Neurotoxins: They Hurt - A Batch of Listener Stories Including a Snowmobile Moose Flip, Multiplying Bears, and More

Hello, Tooth and Claw listeners. We have Tooth and Claw podcast here. Where's here? We are in Asia. Yes. Indonesia. Okay. What's the name of the island? Komodo. No. Ooh, close. I don't know. Flores. We're on Flores. Yes. Oh, okay. But it's in, like, the Lesser Sunda Islands, which are commonly kind of referred to as the Komodo Islands. And why is that? Because one of the islands is named Komodo. And we're going close to that island, but not actually going to that island. Is there Komodo dragons on the island we're on right now? Yes, but they're not common on this island. Oh, wow. But I may have seen one today, actually. Really? A little one. And it is usually younger ones that are on this island. How big is a little one? Like about three feet long. You sure it wasn't a cat? 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. Last night, though, you saw a cat and you yelled at the whole group. I did. It was a little bit much because I was in between two of our groups that had kind of split up. And I saw iShine and I thought it was like a leopard cat. And 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, overexcited. And you guys had already seen it. Did you spot anything first on our little night hike last night? I saw one of those baby vipers first. Oh, yeah. We saw some vipers. Not as cool as Dodge version. I think that's fair. You do? Yeah. Dodge vipers are pretty sick. Yeah. I really like 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 viper. The one with the missing fang? That's missing the fang. But ours hopefully have both fangs. Yeah, it was voiced by what's his name? Kiwi Kwan. Short round. Short round, yeah. Sorry. Yeah. His real name, Short Round. You think those are better than the car? Yeah. I'll put those over the car. That was surprising for a minute. So you would rather see a Dodge Viper than those other common Vipers that we saw last night? I don't think I'd rather see a Dodge Viper. Yeah. But on that hike last night, I'd be more interested in seeing a Dodge Viper. Like a baby one on the branch? We're walking through the jungle and there's just a Dodge Viper parked out there. That would be pretty exciting. Well, it was great. 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, worst to best. We were going to do that, but then we're like, wait a sec, we go to Antarctica and we will have been to all seven continents. And so it makes more sense to do that later. It does. So we have some really great listener stories that we're going to do today. Last time we did this, we had a really fun time. I remember. I don't know about the listeners. We had fun. Yeah. Well, and when we went on National Park after dark, Wes was like, this girl doesn't have a scar from a goose. Goose, yeah. As proved wrong. Yeah. Actually, I wasn't proved wrong by her, but I was proved wrong that geese can actually, like, do some damage. For sure. So I do believe her. Yeah. Wes, you want to start us off? 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 stuck in our heads. And I think Jeff or our mom reached out and got 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. 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 you ever think in the scottish high games during the caber toss event and they find salamanders uh maybe when they're slipping logs all over i don't know how many salamanders there are there but probably you're probably killing a lot of salamanders that's true 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 voles shrews mice and bats for living so i'm used to handling these small wiggly animals and know that you just have to scruff in the right spot 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. 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. I've seen these before. I actually went to a mountain man camp when I was a teenager. Oh, I've seen those where they make you into a man. Yeah, it's like the ones where you have to go into their tent and whatever they want to do. No, I'm just kidding. Hold on. 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 15 okay 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. Whoa. 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. 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 i don't know like that one guy if it's like an inspector gadget neck like you're 10 feet away you don't expect a neck to be like extend it yeah i want to know how far this shrew can stretch its neck like dalsam again um i'm gonna from now on i'm gonna try and get a dalsam reference in every episode i encourage it it latched on i tried to pull my finger out while still scruffing with the other hand It let go after maybe 10 seconds, and I set it back on the ground near the log. That'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 finger 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. I didn't know that was shrews, though. Pretty much any venom. Yeah. Because like a snake, they get their teeth way into you. Yeah. A shrew feels like I could get some of the venom in. Yeah. I shouldn't speak, like, authoritatively on that, but from what I understand, like, pretty much all of 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. 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? No, it sounds like it's more, I don't know, again, I don't know too much about him, 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. Okay. 