April 14, 2020 • 46 mins
We all know the benefits of bidets. But with toilet paper in short supply, they're more important than ever before.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh. There's Chuck. We've lost Jerry sometime ago, but
this remains as always Stuff you should Know because Jerry's
(00:21):
here in spirit. I can tell you that Jerry's a lie. Okay,
that's very very ominous. It totally did know that you
mentioned it. We lost Jerry. She's here in spirit. Jerry's
may not, she may not have ever existed. Who knows.
It's all one big weird dream, right, Yeah, did you
see what I titled this episode? By the way, no,
(00:43):
I haven't looked yet. Bidats colon now more than ever.
That's great, good job, man, because that is true, like
having a Biddat right now can really keep you out
of the rat race to find toilet paper dude the first,
because you know, I used to have one of the
toilet attachments and it got lost in the in the
renovation and move and I kind of forgot about it.
(01:04):
And the very first thing I did when I heard
about this toilet paper surge was get online and buy
another one of those things. Yeah, yeah, we had had
just happened to get one um for other bathroom right
before all this happened, So we're all set on the
rear situation with the water application clean bottoms. Yeah, I'm so.
(01:29):
I was raised the toilet paper guy, of course, and
I know how you feel about that. Every once in
a while though, I'll remember in our toilet paper episode you,
I'm just gonna come out and say it wiping using
paper to wipe your bottom with and that's it is
just gross, gross gross, And like, like, seriously, I hear
that in my head a lot. It's hilarious. But um,
(01:53):
to me, that's that to me is like, okay, this
this makes sense, feels normal, and I've gotten used to
a bidday, but even still like I'm using a little
bit of toilet paper there too. Also, we should probably
say this episode is chuck full of t M I
so just buckle in for that. But yes, I if
(02:15):
I use a bid day, I still use a little
bit of toilet paper. Um. And the thing that I
think got me out of all of this chuck. I
just want to stay up front is the science is
still out on which one actually is more beneficial for
you health wise. There are people saying toilet paper is yeah,
I've seen it, and I think this is what I suspect,
(02:35):
because there's such a dearth of studies on this, and
some of the studies that have been done are showing
mixed results. That it basically depends on how your doctor
or whoever you're asking um feels about toilet paper or
bid days. That's that that that's what they're going to recommend,
doctor or whoever likes the bus driver. Min doctor drives
(02:58):
a bus too. Yes, but these are hard times, alright.
So we're talking about bidets, which is if you don't
know what this is, uh, you have been living under
a rock. But for a lot of Americans, and we'll
get to why Americans haven't been hip to them a
bit later, but some Americans still might not be hip
to these. A bidet is a little and they can
(03:19):
be different things. But the kind of classic modern bidet
looks like another little toilet installed beside your toilet or
near your toilet. Not quite right though. There's something you
can't put your finger on. It ain't quite right about
that toilet. Yeah, Like if you walked into a room
and you never see it seen one before, you wouldn't
be like, well, there's one for pooping and one for peeing. Yeah,
(03:42):
I think that definitely does cross your mind either that
where else you go? Oh gool. But there are different
ways that you can have these modern bidets. Some of
them have little water streams that scored up, some of
them have a little like a shower handle. Um. But
the long and short of it is it's another appliance
in your bathroom with water and a little basin that
(04:04):
you straddle after you do your business and uh and
clean yourself up with water instead of dry toilet paper.
That's the classic bidet, right, Yes, the classic bidet, not
the biday of olden days? No, no, Um, should we
talk about the other types or go back to the
olden days? Now, let's go back to the olden days
(04:24):
and we'll catch up again. All right, that's a little
tease everybody. We're gonna talk about other types of the
days eventually. Yeah. And I didn't see exactly. I saw
anywhere from lateteen sixteen hundreds to early seventeen hundreds, but
definitely European and the first bid days. Uh. The word
means pony or cob, which is a kind of a short, little,
(04:47):
short legged, strong horse. Yeah. And at the time the
frends were crazy about those kinds of horses. Yeah, and
apparently that has something to do with how you're supposed
to use it. I still don't fully follow that. So,
like these original days, it looked like a little kind
of mini bathtub, but it also had something like a
saddle shape and you squatted over it like you would,
(05:08):
almost like you were riding like a little cob horse.
All right, Well that makes a little bit of sense,
I guess. And it also had like four legs coming
out of the body. Did you know, if you think
about it, kind of makes sense that it looks like
a little tiny horse without the top half or a
head or a neck, or ears or a main or
tail or hoofs. But other than that all that, it's
(05:29):
the spitting image of a cob horse. Yeah, I think
it looked They looked a little more like Ottomans with
a little chamber pot in the center. Yes, but Ottomans
came from the Turks, and the French probably hated the
Turks at the time because that was geopolitics, so they
would never made that comparison, even though it was like
this great elephant in the room's right, but these things
(05:52):
were in the bedroom in France in the early seventeen hundreds,
next to the chamber pot and the very idea of
uh of pooping and peeing in your bedroom, it was
pretty new, like the outhouse was like that, you still
had an outhouse, but from what I saw, chamber pots
and bid days were for nighttime business. Like when so
(06:12):
you don't have to leave your bedroom, right? Yeah, I
mean it's really kind of sweet if you think about
It's like poop and pee in you your bedroom, especially
on a cold night. But eventually people were like, well,
there's a lot of collar around, there's a lot of typhoid.
We should probably move these two a separate room. And
eventually they did, and they called those bathrooms, yeah, or
(06:36):
restrooms or toilets or w c's or poop station bills
or lose. Oh I've got one for you. I wanted
to say this in the last episode we recorded, the
wastewater episode. All right, let's hear it. So you know,
the word lou means bathroom or toilet in the UK
at least, if not more. And they think so when
(07:00):
we were in Edinburgh doing those shows, remember you took
a nap and I got all bored, so I went
and walked around the city by myself. Well, I went
to old time Edinburgh like old time. I must have
been napping when you went, because I don't know why
you wouldn't have just gone with me when I tried
to wake you up. But regardless, on this tour, maybe
(07:22):
you'll remember this. The the the tour guide said that
they think the word lou came from the Scotch people,
the Scottish people saying guardiloo when they threw their waste
water out into the streets, like they would shout guardilou.
And they think that guardi lou came from guard de lee,
(07:44):
which means watch the water in French. And so they
think that um, guardi lou came from wash the water,
and then lou came from guardi loo. And then that's
where we got that term for the toilet in the UK.
I love that. That's that's one for your next dinner party.
Oh oh, I cannot tell you how many dinner parties
I busted that out at so b days. Uh back
(08:07):
to the Biday. They are or were more of a
high society thing, like you know you were using an
outhouse if you weren't, I don't know necessarily aristocracy, but
you had to be like middle and upper class to
have a bidat in your bedroom or in your house. Uh,
and probably a chamberpot even for that matter. Well, for
a couple of reasons too. I think one, you typically
(08:29):
had servants who were going to take it away for you.
This number one, you got to change the number number two, right,
and the number two. You know, if if this bidat
is basically just a wash basin with water, they didn't
have running water at the time, which meant you had
to haul water, so you probably had a servant hauling
water for you as well. So yeah, you were probably
this thing that's that that was like a luxury to
(08:51):
the rest of the world, was just nothing to you
because you didn't have to do anything. You just used it.
You didn't have to do any prepper takeaway or anything
like that. That's right. And they don't know for sure
who invented it, but this dude, Christophe de Rosier UH
made one for the French royal family in seventeen. A
lot of people point to him as being the inventor
(09:11):
of the bidet. Uh didn't take long, you know, within
the next thirty or forty years or so, they started
having things like things like little hand pumps, so you
could kind of have a little rudimentary spraying device to
help herself out. That's nice. It is nice. It is
I mean because prior to this, it was just again
a wash basin that you would straddle and just kind
(09:33):
of flip it up onto your underside, your fanny as
it were, your hand, right with your hand, and eventually
that that water comes back down and mixes with the
water you're flipping up and you reach some critical point
tipping point is Malcolm Gladbo would put it, and now
you're just flipping poop water up onto your nether regions
and it's no longer helpful. So the idea that you
(09:56):
could just sit there and and spray a pump a
stream of water on there and have to just flick
the stuff out of the basin onto you. UM, that's
an enormous advancement. And they came along pretty early. I
think the seventeen fifties, right, Yeah, that's about when the
little spray spray thing came along. That's beautiful. And chuck
one other thing too. I think about the same time
(10:17):
that that pump handle came along. They also UM installed
like a refillable tank, so you fill the water with
tank and the everything that was in the basin was
all just wastewater, So you were good to go by
seventeen fifty as far as bidats were concerned, Yes, everything
was totally clean and totally safe by seventeen fifty. Nothing
(10:39):
could possibly go wrong. So these were big. Obviously in
Europe they spread. Italy and Portugal were really big on
the bidets still are. I saw Italy may have been
the actual inventors of them, and that the French possibly
just popularized it. I could see that. Yeah, French and
they steal everything they did. But at the same time
(11:00):
they were also they were a superpower at the time,
and they were also basically global taste makers. So once
they became into it, got into bidets, the rest of
the world followed suit pretty quickly, or most of the
rest of the world. Not if you were England or America,
you probably went no, thank you frenchman. Yeah, Uh, South America, UM, Argentina, Venezuela.
