
1:07:50 Jeff Larson? He just gets mad at it?
1:07:53 Mike Smith? I said "it wasn't fire coral, but a winged box jellyfish." He looked at the research I did and agreed. At this point, I knew I wasn't gonna sleep at all. I cried, took hot showers, and cried some more until our alarms went off at 4 a.m. Here comes the interesting part. Although I was in excruciating pain, having muscle spasms, a headache, abdominal and back pain, severe anxiety, I was not having a systemic reaction. My boyfriend and I looked at a lot of sources about the species and all of these were normal symptoms, but the systemic symptoms were things like difficulty breathing, Trachea, tachycardia? Slurring words, nausea, and vomiting. Thankfully, I didn't have any of those symptoms. My boyfriend had been watching me since he woke up around 1:30 a.m.
1:08:34 Mike Smith? and keeping an eye on my heart rate, breathing, and everything as I got in and out of the shower. So because of this, we decided to still try and go on the offshore spearfishing trip. As we packed out, as we packed our things, I was crying out from the pain still, worrying that this would be a bad idea. But I decided to just fight through it the best I could. We stopped at a gas station where I picked up some Benadryl, of which I took three.
1:08:59 Mike Smith? We picked up my friend, the same one who was lobstering with us, and drove down to Isla Marata where we were supposed to meet our spearfishing charter guide and our other friends. I was still crying, but by the time we got down to Isla Marata, I had stopped. The pain was down to about a 6 out of 10, whereas it was about a 9 out of 10 for most of the night. I got on the boat and went to sleep as everyone else loaded their spearfishing gear onto the boat. I woke up about 45 minutes later and we were about 30 miles offshore. I was still at a 6 out of 10, 6 out of 10 for pain, but felt like I was through the worst of it. My boyfriend checked on me frequently throughout the trip. I even caught two fish, a tuna, and a mahi.
1:09:35 Speaker 01 Wow.
1:09:35 Mike Smith? Yeah, that's clutch.
1:09:36 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:09:37 Mike Smith? That's like the Jordan flu game.
1:09:38 Speaker 01 Those are some KC fish, dude, yeah.
1:09:42 Mike Smith? How many did he score? So many points in that game. Man, MJ. Bugs Bunny was so lucky that they got Michael Jordan.
1:09:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:09:50 Mike Smith? For Space Jam.
1:09:51 Jeff Larson? We are.
1:09:53 Mike Smith? That's true.
1:09:54 Jeff Larson? Earth was on the line, right?
1:09:56 Speaker 01 That was Space Jam 2, wasn't it?
1:09:59 Mike Smith? No.
1:09:59 Jeff Larson? I think Space Jam, the aliens.
1:10:01 Mike Smith? They wanted to enslave the entire human race.
1:10:03 Speaker 01 No, they were just gonna enslave the team.
1:10:06 Mike Smith? Jordan. I think they negotiated down to Jordan would be their personal slave forever.
1:10:11 Speaker 01 Well, first it was gonna be the whole team, and then Michael Jordan said it would just be him.
1:10:15 Mike Smith? Yeah, cuz they wanted the tune, the cartoons to come to their planet and be like a new attraction for them.
1:10:20 Jeff Larson? Imagine you're like Scottie Pippen and you're like, you used Bill Murray and didn't use me?
1:10:25 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:10:26 Speaker 01 Sean Bradley.
1:10:27 Mike Smith? You serious?
1:10:30 Mike Smith? Okay. I jumped in the water and took some videos of the fish offshore and even saw silky shark, which was a new species for me.
1:10:37 Speaker 01 Cool.
1:10:37 Mike Smith? Congrats.
1:10:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:10:38 Mike Smith? That's a great sighting. After the trip ended around 12:00 PM, my boyfriend and I went back to the, back up to the homestead and fi- back up to homestead and finally went to the hospital. I was there for about an hour and they told me that I'd made it through the worst of it and just to keep taking Benadryl and Ibuprofen. Three days later, today, as of writing this email, I'm still feeling the hot needle sensation throughout my whole body.
1:10:59 Jeff Larson? Wow, that's a recent one.
1:11:00 Speaker 01 It comes and goes in waves.
1:11:01 Jeff Larson? That's crazy.
1:11:01 Mike Smith? I know. Yeah, we honestly could have done this as like a news. Yeah. Legit news episode story. Man. My back still hurts slightly and I've been resting as much as I can. My boyfriend and I even came up with a slogan for this whole crazy experience. Neurotoxins, colon, they hurt.