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 has 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, that's a good name. I like that. I called her up. Whenever I hear it, just like, gerd up your loins is what I can think about, right? Yeah, gerd. Yeah. Yeah. What is a loin specifically? What am I girding? I don't even know what either of those really mean. But I always knew it meant kind of like pick yourself up. It kind of sounds like give yourself a front wedgie. Yeah, it kind of does. Like pull up your pants as hard as you can. Yeah, is that like pull yourself up by the bootstraps? I don't know. Well, a lot of mysteries out there for science to solve. A lot of people needing to be told to put their pants on. Wes? Wes doesn't have pants on. Yeah, I'm not wearing my pants. You haven't groided your loins. I haven't girded my loins. We are in a hot hotel room in Indonesia, so I'm pantsless. Great. Like Dalsam. Yeah, just like Dalsam. 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 paper about it, I guess. And it's called Some Effects of the Bite of the Short-Tailed Shrew 1973. That describes some pretty terrible symptoms associated with the 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. Note 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. Yeah. And so it's surprising to me that it would be that potent. Yeah, that is interesting. 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 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. Coyote Peterson never bit by one. That's true. It's probably pretty bad. Hard to say if it's better or worse than a banded hornet. Yeah. Thanks for doing that research, Jeff. Every January, it feels like we're told to reinvent ourselves. New year, new you. right? But we know that real progress doesn't happen overnight. Unless you're like Captain America and they put you in that machine. But for most of us it doesn't. It comes from steady, consistent work. That's exactly what Nutrafol believes. Hair growth isn't about shortcuts or quick fixes. It's about supporting yourself and your hair with the right routine so you can stay strong, confident, moving forward. Nutrafol targets the key root causes of thinning in men, like stress and hormonal changes because it's not just about genetics. 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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 going to have to pay like 30 grand just to talk to them. 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 a bite wound for infection. My arm had that dull ache for probably three days, but I was able to use my hand just fine. I 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 like the achy thing. Yeah, that is interesting. 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 shore to the 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. A garter snake. You don't need to go to the doctor. What about a poison arrow frog? A bite from one? Yeah. I wouldn't worry about it. Unless it bit you on like an open wound. I'd be a little worried. I don't think I would. At all. I've had my fair share of vole bites. and I felt all right to keep an eye out for infections. Seems unbelievable, question mark. Seems unbelievable? I've attached a video of the shrew while I'm scruffing it or sitting for my phone and a pickup shrew teeth and skull from the Google attached. Sorry this story got so long. It's okay, Mel. It was a great story. Shorter than freaking William Shakespeare wrote a whole book about taming that shrew. That's true. It's why I like these listener stories, you know? I never even knew there was a venomous shrew until a listener wrote us and told us, I got bit by one. That thing. Holy mackerel. That's just a zoomed in picture of it, too. So, honestly, it could be as big as a T-Rex skull for all of it. That's true. Or as small as a bullet ant, which hurt. That's closer to the right size. Yeah. Yeah. Wess it with a zoomed-in picture of a bull and just to make us think it was worse. Thanks, Mel. Good story. Venomous shrews. Go figure. Yeah. There's a few venomous mammals out there. The slow loris. Yep. Platypus. Yes. Shrews. Right. Is there a fast loris? Probably like a woman named loris that's fast. Loris is a name, right? Yeah. It's an acceptable answer. Who am I thinking of? Lois. Lois. There's probably people named Loris, right? If there is, I don't think they're fast. Okay. I'm just going to get on Facebook really quick. Okay. I'm going to talk Loris. Yeah, sure. Thanks, Wes. Should I go? Yeah. Okay. Here's the story. It starts off like this. Hey, guys. I just had to tell you this true story. we assume all these stories are true right so um we'll start off with just assuming that he's telling the truth here this guy's named loris and he looks hella fast that guy is running like a 4-2-40 are you kidding me geez 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 that's what i'm excited to hear wild combination of animals probably yeah when i was in college at grand valley state university in the 90s 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 this is probably why they got bit yeah yeah that goose is whatever we Someone more qualified would not have gotten bit by these animals. 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 reach around? The old undertaker. Yeah, right. That's a better, maybe. definitely better than the older reach around 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 its prime i took a beating to the face but managed this guy's making it hard it's like not my fault the reach around comment was 100 your fault there's like nothing yeah i should shouldn't have said that oh okay at this point swan started flapping its wings strike 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. Yeah he teaching the wrong subject Mr Kemi is teaching algebra I think it Mr K Oh okay Kemi 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 pansies 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 got to be where the piranhas get them right probably he's like i i also had a ticket to brazil that day yeah uh we'll see though yeah 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 is 