They're pretty popular. Uh, in the Middle East, and of
(11:22):
course Asia and Japan very much leads the way in
not only bidet use but bidet technology these days. Yeah,
It's a classic example of what I've talked about before.
The Japanese say, oh, I really like this invention. We
can improve it by a hundred and thirty pc. So
let's do that, And that's exactly what they did. That's
a good Japanese accent. Thanks. I added a little vocal
(11:46):
fry there at the end to make it particularly confusing.
So maybe let's take a quick break, go cleaner uh
bombits as my daughter says, and we will talk about
what's the deal with America and why we hate cleaning
our butt holes the right way? Right after this, to
(12:28):
check you, we're talking about butth holes, I believe before
the break, let's pick up. Let's pick up where you
left off. Yeah, what's up, America? Why don't you clean
your butt hole the right way? I thought this was
pretty interesting. There's a guy who I guess is a
bidet expert um who was speaking with the New York Times,
and we happened to overhear it. He had some theories
(12:50):
about why America didn't like bidets, and one you kind
of touched on before, which was that England hated France
at the time. They were I have a world superpowers,
much akin to America and the United States during the
Cold War. I mean in the USS are America, USSR
Draco versus Rocky during the Cold War? Right, Um, so
(13:15):
the English hated everything associated with the French and they
would just have never gone from bidays. But that seems
to have carried over into the colonies like America, which
is a pretty good theory for why Americans have never
adopted bidays. Yeah, and those were you know, in the
early days of non adoption. Uh, World War two happened
(13:37):
and and this is uh, this sounded kind of like
I wasn't sure I believed this at first, but then
I saw it in a different way in a bunch
of different places, So I do believe it. Yeah. But
apparently American soldiers would go to brothels in Europe and
in Japan, and depending on what theater of war you
were stationed at, and you would see these bays and
(14:00):
you would associate it and there were a few different
things going on. You might associate it with sex work.
I think you gross um. At the time, the there
were people that thought using a bid day after sex
uh could be a contraceptive practice. Not true at all. Well, yeah,
they thought that douching was a reliable contraceptive practice, and
(14:23):
it wasn't until like the twenties or thirties where it
was proven basically indisputable that no, it basically does absolutely nothing.
But the idea that you would use the bid day
to do that, um, kind of further associated it with
sex work as well. Yeah. And then the other thing,
which is incredibly sexist, uh and maybe throw in just
(14:43):
a dash of misogyny, is that uh, women on their period.
It was it hasn't been that long that women have
been able to get products to deal with that and
to talk about it as if it were just a
normal thing that happens to the human body. It was
very much under the table. Um, I think we should
(15:04):
do something, man, if we if we dare go down
that road on Springtime Flower Blossom episode, well, I was
thinking maybe a shorty just on um like tampons and
maxi pads and the development of of those things, because
it took way too long, uh for the for the
awful awful reason that manufacturers just didn't want anything to
(15:24):
do with that. Right, Yeah, for sure, Um, I'm down,
all right, Well let's do it. But menstruation had a
lot to do with uh BI days not being used
in America because no one wanted to talk about menstruation
for a long long time. So you've got g i's
returning from uh overseas where they visited brothels and aren't
particularly looking forward to introducing their wives to bidays because
(15:48):
they associated them with sex work. They're also really useful
for menstruation, which wasn't talked about at the time. Um,
and then they remind everybody the King of France, who
everybody hated. And you put those three things together, that
makes it really difficult to market in America. And so
they think that one or all of those reasons are
(16:09):
why Americans never really got into bid day's not until
the Japanese said, hey, everybody, UM, check this out. But
we'll get to that, not quite yet. Yeah. Another reason,
and this was mentioned as a chicken or the egg thing,
I personally think because the idea is that American bathrooms
(16:30):
aren't big enough for this extra thing in there. But
I think had we adopted it to begin with, we
would have made our bathrooms a little bigger to fit
these things personally totally, because I mean, our bathrooms are
enormous now and they could totally fit a bid at.
But if you if you look at most bathrooms, they're
like a master bath in the suburban house. Like the
(16:51):
bathrooms big, but the toilet is still small the little
toilet area. So yeah, I think we totally would have
expanded our bathrooms to allow it. I think we just
didn't need to have bigger bathrooms because we didn't have it.
So I say, disdaining for biddat lead to smaller bathrooms
rather than vice versa. Where do you fall? Yeah? I agree. Um,
(17:12):
I'm kind of mad because this this was my chance
when we renovated our house to put a real deal
biday in there, and you want one. Yeah, I didn't
even think about it. Um, But like you know, like
you said, our our toilet is wedged in a little
zone like all toilets. We could have made our shower
smaller and stuck a Bidday next to it. I guess uh.
(17:34):
I can see you like dropping your highlighter while you
were researching this article, like when it struck you like um. Interestingly, though,
the um kind of one of the bigger bidet models
that was popularized around the world, was invented by an
American named Arnold Cohen. In the nineteen sixties. Yes, dude,
(17:56):
So I had no idea about this, but the bid
day seat that you use, that I use that basically
all Americans are starting to be like, hey, this is
kind of awesome that everybody in Japan uses, that a
lot of people around the world used today was invented
by a guy named Arnold Cohen in the nineteen sixties
(18:19):
in the United States. Yeah. I also saw him referred
to as the bid At King. Yeah, man, and God
bless this guy. He tried his best. Uh. He created
this thing for his dad who was older and not
doing too well. And we'll talk about medical benefits here
in a minute, but um, if you have a rash
back there, if you have a hemorrhoid or an anal
(18:40):
fissure or something like that. Um, there is some research,
like you said, not enough, but some research that shows
that a biday can really be helpful if you have
one of those conditions. And his dad did so. He
was a former ad guy. He tried his best and
it just didn't quite work out. In America for Arnold Cohen, Yeah,
he aided a model called the American Sits Bath s
(19:04):
I t Z Bath, which is weird because it's not
a Sitz bath. No, and there are six baths now
and I don't know if they predated it or and
he just kind of adopted that or what. But he
basically took a toilet seat and modified it, added a
foot pump to pump water under your bum with um
he uh. He went to trade shows, he tried to
(19:27):
market it as much as he could, and he also
was very much ahead of his time. And then again,
this is the nineteen sixties and he was still a
young man at the time. Um that that he was
trying to He saw that it was a problem how
much toilet paper Americans use. That was one of his
driving forces, in addition to trying to come up with
(19:47):
something that could help people like his dad who are
suffering from rectial issues. Um. And he said, I think
one of his quotes is nobody wants to hear about
tushy washing one oh one. It was just too difficult
to market and so he kind of he gave up.
I guess to an extent, and I guess sometime in
the seventies he either approached a company called TOTO, which
(20:09):
stands for Toyo Tokei or Oriental ceramics and Japanese um
Or they approached him and they licensed his concept and
kind of tinkered with it, made it better, made it
much more automated, made it electronic, and um they deybuwed
the washlet in in Japan, and it took a little
(20:31):
like getting used to over there as well, but in
very short order, the Japanese kind of clumped onto it
and it became like part of their culture as much
as like sushi. Sure, Sure, we did a great episode
on sushi. We did. I was also gonna say chopsticks anime,
(20:51):
um cuteness who knows a lot of stuff. You could say,
Sure maple Japanese maples. A couple of those, M Yeah,
they're beautiful. Man. Do you have the kind of like sweeping,
spreading kind or the upright kind? I have. One of
my favorite ones are the small low spreaders, and I
got a couple of those. I don't think they're gonna
be huge, but the way I have them in our
(21:13):
garden and it's just very lovely. It's one of my
favorite trees. Yeah, you don't want them to be huge
when they're like that, because they're supposed to be kind
of subtle, understated and like low growing. You know. Yeah, boy,
there's one around the corner for me that I just
I have Japanese maple envy in a big way. It's
it looks like a it looks like a twelve foot
(21:33):
umbrella that's about four ft off the ground. It's just gorgeous. Yeah,
I'll bet it's old. Yeah, it's got to be. I
just want to sit in it every time I go
by their yard. You you probably lay under it and
just tickle it. Did I say sit under it or
sit in it? You said sit in it? Yeah, I'm
in sit under it. Okay, you're gonna be the weird
neighbor who just sits in people's yards. Maybe I've wanted
(21:57):
to do that so many times and I just you know,
and oh you can't do it, especially as they've grown adult.
