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Tickets go on sale to the general public June 30th at somethingworthknowing.com. So come build a better world with us on September 16th and experience something worth knowing you can get your ticket at Complexly.info slash something. Welcome to Dear Hank and John! Dory's I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank.
It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions. Give me a advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, we went to Rax and while we were there we did laundry. Why did we do that?
Why? So we could make a clean getaway. That's a joke that your son told you. You're setting your own son and I was going to say and his version was so much better.
But I like the idea that you need that we the implied we went to Rax and robbed it. Yeah, I mean we finally committed to the bit. We drove it should have been a four-hour road trip. It turned into a five-hour road trip because I drove for 30 minutes in the wrong direction because Hank and I got distracted.
We wanted to go to Wilbur Wright's childhood home. We did. We went to Wilbur Wright's childhood home. The better of the two Wright brothers.
Well, the younger of the two. And then when we got back on the highway and I went the wrong way on the highway and I drove for 30 minutes before Hank was like that side said we're only 37 miles away from Indianapolis. Are we on our way back to Indianapolis? And I was like oh right.
Yeah, that is what we're doing. I mean in an ideal world we would have sat at the Rax and we would have made an episode of Dear Hank and John. But why we didn't do that? And we did a great episode because there is no inside of the Rax.
Inside of the Rax. The Rax has no interior. It's a drive-through only experience. Yeah.
Which and like I think the people at the Rax did a great job. I love that the Rax branding like they had Rax branded polos. They had Rax branded like sandwich raps. They had Rax branded cups like the Rax branding was still there.
And it was the same branding as from our child's idea. Exactly. The exact same font. Nothing had changed.
And so in that sense it did feel like going back in time now to get the full experience we would have had to be inside of a restaurant with a solarium. I didn't wish that that was happening but it did not happen. Seated in the solarium, making a podcast for the people. But instead, I mean I will say it was a beautiful road trip.
It had been so long since I'd been on a road trip with my brother. It had been since 2017 when the Turtles movie came out. That part was perfect. And then let's talk about the Rax, man.
Well, the food or the building? The food. So my experience of the food was that it was indeed very similar to what I remember Rax being like. It was good.
I mean, so I had a roast beef sandwich. We had to drive that so many dang RVs to this Rax. You should have counted it was like 14 RVs. And you know what?
It tasted a lot like RVs. It is all it is. That's the thing about Rax is that I like I can't imagine that the Rax and the RVs don't get their roast beef from the same place. Yeah.
Now there was a slight difference in taste. I thought the Rax was a little sweeter somehow. Yeah. The bun was like sweeter and softer than RVs.
Yes. And I liked the bun. I liked the Rax. I liked the vibe.
The drink was good. It was a really good Coke zero from the family. You know, we shouldn't do it but it's nice to get a styrofoam cup sometimes where you're like, ah, this brings me back to the 80s. Right.
I mean, I did think as I was eating from that styrofoam cup, Hank and I are going to see probably the last eclipse of our lives tomorrow. But this styrofoam cup has got a lot of them in front of it. Absolutely. But you kept your styrofoam cup, which I think is I want to do souvenir for Rax.
I think is amazing. And the Rax was popular. There were other people in the drive through line. There were also we live stream on the way.
And so there was also the parking lot was full of people who were there to see us. But it was like the perfect number. Like even in like 50 people, it would have been very bad. If it had been like two, it would have been like, I, yeah, yeah.
But it was like we're not doing that good. Like now we have two people to hang out with. Oh, okay. Yeah.
Yeah. But it was like 14, maybe people. It was the right number of people. It was a great and it was a great group.
Thanks. If you came out to Rax to say hi to us. Thank you. Yeah.
Mostly we were just there to commit to the bit, but then we did get food. Oh, I ate so much. Oh, Hank, Hank got three sandwiches and he ate some or all of all of them. I ate two and a half sandwiches.
Yeah. Yeah. And I just ate the one sandwich. The fries weren't great, I have to say.
The fries could have been better. The thing that skeezed me out most about Rax was when we pulled up to the sign and maybe 40% of the items were either coming soon or not available, but coming soon, yeah, with the paper that looked like it had been coming soon for years. Yeah, like sun faded coming soon signs and the not available signs, like they were laminated, but some water had leaked into the lamination, you know, so you could sort of, it was not great. That the drive through sign desperately needs an updating.
I'm not sure that the Capitol is there to invest in a drive through sign that's new, but wouldn't it be wild to live in the town of New Carlisle and to have Rax? I would go to Rax a lot. I mean, imagine having a Rax in your hometown and not taking advantage of it. I was, I'll tell you what, I was impressed.