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 i'd be impressed as his friend i'd be like oh sweet do it i mean if you're gonna have piranhas yeah you might as well show them off a little yeah what would you name a hot dog's a good thing to yeah what would you name your piranha joey chestnut right oh that's a good name gotta be that's really i would i like kobayashi better for a piranha though me too i like hot dogs a good thing to 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 yeah and like a piranha it seems like they could do it pretty quick give me 15 seconds that dog is gone i don't think it's watch we got to do this i don't chew i don't chew hot dog 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 okay okay sure we can blur your face 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 ouch i mean yeah uh one to ten ouchies with all three Yeah. One. Okay. I managed to finish the cleaning and took a much needed break. It was a long day for old, 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. I like that story. That's a great story. That is amazing. Yeah. I have one. Let's hear it. Okay. Angry Moose and the Snowmobile by Matt Calderon. Are we doing last names? Yeah, I did. Yeah, me too. I hesitated, but they put it in the email. We'll bleep it out. Nah, they don't care. Well, now I have to. Mine was Mel Bowman. Okay, yeah. Okay, all right. We're going for it. Yeah. So this story is from January 2009. Okay, I'm going to read it like I'm him now. This story is from January 2009 when I was snowmobiling with friends in Groton State Forest in Vermont. We had 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 ride. Right? Right. One last case. Yeah. Getting too old for this. Except for, ironically, Fast 7 when they go on one last ride. Yeah. And they leave, like, best friends forever. Yeah. And that's ironic because in real life he was dead. Yeah. Yeah. And the guy in the movie was just a computer. And his brother. We were about halfway through the ride and traveling at a pretty good rate of speed, probably between 65 and 70 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 10 to 12 feet wide. My friend was ahead of me by about 200 or 300 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 150 feet in front of me it was a bull moose you said bald eagle i said snowmobile isn't that the other yeah option here yeah not wouldn't be as good about 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? I didn't. No, I'm not overly intimate. Did you, Wes? Yeah, I rode a lot of snowmobiles doing polar bear work, so I knew that. How quick did they stop? It takes a second. If you're going fast. It really depends on the type of snow you're in. But yeah, they do kind of slide to a stop. 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. Yeah. I was probably traveling around 65 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. Wait, to like jump over the moose? Yeah. No. That can't have been his only. That was the coolest option. I mean, I think it's a pretty tight window. Sure. Yeah. So I think he meant like jump to the side though. Yeah. Well. Okay. I'll tell you. All right. 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. Oh my gosh. Yeah. As I went over it. This essentially turned me into a giant lawn dart. now going head first 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 for sure i think that kind of turns you into any projectile like yeah not so much like just a lawn dart but i do like how you got another one um one of the little people in wolf of wall street yeah sure yeah velcro yeah a missile a regular dart Yeah, dart. I got up from the trail and saw that my sled had veered off 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 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 4 to 5 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 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. Luckily, another snowmobiler, Mike? Yeah? Snowmobile, you're just a little too early. Yeah, yeah. 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 find help, but he didn't stop and barely acknowledged me. Even though my sled was smashed into a tree off the side of the trail, people can be absolutely terrible. Eventually, about half an hour later, my buddy realized I wasn't following him and came back to find me and the sled in a mess. We hooked the sleds 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 was a giant moose body print in the middle of the trail. I mean, it is like, you jumped over a moose? Yeah, hard to believe. yeah um 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 i 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 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 thanks for reading and i'm a huge fan of the podcast and then he sent a picture of a sled and his highline 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 that's insane But going that fast, had he not jumped, he could have died. Hitting a moose are thousands of pounds. Not thousands, but yeah. A moose can be a thousand pounds. Yeah, but not thousands. It can be 2,000 pounds. I don't think so. A bull moose? I think the biggest they get is about a thousand pounds. Either way, you're not winning that collision. No. Even with the snowmobile and everything, it seems like. And then also, like, if you're not jumping, you're getting stuck around their legs. Yeah. So you get kicked or whatever. Yeah. 1,600 is what it says they get up to you. That's the biggest. Yeah. Okay. That's bigger than I thought. But, yeah, so, I don't know. It's kind of crazy. Like, it's one of those things that is kind of a movie logic. Like, that doesn't work in real life. Right. And it worked. That's crazy. Yeah. Good reflexes. And if the moose ended up dying, hopefully a mountain lion ate it. Yeah, if it walked off, I don't think his legs could be that badly