So what kind of a day do you have? You
don't have the buzz market, But I got kind of
one of the um like a seventy five dollar model,
but that go under your existing toilet seat. But I
know that some of these Japanese models it's actually part
of the toilet seat and has dryers and they talk
(22:19):
to you and all that good stuff. I will buzz
buzz buzz, because I love mine. I have to total
washlets and they it's not like the highest n one
where like you stand up and it flushes automatically or
um it talks to you or has lights. They have
some that have like UV lights built in so when
the lids shut like kills everything in sight. Um. But
(22:42):
it's like it's like a good good washlet has like
a heated seat and everything, um, and like it's it's
just wonderful to have. It's just really that's the one
where the seat is part of the unit, right, Yeah,
Like the whole thing replaces your toilet seat, and there's
like a big kind of bulky contraption in back that
I think is like a water tank and where all
(23:02):
like the mechanations are. But it's like you take your
old toilet seat and you throw it out the window
into your neighbor's yard under their Japanese yep, next to
year old spirit tires and and dead possums, and you
replace it with this one, you know, bidet toilet seat
you connected to the water supply and then you plug
(23:23):
it in and there you have it. I'm looking at
this thing now, I kind of want to get one,
but I don't have a I don't have a power
outlet over there. That can be a problem. So you
have to That's like an added cost a lot of
the times. Unless you're comfortable with just having like an
extension cord and surge protector or something, we're just fine.
It's at the end of the world. But if you're not,
(23:44):
then yes, you need to have an electrician comput a
power outlet next to year. Yeah, yeah, because you could
have done that when you're doing that that Sorry I
didn't warn you. That's all right. So I guess since
we're talking about Bidet's seats, I guess we should talk
about the cheaper ones. You can get them for like
anywhere from thirty to fifty bucks. And like we said,
(24:06):
that goes under your seat, and you have a little
control device on the side of your toilet seat that
you just turn on the spray and it shoots out. Um,
it's cold water and less do you have the means
to hook it up to warm water? Um, but ours
is cold water, so you know, so it's a little
bit of a h of a wake you up in
(24:26):
in the morning, you know, Yeah, is your warm I
guess yes, it is it's warm, the seats warm. It's
just beautiful. I just want to poop at your house now.
It's you come over and use it anytime you want,
because I know you pee sitting down, so you're okay
in my book. But these washlets, so get this man.
The washlet when it was introduced in and the washlet
(24:49):
is like, I don't know what you call it, but
they took let's wash and turned it into the washlet
when they released it. But as of two thousand seven
total had sold seventeen million of these worldwide about nineteen
eighty it is amazing. As of two thousand nine, twelve
years after that, it was fifty million. They sold ten
(25:10):
million since two thousand and sixteen or so, I'm sorry.
Two thousand nineteen was fifty million, two sixteen was forty million.
So at some point along the way, a big portion
of the world said, I like that, We're going to
try it, and I'm gonna get one. Because the sales
have taken off even before this um coronavirus shut in
toilet paper run that we're experiencing in America. Yeah, I
(25:33):
wonder I was gonna say if they had like a
counter of that said like fifty million clean butt holes.
But there's more than that, is you have two butt
holes in your house, right exactly. So I mean that's well,
that's one of the things that people point to is like, well,
you know, there's a cost savings if this thing lasts
long enough, you'll eventually pay for it, will eventually pay
(25:54):
for itself, and savings from having to buy toilet paper,
and well, and we'll get to the waist and toilet paper.
But that is a problem. Yeah, yeah, because even if
the cost thing doesn't quite work out, you are still
you know, it's coming close to breaking even it's not
like a complete like waste of money, but also money aside. Ecologically,
(26:16):
it's probably a much better thing than toilet paper by
any measure, any metric. All right, well, should we take
another break? I think so, all right, let's take another break,
and we'll, believe it or not, we're gonna tell you
how to use these things right after this. Okay, Chuck,
(26:55):
so I teased it earlier. I think we should start
with this, uh, this this third act by talking about
the different kinds of bidats. We've already talked about two. Right,
there's the little cob horse bidet that looks like a
tiny bathtub next to your toilet. There's the um. The
washlet is a brand name, but it's almost become a
(27:18):
proprietary eponym. It's so so um, so um widespread. Yes, um.
But that's also called the bidet seat that you replace
your toilet seat with. And then the third type is
a hose that looks like you know, the dishwashing hose
that you have, like as coming out of your your
(27:38):
kitchen sink, if you if it's like that, but next
to your toilet. That's the third kind of bidat. It's
called like a water wall, a wall mounted shower head bidet. Yeah.
I don't think these are nearly as common, are they.
I didn't get that impression either, But when I looked
it up, a lot of different images came up on Google.
(28:01):
I don't even want to do that. All right? So
are we can we talk about how we use these things? Yes,
But I just want to say one more time, I'm
thoroughly engrossed by the wall mounted showerhead bidet. You have
to see one of these. Sometimes I've seen pictures, I
just haven't seen them in person. Okay, I got it,
(28:22):
neither of I but I've just I spend a good
hour like staring at pictures, he thinks, and imagining. You know, sure,
all the possibilities, so go so go ahead. I think
this part I cobbled this together from a bunch of
sources from the Atlantic, from How Stuff Works, I think
New York Times, but me, I think was mental floss.
(28:42):
And I think this came from How Stuff Works. This
step by step for how to use a bid day
and uh. The first step they say is locate the bidet.
That is a good first step. I can't believe they
put that in there. I thought that was very funny. Actually,
technically their first step, if you're going by bullet points,
(29:04):
was used the toilet toilet as you normally do both
for urination and for defication. That's step one as far
as the editors of How Stuff Works is concerned. Oh,
that is really funny. Um. Yes, And actually they do
point out in that step one that whether or not
you wipe a little with toilet paper first, I don't.
(29:25):
I wouldn't do that. I would uh. And how I
do it as I wet to my bum first with
a good spray, and then I used just a little
bit of toilet paper and that's the great thing is
is you're not using nearly as much. You can just
use a few squares to kind of just make sure
everything's cleaned up and dry. If you don't have a
fancy pants dryer like yours. Yeah, I've found that the
dryer takes so long that I don't have the patience
(29:48):
for it. Now, who does you know, crazy psychos? Maybe
unless you're you know, got a good book or something. Sure,
and Uncle John's bathroom reader that would do it. That
would keep me on the can long enough to air
dry with the blow dryer. Or a little book coming
this fall? Oh yes, shall we plug it? I think
(30:08):
it's a great time to plug our book. It's called
Stuff You Should Know, an incomplete compendium of mostly interesting
things that's right coming to bookstores this fall. You can
pre order now. And uh, I think all signs are
still full bore ahead. And though we're in the midst
of a global pandemic, in fact, hopefully they're thinking this
(30:29):
is just what people need. Yeah, and hopefully it is.
And at the very least it is guaranteed to keep
you on the toilet until your legs going numb. That's right.
So that's an old George Carlin joke. Oh really, what
to sit on the toilet to your legs go? Num?
Now he did some like some. He was talking about
some game show and one of the contestants was introduced.
(30:51):
One of her hobbies was sitting on the toilet until
her legs went, which is not good for you, they say,
especially if you have hemorrhoids. It can make that a
lot worse. So you're supposed to do your business and
get off. I could totally see that. You're also not
supposed to, like watch TV in bed. Beds supposed to
be for sleeping, So if you ever have trouble getting
to sleep, um, they suggest that you like go read
(31:13):
out on the couch until you start to get drowsy,
and then go to bed and fall asleep, so that
you'll your body and your mind will start to associate
bed strictly with doing your sleeping business. I say, poop poo,
did that because I love watching TV in bed? Yeah, Hey,
I'm with you. It's a nice, nice little treat. It's great.
I get why people don't do it, but uh, you know,
(31:33):
I'm not one of those people. Hey, to each his own,
we always say, right to reach their own teach their own. Yeah, alright,
so I guess we're at medical. Oh no, wait, we did.
We located the bidet right right, You've done your business. Uh.
To me, the downside of having the separate bidet is
you do your business and then you gotta get up
and like remount another device, so like you've got it
(31:57):
going on with your your fancy pants washl I think
I think that's why I was so surprised that you
wanted a regular biddat, because there's like a whole drippy
um step moving from one to the other, you know.
So yeah, I think when you get a washlet, you're
(32:18):
not going to want a regular bidet any longer. I
can't get a washlet, dude, I don't have the power.
You can hire an electrician to come run an outlet.
It's very easy. I know. Now I'm going to look
into that. You're right, Okay, you're gonna love it, Chuck, Okay, okay,
what does yours talk? I forgot No, it doesn't talk.
(32:40):
That would be amazing. I've never seen a talking one
except on the Simpsons. Well maybe that's where I got
there was Yeah, because there's that one that says I
am honored to accept your waist. I think that's where
I got it. Surely some of them talk, right uh.
Probably think Japan is famous for for talking appliances right sure,
and just having like weird random stuff written on their appliances. Yeah,
(33:03):
I mean I've talked about that rice maker. I think
you have the same one or one of the same versions.
That thing makes all kinds of fun sounds. Yeah the
uh um oh, hey, while we're talking about this stuff,
let me say, um, Mike's Mighty Good Ramen looked us up. Dude,
(33:23):
that was so nice. Well, like, I'm first of all,
thank you for mentioning it, because you got us hooked
up big time. I did not anticipate that much Ramen
coming no, like a box full of Mike's Mighty Good
ram and basically saying, hey, thanks for the shout out.