1:11:18 Speaker 01 It's true.
1:11:19 Mike Smith? It's pretty good. Succinct.
1:11:20 Speaker 01 It's a good slogan.
1:11:21 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:11:21 Speaker 01 Yep, right to the point.
1:11:22 Mike Smith? I'm currently working on the t-shirt. I'll send it to you when it's done. I can't wait. I'll, I'll wear that.
1:11:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:11:28 Mike Smith? Overall, this experience was definitely the worst pain I've ever felt in my life, but I still made it on the spearfishing trip where we caught one wahoo, five tuna, and nine mahi-mahi. That's a fruitful little trip there. I attached a group photo. I'm the one in the front with the reddish brown shirt on. In hindsight, the lessons are clear. Wear protective clothing, seek treatment sooner, respect box jellies. This experience was entirely my fault. I was sticking my hand in holes.
1:11:56 Mike Smith? Yeah, you were. Disturbing any critters inside without proper protection. But the ocean remains beautiful and worth the risks. Being 35 miles offshore surrounded by mahi, wahoo, rainbow runners, dolphins, sharks, with a thousand feet of blue beneath me was truly unforgettable, especially with neurotoxins in my veins. Neurotoxins, they hurt. Thank you for your time. Hannah O'Carroll.
1:12:19 Speaker 01 Thanks Hannah.
1:12:20 Jeff Larson? Thanks Hannah. Alright, let's do some categories.
1:12:23 Speaker 01 Sounds good.
1:12:23 Mike Smith? Big ol' Pebbles is a little oxymoronic to me.
1:12:26 Speaker 01 Doesn't?
1:12:27 Mike Smith? Am I wrong?
1:12:27 Jeff Larson? Yeah, Pebbles is rocks.
1:12:29 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:12:29 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:12:30 Speaker 01 Round rocks.
1:12:30 Mike Smith? When does it stop being a pebble and graduate to?
1:12:33 Speaker 01 That's a good point. It does make me wanna see it.
1:12:35 Mike Smith? Me too.
1:12:35 Speaker 01 If they're all ostrich egg sized.
1:12:37 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:12:37 Jeff Larson? I don't blame...
1:12:38 Speaker 01 Can I see the photo?
1:12:40 Jeff Larson? I don't blame Olivia, though, because it's called Pebble Beach.
1:12:45 Mike Smith? Yeah, bleep that name again, Bill. Thank you.
1:12:50 Mike Smith? That's true. That is true. Pebble Beach is.
1:12:52 Jeff Larson? You can swipe. There's three pictures.
1:12:54 Speaker 01 Those don't look ostrich sized to me. Ostrich egg.
1:12:57 Jeff Larson? That's right.
1:13:00 Mike Smith? Yeah, freaking tiny ostrich maybe.
1:13:04 Jeff Larson? Isn't that just a bird?
1:13:05 Mike Smith? That's what?
1:13:08 Mike Smith? That's philosophical.
1:13:09 Speaker 01 Chicken, chicken eggs.
1:13:10 Mike Smith? Alright, let's go to categories.
1:13:11 Jeff Larson? If it's a tiny ostrich, isn't it just a bird?
1:13:15 Mike Smith? I think if it's a big one, it's a bird too, right?
1:13:18 Speaker 01 It is. A full-size ostrich, also a bird.
1:13:19 Mike Smith? You almost got me on that one.
1:13:22 Jeff Larson? Okay, first question. I was looking at this thing that used to be a mole on my calf.
1:13:27 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:13:28 Jeff Larson? Most likely cancer you think you'll get. Cause this thing used to be a mole and now it's just a wound all the time.
1:13:35 Speaker 01 You know what? Just you saying that changed my answer. It's probably skin cancer for me.
1:13:40 Jeff Larson? But that, but our family hasn't really gotten that.
1:13:43 Speaker 01 Grandpa Garrett did.
1:13:44 Jeff Larson? His was like tiny.
1:13:46 Speaker 01 It was pretty bad. He had to have like surgery. I, I mean prostate, prostate's where my mind went. Cause both dad and grandpa Larson got it.
1:13:54 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:13:54 Speaker 01 But I think the most concerned I've ever been, well, I thought I had stomach cancer for a minute. But like, there's been multiple times I thought I was gonna get skin cancer. So, skin cancer. I spent a lot of time in the sun.