broken. Even though they, Chris, or who is this guy's name again? Matt. Matt. Even though he said it was badly broken, they are really tough animals, but if its leg was like really badly broken, I don't think it would have been able to walk around like that. Maybe his friends call him Chris. Yeah. That's possible. No, Matt. Oh. Yeah, I'm all mixed up. I want to clear something up. Yeah. I said earlier that I'm not overly intimate in regards to snowmobiles. Yeah. I'm not intimate at all with them, let alone overly. I was trying to say I'm not intimately familiar with snowmobiles. So, sorry. I don't even think I heard you say that. That's one of those times where you just don't need the word intimate, I don't think. Intimately familiar is like people would, yeah. Yeah. I shouldn't. I shouldn't have even brought it back. I think intimately familiar is like an okay way to say it. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. I don't even know how you would be intimate with a snowmobile. I mean, there's probably someone. Someone's done it. Hey, Mike, how familiar with snowmobiles are you? And you're like, I've never had sex with one. Right. Yeah. And that would tell you all you need to know. Not intimate. If someone said that, I'd be like, oh, this dude's had sex with a snowmobile. That's true, right? How do you feel about organizing your finances on your own? For me, it feels really overwhelming. 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. Money has 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 you can spend less. 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Plan required. $15 a month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Usage of over 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. Capable device required. Availability, speed, and coverage varies. See you at MintMobile.com. All right. This next one is from Harrison Holesgang. And this story is called Bearmath in Glacier National Park. My wife, Sarah, had won an Amtrak gift card at a work raffle. Don't worry about doxing. Plenty of people have that last name. Holesgang. Yeah. Harrison Holesgang. So we don't need to worry about that. 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 that Amtrak could drop us off right 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. More nepotism, I bet. Why is that? I mean, that just sounds like someone helped him out. She won an Amtrak gift card at a work raffle. But then Glacier let him go in their backcountry. Something their dad has to be. Sure. Brad Pitt. 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 are about to listen to a section of the book that outlined the gory details surrounding August 13, 1967 in Glacier National Park. Do you guys know what happened on August 13, 1967 in Glacier National Park? Yes, but I read your email. Mike? Brad Pitt? 67, August 13, 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 Julie 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 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 with the other campers. That baby deer is probably like, what the f***, dude? 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 sang. What the hell? I don't know. Somehow. All right, blame me. We saw the first bears of the trip at Many Glacier, a 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 was 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. Okay. Okay. She continued down the trail for a couple 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 park's 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 two. And do, like, when De Niro and taxi drivers, like, practicing pulling the gun out in the mirror. Yeah, stand in front of the mirror. Do that. Yeah. Two times. Say, do you feel lucky, punk? Are you communicating with me? Yeah. Is that, do you feel lucky, punk? No, that's Dirty Harry. That's Dirty Harry, yeah. And are you communicating with me is Chris Farley. What is he saying, taxi driver? It's a famous thing. You talking to me? You talking to me. Is it? That's what it is. You talking to me? Yeah. And he says it to himself. Yeah. Like 40 times. Yeah. But 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. Yeah, it's like, I might have shot all these bullets. You're right. Man. All right. 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 10 to 15 yards before standing up again And just so everyone knows like that would indicate a bear that 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. We continued backing away to regain some of our distance, but 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 cup. Yeah, one cup. Ugh. Math is still adding up okay. The two bears ran down the hill a little further, maybe another 10 to 20 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. Math is adding up less okay. And the four bears stared at us a few more seconds, and then finally the pack ran off down the hill. So for sure, this is a family group. Right. Don't say pack, say family. It's all right, yeah. They're not in packs, but this is definitely a female with some cubs. So if you ever see this many bears together, unless there's a big resource there, like a salmon stream or a dead animal or something else that's bigger than a berry patch, you can be pretty confident that this is going to be a female with cubs. Or it could be cubs that have just left their mom and still together. but because there's four bears, female with probably some sub-adult 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, 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. 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 huckleberry bushes oh yeah that's true i'm not saying that the swiss though nothing bad whatever happens to the Swiss. Wes just said as a grain of salt. Okay. Because he hates any story where people don't get hurt by animals. That's true. I need someone to get hurt. You're real sick of it. 