So um, I had never tried it before, and it
is really good stuff, and we have a bunch for free,
which is nice because it also stores really well too
(33:46):
during times like this. Yeah, and I had already also
purchased about a hundred dollars worth and it all kind
of came at once, so I have literally a big
moving storage been full of Mike's mighty good and I
eat it for lunch every day. Today I had the
vegetable cooking up milk lemongrass and it is delicious. Yes,
(34:06):
it is amazing. I think the beef is my favorite
so far. I love that spicy beef. Have you augmented
yours yet? No, I'm I'm a novice still. I'm just
kind of taking it a little by little. But I
saw that on they have like a recipe card for
suggesting how to kind of dress it up a little bit. Yeah.
I mean I usually just because it's a good, good
quick meal to go and a pretty low calorie, very
(34:27):
low calorie. But the other day I did have some
beef brisket and I minced that up really small, and
I cooked, I did a boiled egg and cut that
thing in half and it was so good. Man, that
sounds good. Yeah. I mean, we don't buzz mark it much,
but it is delicious. And they hooked us up. So
thank you, Mike. Yeah, and thank you also. Um. The
(34:49):
thing that made me think of it was the Zoji
rushi rice makers. They liked us talking about them, and
they're like, hey, you guys want some, You want a
thermis yeah, it was pretty Maybe I'll get a washlet. Yeah,
Toto brand washlets are really great, Chuck, I can recommend
him highly. All Right, so let's talk about um medical uses. Uh,
(35:15):
they're like you said, there hasn't been a ton of research,
and there has been a little conflicting research, but a
lot of doctors GPS do say and specialists. If you
have colitis, if you have ib s, if you have crons,
if you have colon cancer, then a bidet seat might
be right up your alley to help you out back there.
It will be. But also, Chuck, I just realized we
(35:37):
never finished saying how to use the bidet. Well, now
you know you scorch your butt, right, and it said
that you either can dry it padded dryer or have
a dryer. What else is there? So, oh, yeah, you
we did make it through that. Wow, it just went
so quickly. I think one of the things just I
want to point out really really really quickly is that,
like the whole point of it is that you're using
(35:57):
water to clean off your bottom in the exact same
way that you would use toilet paper to clean off
your bottom um or your other bits, depending on if
you have other bits. Down there. How do you how
do you put this? I don't know. Well, whatever's job,
thank you very much. But in some people prefer to
(36:19):
use toilet paper to dry off, like it sounds like
both of us do. Some people just air dry um,
or they use the blow blower attachment or whatever, but
like that's it, there's nothing more to it. I've read
that some people use soap, which is crazy to me,
but okay, and then some people chuck, I ran across this,
they don't even use a but at if they poop,
(36:42):
they take a shower after a word. Have you ever
heard of anything like that before in your life? No,
you know, I would say that's an extreme clean freak
germophob clean freak is probably not a nice way to
say it, but le phobia is about that stuff. But
from what I there's a significant number of people, at
(37:02):
least in the United States who like, you poop, you
take a shower. That's just what you do after you poop. Interesting,
I would take seven showers a day if you have
water crisis, just from you know what a waste so well, yeah,
that is a huge waste um. And that's actually kind
of a criticism of bidats is like while you're using
(37:23):
water instead. But as we'll see in a little bit,
you're using a resource one way or another down there.
So there you go. But okay, so you were talking
about um medical issues. Sorry about that. No, that's right. Um,
I talked about all the uh the ones dealing with
your bottom. But um, apparently, and this is I don't
know how much research they've done on this, but apparently
they can help out with U T I s as
(37:45):
well if you get frequent U T E s. Yes,
And here's how they suggest that, Um, if you're a woman,
you use the bidet on your woman parts before and
after sex, and that that will help cut down on
fecal bacteria entering your vagina and becoming part of your
(38:06):
vaginal micro flora, which can lead to U T eyes. Interesting.
I thought that was pretty interesting as well. Um, and
don't take offense. Well, now you know you can get
a prostate infection from from not keeping very clean down there. No,
I just mean you know, if you if you make
love and then your girlfriend and wife jumps up and
(38:27):
runs in there and and cleans out real good. Yeah,
just be a man about it, right, You should probably
not take offense to that kind of thing should we
be talking about this? Yeah, yeah, we haven't crossed the linet.
I think I think you established a new line in
the student Loans episode, so I think we're well within there. Well,
(38:48):
my my reasoning there is if there are any like
elementary school kids listening to student Loans, then their little
Alex P. Keaton's they can handle it. Alex peakey, Man,
what a great, great shout out there? What else here?
If you're elderly and if you have arthritis or something,
it's tough man, if you you might just physically have
(39:09):
a harder time wiping your bottom, have to use the bathroom.
And apparently as you age one of the single biggest
factors for staying independent. Like you can still cook, you
can still clean, you can still take care of yourself,
but you might have a hard time wiping your bottom.
You can still stay independent. Uh, if you can get
(39:29):
that bidet going. Yes, And again, if you're sitting there
like just like, wait, what are you guys talking about?
If you were raised on toilet paper from from what
there's a huge divide right now in the world. Apparently
a good three quarters two thirds the three quarters of
the world does does not use toilet paper, or they
(39:50):
use it much more sparingly and they use a bidet instead,
and they consider that clean. They consider using toilet paper unclean.
And this this is this, whether toilet paper or b
days are clean or unclean is so culturally ingrained that
it's almost un imaginable considering one cleaner than the other,
(40:12):
depending on what you've been raised on. But that is
the case. And they've done a lot of well they
haven't done a lot of studies, but some of the
studies they've done have shown like, yeah, this actually is cleaner,
or no, this isn't as clean as you think. Um.
But one thing that really kind of stuck out to me, Chuck,
was the idea that water alone can make you cleaner
than wiping your bottom, which makes total sense if you
(40:36):
step back and think about it, because all you're doing
is wiping paper on your bottom. But to me, it's
like you're you're getting stuff out of there and and
you're getting it away, which I guess you're doing with
water as well. Uh yeah, I mean that's that's kind
of it with I mean, like you said, they've done
some studies and they have shown that it can eat
some of these symptoms of anal fissures and hemorrhoids. There's
(40:58):
something called itchy anus that it can help up with.
That is a real thing. But there was also a
study about ten years ago in Japan that said if
you use a warm water bidat, uh, and if you're
a woman, it can kind of jostle loose your microflora
in your vagina and you can just kind of knock
(41:18):
things out of whack down there, and it can lead
to more vaginal bacterial infections. Yeah. So in the study,
it was like two sixty eight women, um, and they
found that normal microL microflora was not present in forty
three percent of bidat users and only eight percent of
(41:40):
non users of bidats had normal microfloora not present. That's
pretty significant. And then of of the fifty out of
the tight who had fecal bacteria present in their vaginal microflora,
forty six of that fifty used bidats. So that was
a really surprising thing to a lot of people because
they're like, no, no, no, this is this is clean. Um,
(42:02):
this is way cleaner than using toilet paper, And this
study suggests that that's not necessarily true. Now, was that
for only for warm water though from what I saw, yeah,
it with warm water. Yeah, use that cold water. Sure,
it really gets you up in the morning, like you said. Uh.
And then I guess finally we're at the point where
we talked about just toilet paper. We covered toilet paper
(42:22):
in our episode on toilet paper, but as a reminder
about of toilet paper in the United States comes from
Canadian forests. Um, And that's not cool. Americans represent uh,
less than five percent of the world's population, but we
used of the world's toilet paper and that's got to stop, Yes, dude.
(42:45):
So those Canadian forests, they're talking about old growth boreal forests,
and there's a term I saw, the tree to toilet pipeline.
I saw twenties seven thousand trees a day go down
the toilet in the form of toilet paper. And again
this is mostly old growth trees. Um. And I guess
(43:09):
the toilet paper industry in the United States is like
a six six billion dollar industry from what I saw.
So yeah, there's a lot of I think each American
uses about forty rolls of toilet paper every year. The
average household uses a hundred and fifty. There's a lot
of room for improvement. And that's a big, big plus
for bidays that you even if you still use toilet
(43:31):
paper to dry off, you're using so much less than
you would without a bidat that it's it's um. You're
just saving tons of trees by using a bidet. That's right.
You are using water. But if you've ever used one
of these seat attachments or seats like you have, it's
not a ton of water. Um, it's not like a
bathtub or anything like that. You know, no, not at all.
(43:52):
It's um. And if you have, you know, the more
advanced your your bidat is. And it doesn't have to
be like the most high end bidet for this to happen.
But I mean, like pretty quickly as far as technological
development goes in the biday you get um, the amount
of water is going to be much more efficient than
you know, just like say scorting a a dishwasher hose
(44:14):
up there. I'm just fascinated by that. It's pretty great.
Do you got anything else? I had nothing else? Well,
there you have. Everybody. There's bid days. We told you
there's gonna be a lot of t m I and
we delivered. And since I said t m I, everybody
it's time for listener mail. Uh. This is from Mary
Kerr in Buffalo, New York. Hey, guys, been listening to
(44:36):
stuff you should Know for years. It's been my companion
on many a morning run, road trip, and just tidying
up around the house. I listened to the shorty on
six six six and Chuck mentioned his license plate had
six six six in there. I thought of the story
about my brother Matt. He recently moved to Wisconsin and
was at the d m V to change his license plates.