That would be my go to fast food restaurant in 2024. I thought the food quality was good. I thought the people working in the restaurant were really friendly and great. They seemed lovely.
They didn't even seem that overwhelmed by the fact that there were 14 people standing outside waiting to meet two customers. No, in fact, it seemed that didn't seem normal, but it seemed like it was normal for people to be doing a nostalgia trip. In fact, the guy who parked next to us while we were eating our Rax, like filmed the Rax and then he like talked to his phone a little bit and then he like sent a video to someone. He was like, you love Rax too?
We weren't the only people vlogging the Rax trip. He was like, I'm here at Rax, Susanna. I mean, when we went through the drive-through, we said we came all the way from Indianapolis just to visit this Rax and the woman who drive through who said you're the second person to tell me that today. She's like working half at a fast food restaurant and half at like a nostalgia amusement park.
It didn't make me Rax. On the way home, Hank and I who can't ever have an experience without thinking about how to turn it into a business, we were both like, no, wait a second. There seems to be a hunger. There seems to be a world crying out for more Raxes.
The world is hungry for Rax. People are driving from Indianapolis to New Carlyle, Ohio twice a day to visit Rax. Like what that tells me is that the world wants Rax back. And John is one Rax.
How much could it cost? Oh, it's not that, Hank. It's the idea that you and I would own a roast beef restaurant. It's like not just not in keeping with our overall five.
I don't know what we decided in the end is like, I don't feel like the future is beef. I wouldn't want to like have a vested interest in the future being beef. Yeah, exactly. Like if people are like, so what did they do with their lives?
No, well, they wrote books and they made educational videos and they ran a beef restaurant. They started for a hard to beef. They did a hard pivot to beef. That's our new kiss cover band.
They got really overwhelmed. And so they did that classic pivot where they pivoted to a roast beef restaurant. Yeah. Sorry if you can hear some work going on in the background, by the way, we're having a big party tonight.
Oh, I'm very party. Wrapped up a huge curatorial project that she's been working on with a group of people. So there's a lot of hubbub as we prepare for the party. There's a person doing like chainsawing an ice sculpture of a big Phoenix.
It's like a dragon ice sculpture that the life has got to run down and come out of its mouth and into people. And there's the fire dancers are showing up as well. There's they're constructing the the the throne of swords from the game of thrones. They're building all things that contemporary art curators have at their contemporary art curation parties.
Yeah, I watched an episode of selling sunset where they did a party want so I assume it's like that. It's just like that. We are always selling sunset here in Indianapolis. Let's answer some questions from our listeners.
Let's do it. This first question comes from Brendan who writes Dear John and Hank, I'm going to hike the Appalachian Trail in a few weeks. Well, Brendan, I've got some news for you. You're not going to hike it in a few weeks unless you're really going fast.
No, a few weeks from now, he's going to start. I know, but I was making a joke. Okay. I'm looking for audio book recommendations.
So far, all my friends have been recommending sci-fi, which I love, but it also likes mother genres. I'm thinking about this as a time to work on myself and think about big ideas and small ideas. So if you were going hiking for six months, what books would you bring to listen to fiction nonfiction, any categories? Welcome.
I already have the mountain goats hold a discography download. It's one good on that front. Trails are never ended. Brendan.
Nice. First of all. I highly recommend our work. Oh, wow.
Okay. You know, going hard. The Anthropocene Reviewed is available. Big ideas.
It's a matter of ideas. Big ideas. How about an absolutely remarkable thing and it's follow up a beautifully foolish endeavor? I mean, those are big idea books and small idea books, but mostly big idea books.
Then you've got the Fault in Our Stars. Boom. Big ideas. You want to be crying while you're walking?
Fault in Our Stars. You want to be laughing while you're walking? And a bun is the Catherine's. I wrote it 20 years ago and I haven't reread it since, so I don't know if it's good.
Might be funny. It might not be. Not sure. Might not hold up.
No idea. No way to find out. Don't want to know. Terrified to check.
Pretty sure Turtles all the way down is good, just because I recently watched the movie adaptation and it was really good. So I think the source material must be at least okay, but I can't make any promises about the stuff from the early 2000s. I love being in this situation where you're like, I'm about to have a bunch of time to do a bunch of stuff. And then the thing happens where you have the bunch of time and then you look back and you're like, I did not do all of that stuff.
So it's like different. Sure. I mean, a lot of time, you're going to be like, listen into the forest. You want to hear the forest.
You want to be in the hike. And a lot of times you'll probably be chatting with your friends will have trail names, like Long John Silver. I don't know why I. They're all the doctor.
They're all they're all in the doctor restaurants. There's a piece. Yeah. RB and Wendy Racks.
Mr. Racks. Dude, Mr. Racks is actually a pretty good trail name.