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. At 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. Large rack? Yes. Big brown butt and large rack. Mike. Mike's getting way too intimate with this story. Could have been dulcum. No, it could 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 attention. That happens. I've seen moose before that I thought were bears. What if they had to jump over it? Yeah. The bad part is we were on snowmobiles and we couldn't stop. 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, and 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 had 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 Holesgang. I have a question, Wes. Yeah. You know that hypothetical of, like, how many kindergartners could you take in a fight? Yeah. How many bears could you take with one can of bear spray? Probably, like, two. If all four bears come at you and you have one can of bear spray, you're in trouble? If 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. But how many coming at you at once until you aren't okay? Enough to where if I was like spinning in a circle spraying my bear spray, I couldn't get them all or put them all around me. So maybe like 12? 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 – You think you have a chance with 12. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. 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. I've always wanted to take that train. Yeah, me too. Tooth and Claw is brought to you by Graza. 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And I'm not going to pretend I'm always cooking for friends or family, but when I do, I always use Graza. And I love that it's just there, ready to go, quick, easy, delicious. So, you will get 10% off your first order of any olive oil on their site, but I wholeheartedly recommend the Graza Duo. You receive two bottles of extra virgin olive oil, sizzle for cooking, and drizzle for finishing with an extra kick of bold flavor. And please let them know that Tooth and Claw sent you. If you're struggling with ED, you're not alone. It's much more common than you might think, and it's simpler to treat than ever. You know, 40, 50 years ago, this was a huge problem that really didn't have a great solution. But now through HIMSS, you can connect online with a licensed provider to access personalized treatment options discreetly and on your terms. HIMSS offers access to ED treatments ranging from personalized products to trusted generics that cost 95% less than brand names if prescribed. And I really love that. I love that you don't have to go way out of your way to arrange a doctor's appointment, to have a kind of awkward interview in person. Now HIMSS brings expert care straight to you with 100% online access to personalized treatments that put your goals first. And I think that's also really important because this isn't a one size fits all kind of scenario. It's your health, your goals put first with real medical providers, making sure you get what you need to get results. And I mean, that's what we're looking for when it comes to ED treatments is results. So you can think of HIMSS as your digital front door that gets you back to your old self with simple 100% online access to trusted treatments for ED and more all in one place. And speaking from experience, sometimes all you need to have is these pills in your back pocket to have that confidence and to get those results. So maybe it's worth trying out even if you're not having that issue just yet. 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She was like, this. okay yeah no i just spoiled it spoiled we'll see that this story is good it's in the first sentence they're gonna say it we'll still bleep it but yeah i just want 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 a lot of them. Ooh. I'm a huge fan of the podcast. I like a Latina a lot too. Latina. Ooh. You do like a lot. Yeah. A lot of them. Jessie's part Latina. Is that true? Yeah. Her mom is, uh, I think half Mexican. Holy cow. Yeah. I had no idea. Yeah. So I think that counts. I think Jessie could, but she's, you know, she's very like white. Yeah. So she doesn't say that she's Latina. I want to make that very clear. Right. She's not one of those people that says she is. Yeah, otherwise I would know. Yeah. 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 doxing this person. Yeah. My days are usually filled with wildlife surveys and 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. Cool. 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. Wahoo? It's like Mario. Wahoo! Isn't that Luigi? Isn't that the chocolate milk? Or that's you-hoo? That's you-hoo. I think Luigi says wahoo. Wahoo! That does sound like a Luigi. You're right. Good call. Thanks. I know those waters well. That's where Mike's an expert. It's like when we get a bare fact on you. That's true. yeah he goes that's great no i'm proud of you west thanks so hannah knows these waters really well i wish my dad would say that just once 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 islamo islamorata 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 i thought you were gonna ask about dad um i i don't know i think like when it comes to seafood and like that's probably honestly like one of the most sustainable ways like ethical yeah and these people usually understand what is okay to kill and what is not okay to kill so spearfishermen are usually really ethical and whatnot. And so I shouldn't say that like for every spear fisherman, but I do think especially someone who seems to be very biology-minded like this person, like I'm sure they're being very ethical. Cool. Okay. And lobsters are just like eating bugs. Yeah. Were they going for lobsters? Wasn't it like lobstering? Yeah, lobstering first and then the next day. Do you want to talk about dad? No. No, it's okay. Okay. I didn't think they were spearfishing for lobster. I thought they were just, like, collecting lobster. But maybe I'm wrong. I'd maybe give your dad a call after we're done recording. I'm just kidding. Yeah, who knows? It's a bit. Have you told him you're proud of him? Uh-huh. He hasn't ever said it to you. He has. It's just a bit that we say that sometimes. Okay, on with the story. We made good time stopping to admire some of Miami's more exotic species along the way, including a Hispaniolan khaki curly-tailed lizard. That's an awesome name for an animal. It is. By 5 p.m., 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. All right. 