(44:57):
The d m V employee handed him his new license
plate and number, which was six six six mph like
six hundred sixty six miles per hour. I know, I'm
I love it, not bad. Uh. The employee looked at
the plates and said, uh, do you want a different number?
And he thought about it for a second, and he
thought a different number would be best so that he
(45:18):
didn't appear to be a speeding Satan lover. And so
the the d m V employee graciously changed out the plates.
Um And I'm not gonna read what plate they changed
it out for, because it's just now occurring to me
that I don't want to out her brother's license plate
for some reason, Oh, that's that's true. It was, um,
asked man. She said, just a silly story. Couldn't help
(45:43):
a share. Thank you for your knowledge, levity and distraction
that you've provided over the years, especially in this time
of stress and uncertainty. And keep doing what you're doing.
And that is from Mary and Buffalo, New York. Nice.
Thanks a lot, very much appreciate it, Um. Although I
do have to say person only, I'm a little disappointed
in your brother. But that's okay because he probably doesn't
(46:04):
care if you want to get into this like Mary
did till so you can hear that we're disappointed in
your your your sibling. Well, you can send us an email,
then wrap it up, spank it out of the bottom,
and send it off to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio
dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
(46:25):
iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my
heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh. There's Chuck. We've lost Jerry sometime ago, but
this remains as always Stuff you should Know because Jerry's
(00:21):
here in spirit. I can tell you that Jerry's a lie. Okay,
that's very very ominous. It totally did know that you
mentioned it. We lost Jerry. She's here in spirit. Jerry's
may not, she may not have ever existed. Who knows.
It's all one big weird dream, right, Yeah, did you
see what I titled this episode? By the way, no,
(00:43):
I haven't looked yet. Bidats colon now more than ever.
That's great, good job, man, because that is true, like
having a Biddat right now can really keep you out
of the rat race to find toilet paper dude the first,
because you know, I used to have one of the
toilet attachments and it got lost in the in the
renovation and move and I kind of forgot about it.
(01:04):
And the very first thing I did when I heard
about this toilet paper surge was get online and buy
another one of those things. Yeah, yeah, we had had
just happened to get one um for other bathroom right
before all this happened, So we're all set on the
rear situation with the water application clean bottoms. Yeah, I'm so.
(01:29):
I was raised the toilet paper guy, of course, and
I know how you feel about that. Every once in
a while though, I'll remember in our toilet paper episode you,
I'm just gonna come out and say it wiping using
paper to wipe your bottom with and that's it is
just gross, gross gross, And like, like, seriously, I hear
that in my head a lot. It's hilarious. But um,
(01:53):
to me, that's that to me is like, okay, this
this makes sense, feels normal, and I've gotten used to
a bidday, but even still like I'm using a little
bit of toilet paper there too. Also, we should probably
say this episode is chuck full of t M I
so just buckle in for that. But yes, I if
(02:15):
I use a bid day, I still use a little
bit of toilet paper. Um. And the thing that I
think got me out of all of this chuck. I
just want to stay up front is the science is
still out on which one actually is more beneficial for
you health wise. There are people saying toilet paper is yeah,
I've seen it, and I think this is what I suspect,
(02:35):
because there's such a dearth of studies on this, and
some of the studies that have been done are showing
mixed results. That it basically depends on how your doctor
or whoever you're asking um feels about toilet paper or
bid days. That's that that that's what they're going to recommend,
doctor or whoever likes the bus driver. Min doctor drives
(02:58):
a bus too. Yes, but these are hard times, alright.
So we're talking about bidets, which is if you don't
know what this is, uh, you have been living under
a rock. But for a lot of Americans, and we'll
get to why Americans haven't been hip to them a
bit later, but some Americans still might not be hip
to these. A bidet is a little and they can
(03:19):
be different things. But the kind of classic modern bidet
looks like another little toilet installed beside your toilet or
near your toilet. Not quite right though. There's something you
can't put your finger on. It ain't quite right about
that toilet. Yeah, Like if you walked into a room
and you never see it seen one before, you wouldn't
be like, well, there's one for pooping and one for peeing. Yeah,
(03:42):
I think that definitely does cross your mind either that
where else you go? Oh gool. But there are different
ways that you can have these modern bidets. Some of
them have little water streams that scored up, some of
them have a little like a shower handle. Um. But
the long and short of it is it's another appliance
in your bathroom with water and a little basin that
(04:04):
you straddle after you do your business and uh and
clean yourself up with water instead of dry toilet paper.
That's the classic bidet, right, Yes, the classic bidet, not
the biday of olden days? No, no, Um, should we
talk about the other types or go back to the
olden days? Now, let's go back to the olden days
(04:24):
and we'll catch up again. All right, that's a little
tease everybody. We're gonna talk about other types of the
days eventually. Yeah. And I didn't see exactly. I saw
anywhere from lateteen sixteen hundreds to early seventeen hundreds, but
definitely European and the first bid days. Uh. The word
means pony or cob, which is a kind of a short, little,
(04:47):
short legged, strong horse. Yeah. And at the time the
frends were crazy about those kinds of horses. Yeah, and
apparently that has something to do with how you're supposed
to use it. I still don't fully follow that. So,
like these original days, it looked like a little kind
of mini bathtub, but it also had something like a
saddle shape and you squatted over it like you would,
(05:08):
almost like you were riding like a little cob horse.
All right, Well that makes a little bit of sense,
I guess. And it also had like four legs coming
out of the body. Did you know, if you think
about it, kind of makes sense that it looks like
a little tiny horse without the top half or a
head or a neck, or ears or a main or
tail or hoofs. But other than that all that, it's
(05:29):
the spitting image of a cob horse. Yeah, I think
it looked They looked a little more like Ottomans with
a little chamber pot in the center. Yes, but Ottomans
came from the Turks, and the French probably hated the
Turks at the time because that was geopolitics, so they
would never made that comparison, even though it was like
this great elephant in the room's right, but these things
(05:52):
were in the bedroom in France in the early seventeen hundreds,
next to the chamber pot and the very idea of
uh of pooping and peeing in your bedroom, it was
pretty new, like the outhouse was like that, you still
had an outhouse, but from what I saw, chamber pots
and bid days were for nighttime business. Like when so
(06:12):
you don't have to leave your bedroom, right? Yeah, I
mean it's really kind of sweet if you think about
It's like poop and pee in you your bedroom, especially
on a cold night. But eventually people were like, well,
there's a lot of collar around, there's a lot of typhoid.
We should probably move these two a separate room. And
eventually they did, and they called those bathrooms, yeah, or
(06:36):
restrooms or toilets or w c's or poop station bills
or lose. Oh I've got one for you. I wanted
to say this in the last episode we recorded, the
wastewater episode. All right, let's hear it. So you know,
the word lou means bathroom or toilet in the UK
at least, if not more. And they think so when
(07:00):
we were in Edinburgh doing those shows, remember you took
a nap and I got all bored, so I went
and walked around the city by myself. Well, I went
to old time Edinburgh like old time. I must have
been napping when you went, because I don't know why
you wouldn't have just gone with me when I tried
to wake you up. But regardless, on this tour, maybe
(07:22):
you'll remember this. The the the tour guide said that
they think the word lou came from the Scotch people,
the Scottish people saying guardiloo when they threw their waste
water out into the streets, like they would shout guardilou.
And they think that guardi lou came from guard de lee,
(07:44):
which means watch the water in French. And so they
think that um, guardi lou came from wash the water,
and then lou came from guardi loo. And then that's
where we got that term for the toilet in the UK.
I love that. That's that's one for your next dinner party.
Oh oh, I cannot tell you how many dinner parties
I busted that out at so b days. Uh back
(08:07):
to the Biday. They are or were more of a
high society thing, like you know you were using an
outhouse if you weren't, I don't know necessarily aristocracy, but
you had to be like middle and upper class to
have a bidat in your bedroom or in your house. Uh,
and probably a chamberpot even for that matter. Well, for
a couple of reasons too. I think one, you typically
(08:29):
had servants who were going to take it away for you.
This number one, you got to change the number number two, right,
and the number two. You know, if if this bidat
is basically just a wash basin with water, they didn't
have running water at the time, which meant you had
to haul water, so you probably had a servant hauling
water for you as well. So yeah, you were probably
this thing that's that that was like a luxury to
(08:51):
the rest of the world, was just nothing to you
because you didn't have to do anything. You just used it.