1:14:07 Mike Smith? Uh, I'll go, what's the one that most men get? Prostate?
1:14:10 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:14:11 Mike Smith? Yeah, let's do that one.
1:14:12 Jeff Larson? Alright, I mean, I, I had a doctor tell me I almost had colon cancer.
1:14:17 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:14:18 Jeff Larson? And that I need to go back every three years and I just don't think I will.
1:14:23 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:14:23 Jeff Larson? So that's mine, probably.
1:14:27 Jeff Larson? Alright, worst story you've ever, or yeah, what's the worst story anyone's ever told you?
1:14:34 Speaker 01 Did you mean like worst like?
1:14:35 Jeff Larson? Like, like it's a bad story. Like, that's not worth telling me.
1:14:39 Mike Smith? Jeff, the hot sauce from Taco Bell story?
1:14:42 Jeff Larson? What was it?
1:14:43 Mike Smith? Jeff told, the guy asked, the guy didn't give him hot sauce and then Jeff was gonna be okay with that. I forget. It was a bad story.
1:14:53 Jeff Larson? The, I go to Taco Bell.
1:14:55 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:14:57 Jeff Larson? And I forgot about hot sauce. And the guy says, do you want any hot sauce with that? And I remembered, oh yeah, I do want hot sauce. And then I said, yeah, please. And then he still didn't give it to me.
1:15:10 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:15:11 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:15:12 Mike Smith? I.
1:15:14 Speaker 01 I don't know. I feel like I tend to like block out bad stories. Like I don't remember them. But I feel like both of you sometimes try and tell me like sports or like.
1:15:25 Mike Smith? One Piece?
1:15:25 Speaker 01 Jeff, yeah, One Piece or like Barstool stuff where I'm just like, my mind just kind of turns off.
1:15:32 Jeff Larson? Big Cat has to cut off his pinky if the Texans win.
1:15:35 Speaker 01 Yeah, see, kind of stuff like that.
1:15:37 Jeff Larson? That's interesting.
1:15:38 Speaker 01 Yeah, if he does it, but he's not going to. So like for me.
1:15:41 Jeff Larson? If he does, will you be like?
1:15:43 Speaker 01 I would think that was interesting. You can tell me that story if it happens.
1:15:46 Jeff Larson? Okay.
1:15:46 Speaker 01 But like, I think that's the stuff that I kind of just tend to be like, mm, okay.
1:15:52 Jeff Larson? There was, yeah, mine was the box jellyfish one.
1:16:00 Mike Smith? That was a good story.
1:16:01 Jeff Larson? No, uh, mine was, I love that story. Um, there was this girl in college who I just like had a huge crush on. And then she, we started going on dates and she told me this story that went on for like forty-five minutes. And when she was done, it was one of those where it's like, I don't think anything happened in your, like you just described a day.
1:16:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:16:27 Jeff Larson? From like six years ago. There's like nothing to that.
1:16:31 Mike Smith? No hook?
1:16:32 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, I was bored just hearing you describe.
1:16:35 Jeff Larson? It's hard to like tell. I guess it's a bad category because it's like kind of boring to retell the boring.
1:16:42 Speaker 01 I thought you meant worse like more shocking, but yeah.
1:16:45 Jeff Larson? Oh, whoa, whoa, would yours? I mean, that would be pretty messed up.
1:16:48 Mike Smith? Have you ever heard the tale of Darth Plegis, the wise? That's a pretty bad one.
1:16:54 Jeff Larson? That one like serial killer fish who would like kill kids?
1:16:58 Speaker 01 Oh yeah, Albert Fish.
1:17:00 Jeff Larson? That's a pretty bad story.
1:17:01 Speaker 01 Yeah, right. Mo, the chimpanzee story was sad.
1:17:04 Jeff Larson? You think that's worse than killing kids?
1:17:07 Speaker 01 No. No, you win.
1:17:11 Jeff Larson? Alright, um.
1:17:13 Speaker 01 When you said serial killer fish, though, it did take me a second to figure out what you're talking about.
1:17:18 Jeff Larson? Since, I guess, yeah.
1:17:22 Jeff Larson? Since Wes put this episode off till now, what, what's the worst case of putting something off for later? Like, what's the worst that's gone for someone? I mean, just like, they keep putting something off.
1:17:37 Speaker 01 I guess I thought you meant it like for us.
1:17:39 Jeff Larson? You can do whatever then.