I don't want to brag Brendan. I was only a few months and obviously your trail name will find you, but don't rule out Mr. Racks. The only one that I remember was Gromit.
That's a good one. It's a great trail name because it's also like a thing in equipment in addition to being a name. Anyway, I have some suggestions. I'm sure John does as well.
John would like you to read everything ever written about tuberculosis and he can tell you all with the books. No, just to be clear, Brendan, I want you to read everything ever written by us. Okay. Or that.
And by the time you finish, hopefully that will include my new hit book about tuberculosis. There's a book coming out soon. I don't know if it'll be out when you go on the trail, but I got a pre-release version of it called Becoming Earth, which might be a really nice read to while you're close to the Earth, which is about the sort of parallel paths of the geology and biology of Earth. Because we think of those things as separate from each other where there's like, there's an alive Earth and then there's a live Earth and there's their separate categories, but they like are in constant connection with each other.
Like in the first chapter of this book, he just sort of like plops down the fact that the sky is only blue because of life. And I was like, wait, what? Wow. Because like before life, there were all these like, you know, nitrogen and methane molecules and sulfur molecules in the sky and all that got eaten up by life and turned into just oxygen and a little bit of carbon dioxide.
And then you can do nothing with the nitrogen because it's not very useful. It was just like super chemically stable. But that's super cool. I loved that book.
There's a book, what's the Hanarichi book called that we both just read? Oh, I can't remember what it's called. I'll look it up. I'm going to recommend that you read John McPhee.
Oh, so good. Great nonfiction writer of of Earth in my experience, Earth and Humanities Place Energy. He's got a great book on oranges called oranges. The survival of the bark canoe is a banger.
And the one that you might really enjoy since you'll be living outside of the normal expectations of society is coming into the country, which is a book from the 70s about people who chose to move to the bush in Alaska. That's awesome. That reminds me of, oh, shoot. What's it called?
I don't know. Give me some hints into the wild. The memoirs of Stockholm Sven by Nathaniel Miller. I feel like no one knows about this book.
You know what I only know about it because Catherine gave it to me. It's so good. So good. The Hanarichi book is called Not the End of the World, Another Interesting One Might Be God Human Animal Machine, which is about like, what are we in the age of AI and with machines and might be an interesting one to like experience while being human in a more human way than we often are being human.
Yeah, I like that. There's so many good books and there's not enough time to read them. And also I don't focus my time around reading them as much as I should because I'm scrolling and the scrolling is bad for me and I can't stop doing it. Yeah.
This next question comes from Emmy who asked Dear Hank and John, I've had tooth pain for almost two years and I've only been able to chew on the left side of my mouth for that time. Now I've had dental work and there is no more pain. Yay. I can finally use my whole mouth.
I was just eating a sandwich when I realized that my mouth didn't hurt anymore. The only downside, they can't break the habit of only chewing on one side of my face. I'm too scared to use my teeth. How do I reach myself to chew like a regular human being painfully aware of my chewing habits?
Emmy. I feel like you do need to start chewing on both sides. You can't just eat that life. Yeah.
I've had this. I feel like I'm uniquely qualified to answer this because like Emmy, I have had chronic mouth pain and like Emmy, I have rearranged my chewing and then they solved the chronic mouth pain and then it took me forever to go back to being a quote unquote regular chewer. I found it helpful to chew very slowly and intentionally and think like this and I would think as I chewed, this isn't going to hurt. This isn't going to hurt.
This isn't going to hurt. I would even I can't quite bite into an apple. I don't think I'll ever be into bite into an apple territory. But sometimes I would like bite into like a something a little like a red bell pepper, which I do enjoy doing and I would be like, I can do that now and I couldn't do it before but I can do it now.
And just the intentional practice of that worked for me. And over time, it becomes natural. Yeah. I had the you know, when I time you have like a surgery, it's a similar thing where you have to like, you have to convince your body after the you know, we have to like be in concert with your pain.
But like, you have to teach your body to do it again. And also that it's okay. I get signals that it's going to hurt when it won't. And yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that's me using the brain. Yeah. And then that actually makes the that makes the pain or that makes their like progress, like worse, it makes the progress slower. So I actually did like this is not related to this but like maybe there's some learning here but I like went to massage therapists to be like touch me like massage very carefully the areas of my body where I have my injuries and and also the radiation fibrosis and the that worked it was super slow, very emotional.
Like I cried like during massages. But the but like just having somebody touch on it was good. But like felt weird to ask. I couldn't do it.
And then it felt weird to ask anybody who wasn't a professional to do it. Right. That's a beautiful story, Hank. It's weird.