You didn't have to do any prepper takeaway or anything
like that. That's right. And they don't know for sure
who invented it, but this dude, Christophe de Rosier UH
made one for the French royal family in seventeen. A
lot of people point to him as being the inventor
(09:11):
of the bidet. Uh didn't take long, you know, within
the next thirty or forty years or so, they started
having things like things like little hand pumps, so you
could kind of have a little rudimentary spraying device to
help herself out. That's nice. It is nice. It is
I mean because prior to this, it was just again
a wash basin that you would straddle and just kind
(09:33):
of flip it up onto your underside, your fanny as
it were, your hand, right with your hand, and eventually
that that water comes back down and mixes with the
water you're flipping up and you reach some critical point
tipping point is Malcolm Gladbo would put it, and now
you're just flipping poop water up onto your nether regions
and it's no longer helpful. So the idea that you
(09:56):
could just sit there and and spray a pump a
stream of water on there and have to just flick
the stuff out of the basin onto you. UM, that's
an enormous advancement. And they came along pretty early. I
think the seventeen fifties, right, Yeah, that's about when the
little spray spray thing came along. That's beautiful. And chuck
one other thing too. I think about the same time
(10:17):
that that pump handle came along. They also UM installed
like a refillable tank, so you fill the water with
tank and the everything that was in the basin was
all just wastewater, So you were good to go by
seventeen fifty as far as bidats were concerned, Yes, everything
was totally clean and totally safe by seventeen fifty. Nothing
(10:39):
could possibly go wrong. So these were big. Obviously in
Europe they spread. Italy and Portugal were really big on
the bidets still are. I saw Italy may have been
the actual inventors of them, and that the French possibly
just popularized it. I could see that. Yeah, French and
they steal everything they did. But at the same time
(11:00):
they were also they were a superpower at the time,
and they were also basically global taste makers. So once
they became into it, got into bidets, the rest of
the world followed suit pretty quickly, or most of the
rest of the world. Not if you were England or America,
you probably went no, thank you frenchman. Yeah, Uh, South America, UM, Argentina, Venezuela.
They're pretty popular. Uh, in the Middle East, and of
(11:22):
course Asia and Japan very much leads the way in
not only bidet use but bidet technology these days. Yeah,
It's a classic example of what I've talked about before.
The Japanese say, oh, I really like this invention. We
can improve it by a hundred and thirty pc. So
let's do that, And that's exactly what they did. That's
a good Japanese accent. Thanks. I added a little vocal
(11:46):
fry there at the end to make it particularly confusing.
So maybe let's take a quick break, go cleaner uh
bombits as my daughter says, and we will talk about
what's the deal with America and why we hate cleaning
our butt holes the right way? Right after this, to
(12:28):
check you, we're talking about butth holes, I believe before
the break, let's pick up. Let's pick up where you
left off. Yeah, what's up, America? Why don't you clean
your butt hole the right way? I thought this was
pretty interesting. There's a guy who I guess is a
bidet expert um who was speaking with the New York Times,
and we happened to overhear it. He had some theories
(12:50):
about why America didn't like bidets, and one you kind
of touched on before, which was that England hated France
at the time. They were I have a world superpowers,
much akin to America and the United States during the
Cold War. I mean in the USS are America, USSR
Draco versus Rocky during the Cold War? Right, Um, so
(13:15):
the English hated everything associated with the French and they
would just have never gone from bidays. But that seems
to have carried over into the colonies like America, which
is a pretty good theory for why Americans have never
adopted bidays. Yeah, and those were you know, in the
early days of non adoption. Uh, World War two happened
(13:37):
and and this is uh, this sounded kind of like
I wasn't sure I believed this at first, but then
I saw it in a different way in a bunch
of different places, So I do believe it. Yeah. But
apparently American soldiers would go to brothels in Europe and
in Japan, and depending on what theater of war you
were stationed at, and you would see these bays and
(14:00):
you would associate it and there were a few different
things going on. You might associate it with sex work.
I think you gross um. At the time, the there
were people that thought using a bid day after sex
uh could be a contraceptive practice. Not true at all. Well, yeah,
they thought that douching was a reliable contraceptive practice, and
(14:23):
it wasn't until like the twenties or thirties where it
was proven basically indisputable that no, it basically does absolutely nothing.
But the idea that you would use the bid day
to do that, um, kind of further associated it with
sex work as well. Yeah. And then the other thing,
which is incredibly sexist, uh and maybe throw in just
(14:43):
a dash of misogyny, is that uh, women on their period.
It was it hasn't been that long that women have
been able to get products to deal with that and
to talk about it as if it were just a
normal thing that happens to the human body. It was
very much under the table. Um, I think we should
(15:04):
do something, man, if we if we dare go down
that road on Springtime Flower Blossom episode, well, I was
thinking maybe a shorty just on um like tampons and
maxi pads and the development of of those things, because
it took way too long, uh for the for the
awful awful reason that manufacturers just didn't want anything to
(15:24):
do with that. Right, Yeah, for sure, Um, I'm down,
all right, Well let's do it. But menstruation had a
lot to do with uh BI days not being used
in America because no one wanted to talk about menstruation
for a long long time. So you've got g i's
returning from uh overseas where they visited brothels and aren't
particularly looking forward to introducing their wives to bidays because
(15:48):
they associated them with sex work. They're also really useful
for menstruation, which wasn't talked about at the time. Um,
and then they remind everybody the King of France, who
everybody hated. And you put those three things together, that
makes it really difficult to market in America. And so
they think that one or all of those reasons are
(16:09):
why Americans never really got into bid day's not until
the Japanese said, hey, everybody, UM, check this out. But
we'll get to that, not quite yet. Yeah. Another reason,
and this was mentioned as a chicken or the egg thing,
I personally think because the idea is that American bathrooms
(16:30):
aren't big enough for this extra thing in there. But
I think had we adopted it to begin with, we
would have made our bathrooms a little bigger to fit
these things personally totally, because I mean, our bathrooms are
enormous now and they could totally fit a bid at.
But if you if you look at most bathrooms, they're
like a master bath in the suburban house. Like the
(16:51):
bathrooms big, but the toilet is still small the little
toilet area. So yeah, I think we totally would have
expanded our bathrooms to allow it. I think we just
didn't need to have bigger bathrooms because we didn't have it.
So I say, disdaining for biddat lead to smaller bathrooms
rather than vice versa. Where do you fall? Yeah? I agree. Um,
(17:12):
I'm kind of mad because this this was my chance
when we renovated our house to put a real deal
biday in there, and you want one. Yeah, I didn't
even think about it. Um, But like you know, like
you said, our our toilet is wedged in a little
zone like all toilets. We could have made our shower
smaller and stuck a Bidday next to it. I guess uh.
(17:34):
I can see you like dropping your highlighter while you
were researching this article, like when it struck you like um. Interestingly, though,
the um kind of one of the bigger bidet models
that was popularized around the world, was invented by an
American named Arnold Cohen. In the nineteen sixties. Yes, dude,
(17:56):
So I had no idea about this, but the bid
day seat that you use, that I use that basically
all Americans are starting to be like, hey, this is
kind of awesome that everybody in Japan uses, that a
lot of people around the world used today was invented
by a guy named Arnold Cohen in the nineteen sixties
(18:19):
in the United States. Yeah. I also saw him referred
to as the bid At King. Yeah, man, and God
bless this guy. He tried his best. Uh. He created
this thing for his dad who was older and not
doing too well. And we'll talk about medical benefits here
in a minute, but um, if you have a rash
back there, if you have a hemorrhoid or an anal
(18:40):
fissure or something like that. Um, there is some research,
like you said, not enough, but some research that shows
that a biday can really be helpful if you have
one of those conditions. And his dad did so. He
was a former ad guy. He tried his best and
it just didn't quite work out. In America for Arnold Cohen, Yeah,
he aided a model called the American Sits Bath s
(19:04):
I t Z Bath, which is weird because it's not
a Sitz bath. No, and there are six baths now
and I don't know if they predated it or and
he just kind of adopted that or what. But he
basically took a toilet seat and modified it, added a
foot pump to pump water under your bum with um
he uh. He went to trade shows, he tried to
(19:27):
market it as much as he could, and he also
was very much ahead of his time. And then again,
this is the nineteen sixties and he was still a
young man at the time. Um that that he was
trying to He saw that it was a problem how
much toilet paper Americans use. That was one of his
driving forces, in addition to trying to come up with
(19:47):
something that could help people like his dad who are
suffering from rectial issues. Um. And he said, I think
one of his quotes is nobody wants to hear about
tushy washing one oh one. It was just too difficult
to market and so he kind of he gave up.
I guess to an extent, and I guess sometime in
the seventies he either approached a company called TOTO, which
(20:09):
stands for Toyo Tokei or Oriental ceramics and Japanese um
Or they approached him and they licensed his concept and
kind of tinkered with it, made it better, made it
much more automated, made it electronic, and um they deybuwed
the washlet in in Japan, and it took a little
(20:31):
like getting used to over there as well, but in
very short order, the Japanese kind of clumped onto it
and it became like part of their culture as much
as like sushi. Sure, Sure, we did a great episode
on sushi. We did. I was also gonna say chopsticks anime,
(20:51):
um cuteness who knows a lot of stuff. You could say,
Sure maple Japanese maples. A couple of those, M Yeah,
they're beautiful. Man. Do you have the kind of like sweeping,
spreading kind or the upright kind? I have. One of
my favorite ones are the small low spreaders, and I
got a couple of those. I don't think they're gonna
be huge, but the way I have them in our
(21:13):
garden and it's just very lovely. It's one of my
favorite trees. Yeah, you don't want them to be huge
when they're like that, because they're supposed to be kind
of subtle, understated and like low growing. You know. Yeah, boy,
there's one around the corner for me that I just
I have Japanese maple envy in a big way. It's
it looks like a it looks like a twelve foot
(21:33):
umbrella that's about four ft off the ground. It's just gorgeous. Yeah,
I'll bet it's old. Yeah, it's got to be. I
just want to sit in it every time I go
by their yard. You you probably lay under it and
just tickle it. Did I say sit under it or
sit in it? You said sit in it? Yeah, I'm
in sit under it. Okay, you're gonna be the weird
neighbor who just sits in people's yards. Maybe I've wanted
(21:57):
to do that so many times and I just you know,
and oh you can't do it, especially as they've grown adult.