1:17:41 Speaker 01 I kinda, I, I went like kind of a interesting, not interesting, a different direction with this where like, I was thinking of things I do where I really have a hard time doing them and I put them off for as long as possible. And the thing that I do constantly that I need to stop doing is when I get an email that I just really don't want to answer. I'll mark it as unread and I'll just like keep doing that, like six or seven times. To the point where it's like weeks old and it would have taken me like 20 seconds to just answer it. But I just sit there and no, and it sits in my brain and tells me like, you have to answer that email and I don't do it.
1:18:18 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:18:19 Speaker 01 And then I feel bad and I just, that's.
1:18:21 Jeff Larson? Mark them on red.
1:18:22 Speaker 01 You don't even read them.
1:18:24 Jeff Larson? Stop.
1:18:25 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:18:27 Mike Smith? Hannah procrastinated a little bit in that last story and we went over.
1:18:31 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:18:32 Mike Smith? Or not the last one, the last one I told. Yeah, she probably should have acted a little sooner.
1:18:35 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:18:36 Mike Smith? Gotten that taken care of.
1:18:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:18:37 Mike Smith? I'll go with that.
1:18:38 Jeff Larson? You think?
1:18:39 Speaker 01 Yeah, a little.
1:18:39 Jeff Larson? She might not have gone on the trip had she done more.
1:18:42 Mike Smith? That's a good point, but I don't know.
1:18:45 Speaker 01 All those Wahoo, Mike?
1:18:46 Mike Smith? Yeah, Yoohoo.
1:18:47 Jeff Larson? Um, you know, I'm gonna go with George R R Martin.
1:18:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:18:52 Jeff Larson? I just think he was working on an all time, like, story.
1:18:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:18:56 Jeff Larson? And what makes his stuff amazing is like, the amount of effort that goes in, or the amount of stuff that he puts in the beginning that's going to like translate to the end. And by not finishing it and just letting those two showrunners finish his story.
1:19:17 Speaker 01 They ruined it.
1:19:18 Jeff Larson? It's pretty bad.
1:19:19 Speaker 01 And now, and now it's like, does he even finish?
1:19:22 Jeff Larson? I don't know.
1:19:23 Speaker 01 You know, cause they like, yeah.
1:19:24 Jeff Larson? I think he's got like three years left in him.
1:19:27 Speaker 01 If I were him, I wouldn't want to finish because they kind of already ruined the ending.
1:19:30 Jeff Larson? Hmm.
1:19:31 Speaker 01 Not as bad as Stranger Things, though.
1:19:33 Jeff Larson? You guys got any general travel recommendations?
1:19:37 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:19:38 Speaker 01 Do you want me to go first?
1:19:39 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:19:40 Speaker 01 Uh, I think one that is like a new one for me is if you got a really long flight and you can afford like the middle class, like the economy plus or whatever. Man, that is like such a game changer for me just to have that like extra five or six inches of room. It just made the flight so much more comfortable. And then I think I brought up mega pillow before on this podcast, but what I like to do for those who haven't heard is if you can like scrounge up an extra one of those little pillows and blankets. You put two pillows in a blanket and tie the blanket around them and you have like a pretty nice full sized pillow then. And it's actually like really comfortable to lay on.
1:20:20 Jeff Larson? So that's sometimes on huge flights too, if you choose the back of the plane.
1:20:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:20:24 Jeff Larson? It's a risk, but you can get the whole aisle.
1:20:27 Speaker 01 You might get the whole.
1:20:28 Jeff Larson? And then you can get three pillows in your blanket.
1:20:30 Speaker 01 Like, yeah, even extra if you want to just ask for more.
1:20:34 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:20:35 Speaker 01 Uh, but like general travel, I think the other ones that I had were just to try.
1:20:41 Jeff Larson? This is your third advice.
1:20:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just wanted to do one more.
1:20:46 Speaker 01 We've gone to a lot of different cultures and places in the last few years as a group. And then I was fortunate to go to a lot before that too. And I think the thing that I've really learned is that the most you can approach a new culture, open minded and accepting and kind of the most kindness that you can show toward other people and, and patience. The more you're going to get back in your travel experiences. So like leave your preconceived notions of different cultures and everything at home and just kind of try. And then, you know, let it all enter you and it can be a really nice rewarding experience.
1:21:23 Jeff Larson? Well, maybe they shouldn't be praying on the loudspeaker at 4am.
1:21:29 Speaker 01 I, I mean, yeah, there's going to be things you don't like.