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. 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 7 p.m., 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 box 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. I did not see the cause, however living in the Keys I had 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 had been stung before and figured it wouldn't be that bad. I was so, so wrong. Yeah, fire coral's pretty mild, but yeah. Do you have anything to add, Jeff? As I added that, I realized I didn't have anything to add. I was just thinking bikinis. Yeah, no, I wouldn't consider that a mistake, personally. 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. Do you see that new Spongebob movie? No What's your problem? You've always had a thing against Spongebob He's a good guy 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 Could he be a better neighbor? Yeah, sure It doesn't mean you need to boycott him I don't hate him. I don't hate Pokemon either. You're boycotting. I just was like a little too old. He's a hard worker. Yeah. Yeah. All right. 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 p.m. At this point, I was feeling very tired, which is not normal for me. I typically free dive every weekend, and I am very comfortable swimming in the ocean for several hours. I figured it had 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. 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. 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 a.m. the next day to make it onto 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. I was like Wes with the ant. This ant story is turning into, like, you guys acting like I reacted to it strong when I had, like, the smallest reaction ever. Right. All right. Aside from Jack. Let's keep going, and let's see how it compares. Right, all right. 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. Yeah. Yeah, that's tough. The cramps are worse than the headache. but headaches can be bad right yeah my head hurts right now a little bit i'm kind of like hannah um you're like west 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 if things have to be really dire before i start telling people like yeah 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 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. Hot showers had helped with that experience, and with past stings, I had had. 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. That's crazy because I feel like when I have a really bad sunburn, a hot shower is like the worst thing for it. Oh, it's the worst. Yeah. I don't like that. Cold shower is good for if you're trying to not be so horny because of your sunburn. Right. Or if you're a little Mormon boy. Sure. I'm not. Where was I? Yeah. Hot showers. Cold showers. That's right. My back and abdomen were still in excruciating pain, but the hot needle sensation went away. That's nice. 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 1.30 a.m. at this point, and the only thing near me that was open was a 7-Eleven. A little ironic. It should be closed. That is. Right? What time was it? It's 1.30. Yeah. 7-Eleven. Because 11 o'clock? Is that what that means? Yeah, 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. I had no idea. Yeah. Maybe we're wrong, but I don't know. The one close to where I lived opened at 7 and closed at 11. Huh. I'm going to look it up really quick. Not because I'm doubting you guys. I'm just curious. So a bit of a miracle kind of that this place is still open. Yeah. Yeah. 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 work So instead I decided to figure out why the heck i was reacting this way to what i still thought was fire coral this is kind of like when my appendix was about to burst i just like kept taking pills and trying to walk it off yes yeah just power through it throw it up yeah meanwhile your organs just on the hot shower didn't work yeah 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. Finally get the truth out of you. He just gets mad at you. Yeah. 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 going to 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, trachycardia, 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. 