It's weird that you had cancer. No, man. It's I was just doing the taxes and I was like, why did I fly to Mizzoua so often? I was like, Oh, right.
Right. Yeah. And then I'd be like, all these other things and I'd be like, Oh, right. It's because Hank had cancer less than a year ago.
Yeah, my taxes have a lot of reminders, as you might expect as well. Like that. That's a weird. It's so like one of the wildest things.
I was just watching some content from a from a person who's been recently diagnosed and I was it just made me so grateful that during the process, I wasn't thinking that much about money. Yeah. Which is like adding that on top of it is just like what a well, double punishment, right? I mean, system punishes sick people for getting sick when sickness is something that will happen to all of us and it's nobody's fault.
Yeah. And it was like there's like wild things like you can't get like you have to like have your insurance approving it all along the way and like it slows down the process. Right. If you're like having to worry about that and like you can't you have to get this diagnosis and then like this to have happen.
You can't like pay for the biopsy before the thing happened. Like you. Yeah. And so you're having these conversations with your doctor that aren't about how to best treat you, but how to best treat you without incurring like massive amounts of medical debt, which is like that's not that's not the conversation.
You need to be having it. And I'm just very grateful that that's not how I had to have that happen to me. Yeah. Yeah.
No, you're very fortunate in that respect. But I would say unfortunate to be in the situation period. Yeah, for sure. I didn't mind if you that like I was having a conversation yesterday with someone and I was like, I'm sorry that I that I didn't that I wasn't like more present during this particular time at a company that you know I work with.
And she was like, you were doing cancer treatment when that was happening. And I was like, Oh yeah, that's why I wasn't around for that. Yeah, I think I think we both keep forgetting it. I know I see times when you forget it all the time.
Yeah. But it's a it was a real it was a real curve ball, you know, like, yeah, it's still curving too. Like I was going to say and by the way, the pitch has not been caught. Yeah, like it's still curving.
I have like times when I'm like really on top of it, but I have like, I definitely my brain is not the brain like all the way back to being the brain that it was, which is troubling for me emotionally, but like oftentimes I feel like I really got it. So wait, what do you mean when you say your brain is all the way back to the brain that it was fog moments, but also your brain isn't back to being the way that it was in the sense that you're Oh, the anxiety is a totally separate thing. Yeah, but it's not totally separate. It's part of being a part of John, don't you understand?
I must think of it as totally separate. Okay, fair enough then I'll let you then I'll allow you to. Yeah, for sure. But like I feel like there's like physiological stuff that I'm still dealing with with pain and brain fog, but like it's weird because it goes in waves.
And I also have this thing that where I will have sudden like for like six hours, I will feel like I'm getting super sick. So I'll feel like the brain fog of an illness like my muscles will be sore. And then it'll just clear up. And I'm like, this seems like a key must thing.
But I don't know, man, like it's weird. It's weird. It's really weird. And you're still in it in the sense that this was all less than a year ago.
Yeah, like a year ago, you didn't know you had cancer. Yeah, yeah, I was just talking to it. So I first like got worried while I was in LA for a business trip in that the conference happens once a year and it just happened again. And I was like, well, we're getting like, we're getting a little earlier this year, but I was like, we're getting there.
We're getting back to we're going to move into some anniversaries soon. Oh, because I got diagnosed the day before my birthday. So I remember I will like, so I'm actually having a birthday party this year, which I never do, which is also going to be a celebration. That's great.
Are you going to have an ice dragon that the Jaegermeister pours down? Yeah. No, but it's going to be cool. That actually reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by ice sculptures that the Jaegermeister pours down ice sculptures at the Jaegermeister pours down.
It's it's got it's the good juice. It's the good juice. I think I think the entire rental will be less than one Jaeger dragon for my birthday. But I don't know if it's a Jaeger dragon costume.
Maybe not. This podcast also brought to you by the Vlogbrothers hard pivot to beef. I can't get through it. You don't need to say anything else.
It's good. It's good. Hard pivot to beef. Hard pivot to beef.
Hard pivot to beef. Hard pivot to beef. We got to make something out of that. It's not it's too good to just be on the podcast for three seconds.
We need to have like a whole album called hard pivot to beef. We need to have like the best of Dear Hank and John released and the album is called hard pivot to beef. And it's only it's only available on vinyl and there's only like 65 copies of it. Hard pivot to beef.
Holy crap. Today's podcast is also brought to you by Walking Through the Woods for six months listening to all the John and Hank's books. Oh, that's a good one. And this podcast is brought to you by chewing on one side of your mouth.
Chewing on one side of your mouth. Inspiring a very long conversation. That's not about dentistry. We also have some project for awesome messages to read first from Nitti to Dippa, Celine, Cindy and Iris.