So what kind of a day do you have? You
don't have the buzz market, But I got kind of
one of the um like a seventy five dollar model,
but that go under your existing toilet seat. But I
know that some of these Japanese models it's actually part
of the toilet seat and has dryers and they talk
(22:19):
to you and all that good stuff. I will buzz
buzz buzz, because I love mine. I have to total
washlets and they it's not like the highest n one
where like you stand up and it flushes automatically or
um it talks to you or has lights. They have
some that have like UV lights built in so when
the lids shut like kills everything in sight. Um. But
(22:42):
it's like it's like a good good washlet has like
a heated seat and everything, um, and like it's it's
just wonderful to have. It's just really that's the one
where the seat is part of the unit, right, Yeah,
Like the whole thing replaces your toilet seat, and there's
like a big kind of bulky contraption in back that
I think is like a water tank and where all
(23:02):
like the mechanations are. But it's like you take your
old toilet seat and you throw it out the window
into your neighbor's yard under their Japanese yep, next to
year old spirit tires and and dead possums, and you
replace it with this one, you know, bidet toilet seat
you connected to the water supply and then you plug
(23:23):
it in and there you have it. I'm looking at
this thing now, I kind of want to get one,
but I don't have a I don't have a power
outlet over there. That can be a problem. So you
have to That's like an added cost a lot of
the times. Unless you're comfortable with just having like an
extension cord and surge protector or something, we're just fine.
It's at the end of the world. But if you're not,
(23:44):
then yes, you need to have an electrician comput a
power outlet next to year. Yeah, yeah, because you could
have done that when you're doing that that Sorry I
didn't warn you. That's all right. So I guess since
we're talking about Bidet's seats, I guess we should talk
about the cheaper ones. You can get them for like
anywhere from thirty to fifty bucks. And like we said,
(24:06):
that goes under your seat, and you have a little
control device on the side of your toilet seat that
you just turn on the spray and it shoots out. Um,
it's cold water and less do you have the means
to hook it up to warm water? Um, but ours
is cold water, so you know, so it's a little
bit of a h of a wake you up in
(24:26):
in the morning, you know, Yeah, is your warm I
guess yes, it is it's warm, the seats warm. It's
just beautiful. I just want to poop at your house now.
It's you come over and use it anytime you want,
because I know you pee sitting down, so you're okay
in my book. But these washlets, so get this man.
The washlet when it was introduced in and the washlet
(24:49):
is like, I don't know what you call it, but
they took let's wash and turned it into the washlet
when they released it. But as of two thousand seven
total had sold seventeen million of these worldwide about nineteen
eighty it is amazing. As of two thousand nine, twelve
years after that, it was fifty million. They sold ten
(25:10):
million since two thousand and sixteen or so, I'm sorry.
Two thousand nineteen was fifty million, two sixteen was forty million.
So at some point along the way, a big portion
of the world said, I like that, We're going to
try it, and I'm gonna get one. Because the sales
have taken off even before this um coronavirus shut in
toilet paper run that we're experiencing in America. Yeah, I
(25:33):
wonder I was gonna say if they had like a
counter of that said like fifty million clean butt holes.
But there's more than that, is you have two butt
holes in your house, right exactly. So I mean that's well,
that's one of the things that people point to is like, well,
you know, there's a cost savings if this thing lasts
long enough, you'll eventually pay for it, will eventually pay
(25:54):
for itself, and savings from having to buy toilet paper,
and well, and we'll get to the waist and toilet paper.
But that is a problem. Yeah, yeah, because even if
the cost thing doesn't quite work out, you are still
you know, it's coming close to breaking even it's not
like a complete like waste of money, but also money aside. Ecologically,
(26:16):
it's probably a much better thing than toilet paper by
any measure, any metric. All right, well, should we take
another break? I think so, all right, let's take another break,
and we'll, believe it or not, we're gonna tell you
how to use these things right after this. Okay, Chuck,
(26:55):
so I teased it earlier. I think we should start
with this, uh, this this third act by talking about
the different kinds of bidats. We've already talked about two. Right,
there's the little cob horse bidet that looks like a
tiny bathtub next to your toilet. There's the um. The
washlet is a brand name, but it's almost become a
(27:18):
proprietary eponym. It's so so um, so um widespread. Yes, um.
But that's also called the bidet seat that you replace
your toilet seat with. And then the third type is
a hose that looks like you know, the dishwashing hose
that you have, like as coming out of your your
(27:38):
kitchen sink, if you if it's like that, but next
to your toilet. That's the third kind of bidat. It's
called like a water wall, a wall mounted shower head bidet. Yeah.
I don't think these are nearly as common, are they.
I didn't get that impression either, But when I looked
it up, a lot of different images came up on Google.
(28:01):
I don't even want to do that. All right? So
are we can we talk about how we use these things? Yes,
But I just want to say one more time, I'm
thoroughly engrossed by the wall mounted showerhead bidet. You have
to see one of these. Sometimes I've seen pictures, I
just haven't seen them in person. Okay, I got it,
(28:22):
neither of I but I've just I spend a good
hour like staring at pictures, he thinks, and imagining. You know, sure,
all the possibilities, so go so go ahead. I think
this part I cobbled this together from a bunch of
sources from the Atlantic, from How Stuff Works, I think
New York Times, but me, I think was mental floss.
(28:42):
And I think this came from How Stuff Works. This
step by step for how to use a bid day
and uh. The first step they say is locate the bidet.
That is a good first step. I can't believe they
put that in there. I thought that was very funny. Actually,
technically their first step, if you're going by bullet points,
(29:04):
was used the toilet toilet as you normally do both
for urination and for defication. That's step one as far
as the editors of How Stuff Works is concerned. Oh,
that is really funny. Um. Yes, And actually they do
point out in that step one that whether or not
you wipe a little with toilet paper first, I don't.
(29:25):
I wouldn't do that. I would uh. And how I
do it as I wet to my bum first with
a good spray, and then I used just a little
bit of toilet paper and that's the great thing is
is you're not using nearly as much. You can just
use a few squares to kind of just make sure
everything's cleaned up and dry. If you don't have a
fancy pants dryer like yours. Yeah, I've found that the
dryer takes so long that I don't have the patience
(29:48):
for it. Now, who does you know, crazy psychos? Maybe
unless you're you know, got a good book or something. Sure,
and Uncle John's bathroom reader that would do it. That
would keep me on the can long enough to air
dry with the blow dryer. Or a little book coming
this fall? Oh yes, shall we plug it? I think
(30:08):
it's a great time to plug our book. It's called
Stuff You Should Know, an incomplete compendium of mostly interesting
things that's right coming to bookstores this fall. You can
pre order now. And uh, I think all signs are
still full bore ahead. And though we're in the midst
of a global pandemic, in fact, hopefully they're thinking this
(30:29):
is just what people need. Yeah, and hopefully it is.
And at the very least it is guaranteed to keep
you on the toilet until your legs going numb. That's right.
So that's an old George Carlin joke. Oh really, what
to sit on the toilet to your legs go? Num?
Now he did some like some. He was talking about
some game show and one of the contestants was introduced.
(30:51):
One of her hobbies was sitting on the toilet until
her legs went, which is not good for you, they say,
especially if you have hemorrhoids. It can make that a
lot worse. So you're supposed to do your business and
get off. I could totally see that. You're also not
supposed to, like watch TV in bed. Beds supposed to
be for sleeping, So if you ever have trouble getting
to sleep, um, they suggest that you like go read
(31:13):
out on the couch until you start to get drowsy,
and then go to bed and fall asleep, so that
you'll your body and your mind will start to associate
bed strictly with doing your sleeping business. I say, poop poo,
did that because I love watching TV in bed? Yeah, Hey,
I'm with you. It's a nice, nice little treat. It's great.
I get why people don't do it, but uh, you know,
(31:33):
I'm not one of those people. Hey, to each his own,
we always say, right to reach their own teach their own. Yeah, alright,
so I guess we're at medical. Oh no, wait, we did.
We located the bidet right right, You've done your business. Uh.
To me, the downside of having the separate bidet is
you do your business and then you gotta get up
and like remount another device, so like you've got it
(31:57):
going on with your your fancy pants washl I think
I think that's why I was so surprised that you
wanted a regular biddat, because there's like a whole drippy
um step moving from one to the other, you know.
So yeah, I think when you get a washlet, you're
(32:18):
not going to want a regular bidet any longer. I
can't get a washlet, dude, I don't have the power.