1:21:31 Jeff Larson? Maybe they should try not doing that, but then I'll try.
1:21:34 Speaker 01 I think like those are the kind of things that are kind of fun to remember after your trip, even though they.
1:21:39 Jeff Larson? No, yeah, that's good advice. I'm just joking.
1:21:42 Mike Smith? Uh, I would say find a really cool nonfiction book that was written by somebody where you're traveling to. I did that for this trip and like every street we go down, I can just envision.
1:21:53 Speaker 01 Oh, that's that's cool.
1:21:54 Mike Smith? The words of the author. Um, it was by a guy, I think I brought this up in our last episode, Andrea Hirata. He wrote this just incredible book called The Rainbow Troops. He's an Indonesian author. I think the best selling Indonesian book ever. And just the way he described it, like, I can see him in the faces of all the little children we ride by when we're looking into schoolyard. We don't look into schoolyards that much. But you know, I think you see what I'm getting at. Uh, and also bring a pack of dude wipes.
1:22:25 Speaker 01 Yeah, or just any wipe.
1:22:27 Mike Smith? Any sanitary wipe.
1:22:28 Jeff Larson? I don't know. When you travel to Asia, they kind of got you covered most toilets.
1:22:34 Mike Smith? Well, I'm like.
1:22:35 Speaker 01 Are there bidets here?
1:22:36 Jeff Larson? There's the, the high powered hose.
1:22:39 Mike Smith? But I'm like, even just like an underarm swipe, just real quick at the end of a day or like.
1:22:43 Speaker 01 Wipes are great.
1:22:44 Mike Smith? Oh, man, like it really, it was a big deal when it first dawned on me how important it was to stay fresh like that.
1:22:50 Speaker 01 I kind of feel like wipes don't need to be gendered. Like they really, really don't need dude wipes.
1:22:55 Mike Smith? I, I think, no, I think it's kind of a stupid name.
1:22:58 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:22:58 Mike Smith? But I think it really opened the door for a lot of dudes to start being a little more hygienic because things were being marketed towards them.
1:23:05 Jeff Larson? You need to go back to one of those mountain man camps and.
1:23:09 Speaker 01 Yes, I, I just like, feel like that's kind of a silly thing that like dudes don't feel comfortable buying wipes until they're like dude branded.
1:23:18 Mike Smith? Well.
1:23:19 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:23:19 Mike Smith? Yeah, protest all you want.
1:23:21 Speaker 01 It's smart. It's a smart idea.
1:23:22 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:23:23 Jeff Larson? I mean, if Mike said bring baby wipes, we'd be like, dude.
1:23:28 Speaker 01 That's what I brought.
1:23:29 Jeff Larson? You're bringing.
1:23:30 Mike Smith? Yeah, you think freaking, yeah, that's absurd.
1:23:33 Jeff Larson? Are you a baby?
1:23:34 Mike Smith? No, market them to babies specifically.
1:23:36 Jeff Larson? So Wes is a baby and Mike's a dude.
1:23:39 Speaker 01 Right. I could be a, babies can be dudes.
1:23:42 Mike Smith? Dude, baby.
1:23:45 Jeff Larson? You know what I like to do is just leave a little extra room in my personal item, my backpack.
1:23:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:23:53 Jeff Larson? And then I'll wear a sweatshirt. Some planes are really hot, some planes are really cold. But then that extra sweatshirt, like you can use it as extra pillow. I I've been like trying to help my lower back pain and my I'm going to like a dry needling lady once a month. And she was showing me this thing you can buy on Amazon that's just like a little oval like cushion that you're supposed to put behind your back on planes.
1:24:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:24:20 Jeff Larson? My sweatshirt worked perfect for that. Just rolled it up, put it behind my on my lower back the whole flight. And I think it helped a lot.
1:24:29 Speaker 01 It was a long flight, seventeen hours.
1:24:32 Jeff Larson? I know. I was there.
1:24:34 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:24:34 Mike Smith? Remember?
1:24:35 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:24:36 Mike Smith? Well, that's a lit suggestion, Jeff.
1:24:38 Speaker 01 Yeah, that was pretty lit.
1:24:40 Mike Smith? It was hype.
1:24:41 Jeff Larson? Uh, favorite recent sports story? Wes is gonna be bored.
1:24:46 Speaker 01 I already am. Uh, I don't. The only one I could think of is like the NBA gambling thing.
1:24:52 Jeff Larson? You like that one?