I'm having our cool uncles relay how thankful I am for you all from Nerdfighter Club meetings in college to Harry Potter World dates in med school to virtual game nights in residency. You guys have helped me stay sane and a healthy amount of insane. I'm honored now to have you amazing accomplished women as my bridesmaids love you lots and of course don't forget to be awesome. Oh my gosh.
That was a brilliantly written Nitti because I did not see it coming. I did not see it coming. That's great. Oh, I'm so grateful that yellow bridesmaids and doctors and I hope someday that you'll see me and you will take my hypochondria seriously.
We also have a message from Johannes to friends both old and new and unexpected. Thank you all for helping me through the winter for encouraging me to find the professional help I needed to help me fight my depression. Thank you so much. Thank you Johannes for doing the hard work to get the help that you needed.
That means the world to us and to your friends and family. This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Shopify. There are a lot of things that stand between I have an idea and this is an idea that actually exists in the world and people are buying things from me. And that is what Shopify makes easier.
When you start with Shopify the tools to design and launch and take payments they're all there from day one. You don't have to build a whole machine before you can start building the business. And this is important because you also have to look good and with Shopify's templates you could get a site set up really quick that looks credible and professional without needing to code or duct tape a bunch of different tools together. And when things look real that works on my brain to be like I'm doing a real thing and it also works on other people's brains to be like this is legitimate.
Shopify also has one of the best checkout systems on the internet. It's built to help customers finish the purchase effectively and efficiently without a bunch of roadblocks. Returning customers can check out with a single click. That means less friction and fewer abandoned carts and a smoother experience for everybody.
That stuff gives you confidence early on and it gives other people confidence in what you're doing. You're not wondering whether the payment system is going to work. You're not wondering whether customers can get through the process. Shopify handles that foundation so you can focus on the thing that you're actually trying to do.
It's really kind of amazing to me that Shopify is a tool that works from the first day your store launches when you're just starting to get customers all the way up to being the size of good.store or dftv.com or being the size of like Mattel and Gymshark. When you build a Shopify you're building with tools that already work at every scale. All you need is the idea Shopify handles the rest. You can start your free trial at Shopify.com slash deerhank.
Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash deerhank with new subscription only while supplies last until September 27th, 2026. See website for more details. One thing I love about summer is how easy everything feels. The days are a little more relaxed.
My kids don't have to wake up at five in the morning and I find myself reaching for the same comfortable go anywhere pieces again and again which is why I keep coming back to quince. I often wear either a long sleeve or a short sleeve button down from quince and it fits well and I never have any complaints. In fact sometimes I get compliments about it. I was at the airport a couple days ago.
I often find myself in airports and someone said I like your shirt and I said thanks. It's from quince. Quince is 100% European linen pants and shirts are breathable, easy to throw on and the summer upgrade your rotation needs starting at just $34. Their tees are soft enough to live in all day and the lightweight cotton sweaters are exactly what you want when those summer nights cool down.
So that's why I'm wearing quince this summer and you can make your summer wardrobe easier by going to quince.com slash deer hank for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada too that's qunce.com slash deer hank for free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash deer hank. This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Factor. Imagine for a moment that you are absolutely immersed in some work where you're creating something beautiful or useful or useless and ugly but you love it anyway and you look up and suddenly you have a feeling and that feeling is that it is 2.30 p.m. and that you did not eat lunch.
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Head to factormeals.com slash deer hank 50 off and use the code deerhank50off to get 50% off and free daily greens per box. With new subscription only, wild supplies last until September 27th, 2026. See you website for more details. Another question John, it's from Maggie who asks deer John and Hank.
I don't know why I should put you first. How do vitamins get assigned by their letters and numbers and sentences? It's because it's my area of expertise. For example, how did whatever compound that makes up vitamin B12 become known as vitamin B12?
Why does vitamin C not have numbers? Wake up Maggie. I think I got something to say to you. That's quite good actually.
Is it only bees that have numbers? I think it's only bees that have numbers. Yeah. And why is it, why is there no vitamin F?
Here's the situation. This is all you really need to know. No one was thinking when they did this. None of it makes sense.
And we didn't know what was going on. So like, there's a vitamin B12, but there's not a vitamin B11. We thought there was, but it turned out we were wrong. Like, that wasn't a vitamin or it was the same as another vitamin or something.
I don't know the story. But like, and then vitamin K, like is way down. But that was one of the first ones that got named because it was named like in order, it was named for a thing, which was like it helped with coagulation. And it was in German.
So like, none of it makes sense. That's what you need to know about vitamins and the names that they have. It's not it's broken. We were doing the best we could with very imperfect knowledge.