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 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. We picked up my friend, the same one who was lobstering with us, and drove down to Isla Murata 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 Murata, 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 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. Wow. Yeah, that's clutch. Yeah. That's like the Jordan flu game. That was some KC fish, too. Yeah. How many did he score so many points in that game? Man, MJ. Bugs Bunny was so lucky that they got Michael Jordan. Yeah. For Space Jam? We all are. That's true. Earth was gone. We got it. On the line, right? That was Space Jam 2, wasn't it? No. I think Space Jam, the aliens... They wanted to enslave the entire human race. No, they were just going to enslave their team. Just the team. I think they negotiated down to Jordan would be their personal slave forever. First it was going to be the whole team, and then Michael Jordan said it would just be him. Yeah, because they wanted the cartoons to come to their planet and be like a new attraction for them. Imagine you're like Scottie Pippen and you're like, you used Bill Murray and didn't use me. Sean Bradley? You serious? Okay. I jumped in the water and took some videos of the fish offshore and even saw a silky shark, which was a new species for me. Congrats. That's a great sighting. After the trip ended around 12 p.m., my boyfriend and I went back up to the homestead and finally went to the hospital. I was there for about an hour, and they told me that I had 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. It comes and goes in waves. That's crazy. I know. We honestly could have done this as like a news, a 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 it's true it's pretty good succinct it's a good slogan yeah right to the point i'm currently working on the t-shirt i'll send it to you when it's done i can't wait i'll wear that yeah 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 a 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. 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. Thanks, Hannah. Thanks, Hannah. All right, let's do some categories. Sounds good. Big ol' pebbles is a little oxymoronical to me. Am I wrong? Yeah, pebbles like rocks. Yeah, round rocks. When does it stop being a pebble and graduate? That's a good point. It does make me want to see it, if they're all ostrich egg-sized. I don't blame... Can I see the photo? I don't blame Olivia though, because it's called Pebble Beach. Bleep that name again, Bill. Thank you. That's true. That is true. Pebble Beach is... You can swipe. There's three pictures. Those don't look ostrich size to me. Ostrich egg. That's her. Yeah, a freaking tiny ostrich maybe. Isn't that just a bird? It's what? That's philosophical. Those are like chicken eggs. All right. Let's go to categories. If it's a tiny ostrich, isn't it just a bird? I think if it's a big one, it's a bird too, right? A full-sized ostrich, also a bird. You almost got me on that one. Okay. First question, I was looking at this thing that used to be a mole on my calf. Yeah. Most likely cancer you think you'll get. Because this thing used to be a mole and now it's just a wound all the time. You know what? Just you saying that changed my answer. It's probably skin cancer for me. But our family hasn't really gotten that. Grandpa Garrett did. His was, like, tiny. It was pretty bad. He had to have, like, surgery. I mean, prostate is where my mind went because both dad and grandpa, Larson, got it. Yeah. 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 going to get skin cancer. So, skin cancer. I spent a lot of time in the sun. uh i'll go what's the one that most men get prostate yeah yeah let's do that one all right i mean i i had a doctor tell me i almost had colon cancer yeah and i need to go back every three years and i just don't think i will yeah so that's mine probably um all right worst story you've ever or yeah what's the worst story anyone's ever told you did you mean like worse like like like it's a bad story like that's not worth telling me jeff the hot sauce from taco bell story what was it 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 the i go to taco bell yeah 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 yeah yeah i 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 one piece jeff yeah one piece or like barstool stuff where i'm just like my mind just kind of turns off big cat has to cut off his pinky if the texans win yeah see kind of stuff like that yeah if he does it but he's not going to so like for me he does will you be sure i would think that was interesting you can tell me that story if it happens okay but like i think that's the stuff that i kind of just tend to be like okay there was yeah mine was the box jellyfish one that was a good story 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 45 minutes and when she was done there's one of those where it's like i don't think anything happened in your like you just described a day yeah from like six years ago there's like nothing to that no hook yeah i mean i was bored just hearing you describe it's hard to like tell it i guess it's a bad category because it's like kind of boring to retell the boring i I thought you meant worse, like most shocking, but yeah. Oh, well, what would you, I mean, that would be pretty messed up. Have you ever heard the tale of Darth Pleegis the Wise? That's a pretty bad one. That one, like serial killer Fish who would like kill kids? Oh yeah, Albert Fish. That's a pretty bad story. Yeah, Moe the chimpanzee story. That's sad. You think that's worse than killing kids? No. No, you win. All right. When you said serial killer fish though It did take me a second to figure out what you were talking about Since I guess yeah Since Wes put this episode Off till now 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 I guess I thought You meant it like for us You can do whatever then I kind of, 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 know, and it sits in my brain and tells me, like, you have to answer that email, and I don't do it. Yeah. And then I feel bad, and I just, that's such a... I don't even mark them on your head. You don't even read them to be honest. I can stop. Yeah. Hannah procrastinated a little bit in that last story when we went over. Yeah. Or not the last one, the last one I told. Yeah, she probably should have acted a little sooner. Yeah. Gotten that taken care of. Yeah. I'll go with that. You think? Yeah, a little bit. She might not have gone on the trip had she done more. That's a good point, but I don't know. Thanks. All those wahoo, Mike. Yoo-hoo. You know, I'm going to go with George R.R. Martin. Yeah. I do think he was working on an all-time, like, story. Yeah. 