1:24:53 Mike Smith? It's interesting.
1:24:53 Speaker 01 It's interesting.
1:24:54 Jeff Larson? It's pretty bad to bet on the sport, like bet that you do badly in a game in the sport you play for.
1:25:03 Speaker 01 And to me, it seems interesting because it feels like it's it penetrated a lot deeper than.
1:25:09 Mike Smith? That's fine. That's a good way to put it.
1:25:13 Speaker 01 It went a lot deeper than you would have thought. Like, a lot of people are involved. So I think it's interesting. But I don't follow sports stories that much. I don't even follow sports that much. So like, I don't know many stories. So you guys go ahead.
1:25:27 Mike Smith? Okay.
1:25:28 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:25:28 Mike Smith? I went curling recently. This is more of a personal story. It was sweet. I recommend it. If there's like a curling, I don't even know how you'd say it, rink.
1:25:37 Speaker 01 Yeah. Were you smoothing the ice in front of it?
1:25:40 Mike Smith? I did some brooming. I did some uh throwing.
1:25:43 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:25:43 Mike Smith? Man, it was really, it was kind of like shuffleboard, but a little more involved. And you know shuffleboard. Oh, my gosh.
1:25:48 Speaker 01 I love shuffleboard.
1:25:49 Mike Smith? That's one of the best things you could possibly do with your time here on Earth.
1:25:52 Jeff Larson? It's fun. I took a curling class in college.
1:25:55 Mike Smith? It's rad.
1:25:56 Jeff Larson? It's great.
1:25:57 Mike Smith? I want to do it again.
1:25:58 Jeff Larson? Um, you know what? I'm just gonna go with UFC at the White House.
1:26:03 Mike Smith? Oh, gosh.
1:26:04 Jeff Larson? It's just like a lot of drama. And it's interesting because some of the fighters, it's just like, this is my life goal now. Like, I want to fight at the White House. And then some of the fighters are like, this is the most Hunger Games shit ever. Like, there's no true fans. It's just the ultra-rich pedophile guys. And like, I'm like, fighting, risking my life in front of them. Like, it feels very Hunger Games.
1:26:33 Mike Smith? All I could think of was the scene in Django Unchained. In Candyland, where he's just having his slaves fight each other, just like, watching by himself. It's like crazy that, I don't know. It's really disturbing.
1:26:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:26:46 Jeff Larson? So, it's kinda interesting, though.
1:26:49 Mike Smith? I think it'd be sweet if we got like Baron Trump on the card. Right? He's like eight feet tall.
1:26:56 Speaker 01 Yeah. There should, what they should do is like, if someone, they should have like a round robin or whatever, where someone has to like win a bunch of fights. But if they do, they get to pick someone from the audience that has to come fight them.
1:27:09 Mike Smith? That's really good.
1:27:10 Speaker 01 And they can pick whoever they want.
1:27:12 Jeff Larson? Wes?
1:27:13 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:27:13 Jeff Larson? Will you see Melania with me?
1:27:16 Speaker 01 Melania?
1:27:17 Jeff Larson? The movie?
1:27:18 Speaker 01 Oh, absolutely not.
1:27:20 Jeff Larson? I think we should camp out.
1:27:22 Speaker 01 I hate the director of that movie, too.
1:27:24 Jeff Larson? You remember when we used to like camp out for a night before a big movie?
1:27:29 Mike Smith? Right, Timothy Green.
1:27:30 Jeff Larson? You'd think like if we camped out, the theater would be like...
1:27:35 Speaker 01 You're gonna buy like Melania merch?
1:27:36 Jeff Larson? I feel like we could make the news if we got like our listeners to come camp out with us for Melania.
1:27:42 Speaker 01 I don't want anyone to see that movie. Brett Ratner is a bad person.
1:27:46 Jeff Larson? I could watch an entire movie of her reading Christmas books to kids.
1:27:53 Mike Smith? Cookies! Cookies!
1:27:57 Jeff Larson? Alright.
1:27:58 Speaker 01 Thanks, guys. Thanks for the stories.
1:28:00 Mike Smith? It's great.
1:28:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:28:01 Mike Smith? Thank you so much.
1:28:01 Jeff Larson? That was fun.
1:28:02 Speaker 01 That was fun. Those are some good ones. Alright, we'll see you later.
1:28:06 Jeff Larson? See ya. Love ya. Bye.
1:28:07 Mike Smith? See ya.
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