And we ended up with a system that doesn't make any sense. There you go. It does not help you. Under like knowing the like the names of the vitamins does not help you understand what like anything about the vitamins.
Is there any way that we could invent a vitamin G that's named after us? I think they weren't like we kind of got all the vitamins, but maybe not. I don't know. But maybe maybe we can make a supplement and call it vitamin G.
Yes, because apparently there's no rules about naming things. And based on my relationship with the TikTok shop and its supplements, there's also no rules around what you can sell as a supplement. Oh my gosh, John. I I don't don't even get me started.
I got an email recently from somebody who I work with who was like, not like at one of our companies, to be clear. I want to absolve them of worrying. This is not you guys. But it was somebody who I work with.
And they were like, I think that you would be such a great fit for athletic greens. And I was like, Oh my God, what did what what impression did I leave? What did I do wrong? What did I do wrong?
That I like you think that I want to pitch people on things that pretend to be medicine, but aren't that like constantly say on their website that it's like clinically proven and then like asterisk. It's not. Yeah, this is not meant to treat any disease and these statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. Right.
Well, and the clinical trials involved, if you read the clinical trials are often not, I think it's safe to say up to snuff in terms of the standards that we would expect. Yeah, they're all funded by the company. And they are all designed to have likely good outcomes. They're all designed for it to be easy to find effects that wouldn't actually be there.
Right. A lot of it relies on self reporting. A lot of it doesn't involve double blind trials. There's yeah, it's it's the Wild West.
And I actually looked at one of the studies recently of one of the supplements that it was said it was clinically proven. This one wasn't I thought it greens, but I looked and it was like it was clinically proven to help people sleep. And it just has melatonin in it. Right.
They didn't test it versus melatonin. They like, okay, yeah, I mean, we knew that melatonin was likely to help people have a like sleep or that's not information. You just put melatonin in your supplement and you did a test on your supplement and showed that it was better than placebo when melatonin is better than placebo. Right.
What else will awkward about this conversation, Hank? Yeah. And I don't really know how to get out of it now is that I just took a brand deal with a supplement company. Did you want company?
No, I'm kidding. I just wanted to make you feel that like surge of adrenaline. They're like, well, I mean, until you told me what it was, I wasn't going to feel it because like there are some like should have told you it was then that's great. That's great.
That's great. info for next time. I trick you that I need to go a little bit further and make your anxiety ramp up a little bit more before I resolve it. This next question comes from M who writes Dear Brothers Green, how do I ask for the $600 a mom?
My babysat for owes me. The kids were twins and they were hard to babysit for. The problem is that I was their babysitter when I was 16 and I am now 27 but I still think about this at least once a week. Well, first of all, you need to look into how much interest rates have been.
Exactly inflation, baby inflation. It's not 600 bucks a month. That's like 1,100 bucks a month. So you yeah, you need I have done this not with that.
I like first of all, I don't know when I was living your gap with a long gap. And what'd you do? I tell you what I did and what I did is definitely better than what you're doing. Okay, well, I said to an email when I was like, I was like, this matters to me and I think that it's important that we get it squared away.
And did they pay you? They did. And this was the time when I needed that. It was a time when I needed money.
And I was like, oh, well, there's that money that that company in this case owes me and they haven't paid me. And I kind of let it slide. And I was like, well, now I will not let it slide. And I'll tell them that I'm angry.
I realistically don't think that's going to work for him. I don't think M can go to this mom who didn't pay a 16 year old for babysitting and say, hey, I'm 27 now I need my money back. It's a lot of babysitting that you didn't get paid for. Ultimately, it's one mom who offered a really attractive rate knowing that she had no intention of paying.
I'll pay whatever it costs because I'm not paying you. No, here's what I would do. I would use this as fuel because that's what I do. I'll just tell you, I don't think I've ever talked about this before publicly, but one time I was hired to write something for somebody who's very successful and famous and I was hired to write something for a spill.
The teeth say the name. No, I'm not going to say the name. I was hired to write something for a large movie based corporation by a famed executive at a large movie corporation. And I wrote it.
And I rewrote it. And I rewrote it again. And the person did not like my work and did not feel that I had met the need that the requirements of the contract and didn't pay me my last $5,000. Now, this was strictly entirely a power play.
This was about nothing other than I don't need to pay you this last $5,000. And so I'm not going to the $5,000 is less than a rounding error to this company and to it wasn't about that. It was about everything else, right? And I made it about so I made it about everything else.
I didn't make it about the $5,000. I was like the kid in Betteroff Dead, that old movie who wants his $2 for his paper route. Like I would do anything to get back at this guy. Yeah.
And I don't want my $5,000. I want my revenge. So you figure out what this mom does for a living and then you need to get better than her at it. Because this person and I got to see them.