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 they ruined it it's pretty bad and now and now it's like does he even finish you know there's no way like yeah i think he's got like three years left yeah if i were him i wouldn't want to finish because they kind of already ruined the ending not as bad as stranger things though you guys got any general travel recommendations. Yeah. Do you want me to go first? Yeah. 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've 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-size pillow then and it's actually like really comfortable to lay on so that's sometimes on huge flights too if you choose the back of the plane yeah it's a risk but you can get the whole aisle you might get the whole and then you can get three pillows yeah Or like, yeah, even extra if you want to just ask for more. Yeah. But like general travel, I think the other ones that I had were just to try. This is your third advice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to do one more. 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 and you know let it all enter you and it can be a really nice rewarding experience well maybe they They shouldn't be preying on the loudspeaker at 4 a.m. I mean, yeah, there's going to be things you don't like. Maybe they should try not doing that, and then I'll try. I think, like, those are the kind of things that are kind of fun to remember after your trip, even though they can kind of— No, yeah, that's good advice. I'm just joking. 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— Oh, that's cool. The words of the author. 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. I can see him in the faces of all the little children we ride by when we're looking into schoolyards. We don't look into schoolyards that much. But, you know, I think you see what I'm getting at. And also bring a pack of dude wipes Yeah or just any wipe Any sanitary wipe I don't know when you travel to Asia They kind of got you covered most Toilets Are there bidets here? There's the high power But I'm like even just like an underarm Swipe just real quick at the end of a day Wipes are great It was a big deal When it first dawned on me How important it was to stay fresh I kind of feel like wipes don't need to be gendered. Like, they really don't need dude wipes. I think, no, I think it's kind of a stupid name. Yeah. 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. I think you need to go back to one of those mountain man camps. Yes. 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. Well. Okay. Yeah, you just protest all you want. It's smart. It's a smart idea. Yeah. I mean, if Mike said bring baby wipes, we'd be like, dude, that's what I brought. You're bringing. Yeah. You think freaking. Yeah. That's absurd. Are you a baby? No. Market them to babies specifically. So Wes is a baby and Mike's a dude. Right. I can be a. Babies can be dudes. Dude baby. um you know what i like to do is just leave a little extra room in my personal item my backpack yeah 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. Yeah. 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. It was a long flight. Yeah. 17 hours. I know. I was there. Yeah. Remember? Yeah. Well, that's a lit suggestion, Jeff. Yeah. Yeah. That was pretty lit. It was hype. All right. Favorite recent sports story. Wes is going to be bored. I already am. He's crazy. I don't. The only one I could think of is like the NBA gambling thing. You like that one? It is interesting. It's interesting. It's pretty bad to bet on the sport. Like bet that you do badly in a game in the sport you play for. Yeah. And to me it seems interesting because it feels like it penetrated a lot deeper than... Damn it, Wes. That's fine. That's a good way to put it. And 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. Okay. Yeah. I went curling recently. This is more of a personal story. It was sweet. Yeah. I recommend it. If there's, like, a curling, I don't even know how you'd say it, rink? Yeah. Were you smooth in the ice in front of it? I did some brooming. I did some throwing. Okay. Man, it was really, it was kind of like shuffleboard, but a little more involved. And you know shuffleboard. Oh, my gosh. I love shuffleboard. That's one of the best things you could possibly do with your time here. Curling is fun. I took a curling class in college. It's rad. It's great. I want to do it again. You know what? I'm just going to go with UFC at the White House. Oh, gosh. 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 game 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 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. That's kind of interesting though. I think it'd be sweet if we got like Baron Trump on the card. Right? He's like 8 feet tall. Yeah. 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 that's really good and they can pick whoever they want west yeah will you see melania with me melania the movie oh absolutely not i think we should camp out i hate the director of that movie too you remember when we used to like camp out for a night before a big movie right timothy green you think like if we camped out the theater would be like you're gonna buy like melania i feel like we could make the news if we got like our listeners to come camp out with us melania don't want anyone to see that movie brett ratner is a bad i could watch an entire movie of her reading christmas books to kids cookies cookies cookies all right thanks guys yeah Thanks for the stories. It was great. Yeah. Thank you so much. That was fun. That was fun. Those are some good ones. All right. We'll see you later. See you. Love you. Bye. See ya.