I got to see them at a premiere of my movie and I got to shake hands with them and lean in Hank and one arm around their back and say, I remember the $5,000. Did you do that? Yes. Wow.
I would never. Do you know how it felt? How does it feel? It's like surfing the biggest wave ever surfed perfectly.
You know what it felt like? It felt like $5,200. It felt like you were being like for those, for like for that like 13 seconds you were being paid for like a million dollars an hour. I felt fairly compensated for my work.
Okay. Well, that's a different way of handling it for sure. Like I think I can't remember what the story is, but there is an some Eli Lilly person who was once like being strong armed by a bank and he just bought the bank and fired the guy who was strong arming him. And I'm like, that's like, okay.
So you got to buy the mom. Oh, yeah. Or that actually would be the ultimate power move if I bought the movie studio and fired the person in question. Unfortunately, that would require a different level of capitalization than you were currently living with.
So what you have to do is adopt these twins. They're they're ears now. All right. That's too dark.
I don't like it. I don't like it. It seemed like you did not like them, but you have to do it anyway. Also, they're probably adults.
I was going to say yeah, they're like 23 now. Dear John and Hank, I'm a high school student with a fear of worms. It's got to the point that I could no longer gardener walk outside in the rain touching them causes me severe panic. The issue is that this is so utterly irrational.
No one takes it seriously. Welcome to obsessive thoughts viral. People my age use it to tease me and many adults I talk to try to tell me that I will grow out of it. But it's been over 10 years.
Will it ever happen? If not, how can I make people understand? And is there anything I can do to manage the fear in the moment or in general? Thanks, not Hazel Grace.
Just Hazel. Hazel, first off, you are not a freak. Yeah, this is not weird. Okay.
This is real. And anybody who has obsessive thoughts, viral is about things often, often they kind of weasel their way in by being like, oh, only a freak would be afraid of this. Only a weirdo would be afraid of this. And like that's how it gets at you.
That's part of its strategy. And I know Hank will say like these things on strategies. They don't. It's true.
But like that's how your brain starts to work against you on this front. Things do kind of have strategies. Like we have the thoughts that are possible to have. And so if thoughts, this is like how evolution works, right?
If something can make more of itself, there will be more of that thing. So if a cell can make more of itself, there will be more of that cell, but also of the strategy that help the cell make the new cells. And that new strategy will become caught by common in the population or even take over the whole population. And I think this kind of can be true for thoughts.
If the thought can make more of itself, there will be more of it. And so you end up in situations where thoughts that can make more of themselves become so common that the strategies they're using, like to like the tricks that they're using to exist in your brain are happening. Like they become more populous in your brain. So anyway, I think that they kind of do have strategies.
Yeah, I really, I really like that. I think that's that's certainly true to my experience. So Hazel, there is so the first, I mean, first off, I think you should ask your parents to talk to a therapist and ask your parents to talk to a therapist who has experience in OCD and especially in something called ERP. Okay, because this is this is is treatable.
It's very, very treatable. And I know that you'll think like, Oh, I don't have to get it treated. Like, but it seems like it's actually causing you a lot of anxiety. And it's really, if it's difficult to garden, if it's difficult to walk in the rain, like this is starting to get to the point where it's really, it's making decisions for you that you don't want to make.
And so that's a problem. And if you if you do this exposure response therapy, which can be very scary to talk about, but like when you do it, it's it really does work. I've done it and it really works. It really works for the vast majority of people.
What you'll find is that over time you will have to go through some anxiety for sure. But on the other side of that anxiety is freedom from being controlled by this thought. And that's very powerful. So that's what I recommend.
I recommend seeing a therapist's experience and dealing with OCD. And because this is this is very treatable and you don't have to live with it. All right, John, I want to get to one more question before we go to the news from our other name, Sue Wimbledon. Great.
It is from Laurie who asks Dear Hank and John, I know how paint dries. There are solid pigmented particles mixed with liquid solvent in the solvent evaporates when exposed to the air, because the liquid is volatile and it turns into gas. This is an amazingly complex understanding of paint you are correct. What is what's left behind is a solid layer of pigment coating the net the wall or whatever the surface was you wanted to paint.
What I want to know is how does gel nail polish work and why does UV light cure the liquid into a solid and why does it sometimes have a sticky residue that you need to wipe off and sometimes it doesn't. What's going on looking for a cure? Laurie, that's great. For a cure.
Debokie and I had a half an hour long conversation about nail polish this morning because of this question. And it's so cool. Do I have a friend who works in aerospace paints for the government and he can't talk about his job because he works on paint for fighter jets. And I don't know why, but it's very advanced and complicated and military secret.
I think that there is every chance that nail polish paint, like the people who work on nail polish paint and my friend go to the same conferences to talk about paint. Like nail polish paint is so complicated and weird and cool and wild. But the way the gel nail polish works, you can sometimes like buy a gel nail polish at the store that says it's a gel nail polish, but it's not really. When you get it done with like UV light, what is happening is that the energy, the high energy photons from the UV light, that radiation is actually causing the polymers in the individual like monomers, pieces of the chemicals to polymerize to each other.
So that energy goes in and it causes those monomers to form bonds and form these super long chains that are stronger than a traditional paint would be. So it's actually creating the plastic, the polymer that becomes the gel nail polish. And the areas that are exposed to oxygen polymerize slightly differently. And so they become that sticky outer layer that you sometimes have to wash off.
And sometimes you don't have to do that because they're some of them cure faster and they don't have the same polymerization with the oxygen in the atmosphere. So like, isn't that like, that's just wild that there is like, and like figuring that out and the process of getting there, there's so much science that goes into it. And there are a lot, there are many people who had to get their entire careers to like new new excitements and nail polish. And it made me like want to work with a nail polish company to have nail polish on good dot store.
Like I was just like, Devokie and I having the time of our lives, yeah, fascinating. Yeah, fascinating. All right, we got a few corrections before we get to the news from the news. And then first off from Tremor Kale, who worked on the James Wednespace telescope a little bit and in general seems like a very well informed person.
You were wrong about sailing and the solar sail in ways that I cannot explain because they are too smart for me. But my favorite thing about his email is that he wrote Dear Hank and John for now. Clearly somebody knows something about the future of Mars exploration. Also, it turns out that humans have peed more than one of our Great Lakes, Lake Erie.
Okay, I'll leave that. So humans, overall of human history have peed more than one Lake Erie. And lastly, lastly, there is a Lego house. And it was built for less.
Oh, I bet the world's first Lego house exists. It is very small, but it was built for less than 100 million dollars. Yeah, I imagine if it's if it's been built, it's definitely wasn't 100 billion dollars. Exactly.
So that's what the bill to Lego house. It's not that small, but it is small. It's a bit of a tiny house. Yeah.
And it but it's nice. You could live there. And in fact, I think someone does. All right, it should be an Airbnb because I want to stay there.
I do too. Let's get to the news from AFC Wimbledon most importantly, and then we'll get to the news from Mars. AFC Wimbledon season is is hurtling toward its end. There are three games left in AFC Wimbledon's 24 league campaign unless unless if we win all three of those games, they're all three against teams below us in the table.
Although that doesn't mean much. If we win all three of those games, I think we have a chance to make the playoffs. We're currently in eighth. The team and seventh will make it to the playoffs.
Now that's Crawley town. They've had a very good season and they've been playing well of late, but if they lose two of their remaining games and we win all three of ours, then we would make the playoffs probably. There's also a couple teams behind us that have a chance. So it's a very complicated.
The machinations are always complex here at the end of the season, but my big hope is that we make it to the final day still with a shot to get to the playoffs because that itself would be fun. And then if we did make it to the playoffs, we would almost certainly be playing wait for it the franchise. I don't like that. I know there's no way I'm going to like that.
That's way too much stress. You're going to go and you're going to have a great time. It's too much stress. It's too scary.
You're going to go. Hey, it's like I always say to Henry Nalis before the games. We're not here to see AFC Wimbledon win. We're here to see AFC Wimbledon play and to drink beer.
I'm sober right now. Do they have now all like beers? I didn't know you were sober. Yeah, I don't.
It doesn't feel good to drink anymore. It feels like I'm getting chemotherapy. Well, then you shouldn't drink. It's like it reminds my body of chemo and I just want to like have a half a glass of wine and then I want to like curl up in a ball and be like, why don't I feel a little bad?
Well, then don't drink. Okay. And then in that case, we're here to watch AFC Wimbledon drink Sprite. What do they have?
What's like the food that you have at football game in England? Eyes. Oh, I'm back in. Oh, yeah.
My London Pie has a food truck at foul lane and it is people say it's the best people say that AFC Wimbledon has the best food of any of the 92 teams in the football league. Oh my God. People say that or do people actually say that? No, people actually say that.
All right. Then that's that like I have gotten significantly more interested. We don't do pies well in America. Don't we don't have a great meat pie situation.
That's true. I mean, for clarity, we do great dessert pies. We have a very upset if people thought that I thought that I thought we don't do good dessert pies, but make a great key lime pie, but we don't have a great meat pie. Oh, and pie.
Yeah. That's what they serve. They serve hand pies. I love a hand pie.
They're so good. Okay. It makes me want to move on full time. Okay.