You can hire an electrician to come run an outlet.
It's very easy. I know. Now I'm going to look
into that. You're right, Okay, you're gonna love it, Chuck, Okay, okay,
what does yours talk? I forgot No, it doesn't talk.
(32:40):
That would be amazing. I've never seen a talking one
except on the Simpsons. Well maybe that's where I got
there was Yeah, because there's that one that says I
am honored to accept your waist. I think that's where
I got it. Surely some of them talk, right uh.
Probably think Japan is famous for for talking appliances right sure,
and just having like weird random stuff written on their appliances. Yeah,
(33:03):
I mean I've talked about that rice maker. I think
you have the same one or one of the same versions.
That thing makes all kinds of fun sounds. Yeah the
uh um oh, hey, while we're talking about this stuff,
let me say, um, Mike's Mighty Good Ramen looked us up. Dude,
(33:23):
that was so nice. Well, like, I'm first of all,
thank you for mentioning it, because you got us hooked
up big time. I did not anticipate that much Ramen
coming no, like a box full of Mike's Mighty Good
ram and basically saying, hey, thanks for the shout out.
So um, I had never tried it before, and it
is really good stuff, and we have a bunch for free,
which is nice because it also stores really well too
(33:46):
during times like this. Yeah, and I had already also
purchased about a hundred dollars worth and it all kind
of came at once, so I have literally a big
moving storage been full of Mike's mighty good and I
eat it for lunch every day. Today I had the
vegetable cooking up milk lemongrass and it is delicious. Yes,
(34:06):
it is amazing. I think the beef is my favorite
so far. I love that spicy beef. Have you augmented
yours yet? No, I'm I'm a novice still. I'm just
kind of taking it a little by little. But I
saw that on they have like a recipe card for
suggesting how to kind of dress it up a little bit. Yeah.
I mean I usually just because it's a good, good
quick meal to go and a pretty low calorie, very
(34:27):
low calorie. But the other day I did have some
beef brisket and I minced that up really small, and
I cooked, I did a boiled egg and cut that
thing in half and it was so good. Man, that
sounds good. Yeah. I mean, we don't buzz mark it much,
but it is delicious. And they hooked us up. So
thank you, Mike. Yeah, and thank you also. Um. The
(34:49):
thing that made me think of it was the Zoji
rushi rice makers. They liked us talking about them, and
they're like, hey, you guys want some, You want a
thermis yeah, it was pretty Maybe I'll get a washlet. Yeah,
Toto brand washlets are really great, Chuck, I can recommend
him highly. All Right, so let's talk about um medical uses. Uh,
(35:15):
they're like you said, there hasn't been a ton of research,
and there has been a little conflicting research, but a
lot of doctors GPS do say and specialists. If you
have colitis, if you have ib s, if you have crons,
if you have colon cancer, then a bidet seat might
be right up your alley to help you out back there.
It will be. But also, Chuck, I just realized we
(35:37):
never finished saying how to use the bidet. Well, now
you know you scorch your butt, right, and it said
that you either can dry it padded dryer or have
a dryer. What else is there? So, oh, yeah, you
we did make it through that. Wow, it just went
so quickly. I think one of the things just I
want to point out really really really quickly is that,
like the whole point of it is that you're using
(35:57):
water to clean off your bottom in the exact same
way that you would use toilet paper to clean off
your bottom um or your other bits, depending on if
you have other bits. Down there. How do you how
do you put this? I don't know. Well, whatever's job,
thank you very much. But in some people prefer to
(36:19):
use toilet paper to dry off, like it sounds like
both of us do. Some people just air dry um,
or they use the blow blower attachment or whatever, but
like that's it, there's nothing more to it. I've read
that some people use soap, which is crazy to me,
but okay, and then some people chuck, I ran across this,
they don't even use a but at if they poop,
(36:42):
they take a shower after a word. Have you ever
heard of anything like that before in your life? No,
you know, I would say that's an extreme clean freak
germophob clean freak is probably not a nice way to
say it, but le phobia is about that stuff. But
from what I there's a significant number of people, at
(37:02):
least in the United States who like, you poop, you
take a shower. That's just what you do after you poop. Interesting,
I would take seven showers a day if you have
water crisis, just from you know what a waste so well, yeah,
that is a huge waste um. And that's actually kind
of a criticism of bidats is like while you're using
(37:23):
water instead. But as we'll see in a little bit,
you're using a resource one way or another down there.
So there you go. But okay, so you were talking
about um medical issues. Sorry about that. No, that's right. Um,
I talked about all the uh the ones dealing with
your bottom. But um, apparently, and this is I don't
know how much research they've done on this, but apparently
they can help out with U T I s as
(37:45):
well if you get frequent U T E s. Yes,
And here's how they suggest that, Um, if you're a woman,
you use the bidet on your woman parts before and
after sex, and that that will help cut down on
fecal bacteria entering your vagina and becoming part of your
(38:06):
vaginal micro flora, which can lead to U T eyes. Interesting.
I thought that was pretty interesting as well. Um, and
don't take offense. Well, now you know you can get
a prostate infection from from not keeping very clean down there. No,
I just mean you know, if you if you make
love and then your girlfriend and wife jumps up and
(38:27):
runs in there and and cleans out real good. Yeah,
just be a man about it, right, You should probably
not take offense to that kind of thing should we
be talking about this? Yeah, yeah, we haven't crossed the linet.
I think I think you established a new line in
the student Loans episode, so I think we're well within there. Well,
(38:48):
my my reasoning there is if there are any like
elementary school kids listening to student Loans, then their little
Alex P. Keaton's they can handle it. Alex peakey, Man,
what a great, great shout out there? What else here?
If you're elderly and if you have arthritis or something,
it's tough man, if you you might just physically have
(39:09):
a harder time wiping your bottom, have to use the bathroom.
And apparently as you age one of the single biggest
factors for staying independent. Like you can still cook, you
can still clean, you can still take care of yourself,
but you might have a hard time wiping your bottom.
You can still stay independent. Uh, if you can get
(39:29):
that bidet going. Yes, And again, if you're sitting there
like just like, wait, what are you guys talking about?
If you were raised on toilet paper from from what
there's a huge divide right now in the world. Apparently
a good three quarters two thirds the three quarters of
the world does does not use toilet paper, or they
(39:50):
use it much more sparingly and they use a bidet instead,
and they consider that clean. They consider using toilet paper unclean.
And this this is this, whether toilet paper or b
days are clean or unclean is so culturally ingrained that
it's almost un imaginable considering one cleaner than the other,
(40:12):
depending on what you've been raised on. But that is
the case. And they've done a lot of well they
haven't done a lot of studies, but some of the
studies they've done have shown like, yeah, this actually is cleaner,
or no, this isn't as clean as you think. Um.
But one thing that really kind of stuck out to me, Chuck,
was the idea that water alone can make you cleaner
than wiping your bottom, which makes total sense if you
(40:36):
step back and think about it, because all you're doing
is wiping paper on your bottom. But to me, it's
like you're you're getting stuff out of there and and
you're getting it away, which I guess you're doing with
water as well. Uh yeah, I mean that's that's kind
of it with I mean, like you said, they've done
some studies and they have shown that it can eat
some of these symptoms of anal fissures and hemorrhoids. There's
(40:58):
something called itchy anus that it can help up with.
That is a real thing. But there was also a
study about ten years ago in Japan that said if
you use a warm water bidat, uh, and if you're
a woman, it can kind of jostle loose your microflora
in your vagina and you can just kind of knock
(41:18):
things out of whack down there, and it can lead
to more vaginal bacterial infections. Yeah. So in the study,
it was like two sixty eight women, um, and they
found that normal microL microflora was not present in forty
three percent of bidat users and only eight percent of
(41:40):
non users of bidats had normal microfloora not present. That's
pretty significant. And then of of the fifty out of
the tight who had fecal bacteria present in their vaginal microflora,
forty six of that fifty used bidats. So that was
a really surprising thing to a lot of people because
they're like, no, no, no, this is this is clean. Um,
(42:02):
this is way cleaner than using toilet paper, And this
study suggests that that's not necessarily true. Now, was that
for only for warm water though from what I saw, yeah,
it with warm water. Yeah, use that cold water. Sure,
it really gets you up in the morning, like you said. Uh.
And then I guess finally we're at the point where
we talked about just toilet paper. We covered toilet paper
(42:22):
in our episode on toilet paper, but as a reminder
about of toilet paper in the United States comes from
Canadian forests. Um, And that's not cool. Americans represent uh,
less than five percent of the world's population, but we
used of the world's toilet paper and that's got to stop, Yes, dude.
(42:45):
So those Canadian forests, they're talking about old growth boreal forests,
and there's a term I saw, the tree to toilet pipeline.
I saw twenties seven thousand trees a day go down
the toilet in the form of toilet paper. And again
this is mostly old growth trees. Um. And I guess
(43:09):
the toilet paper industry in the United States is like
a six six billion dollar industry from what I saw.
So yeah, there's a lot of I think each American
uses about forty rolls of toilet paper every year. The
average household uses a hundred and fifty. There's a lot
of room for improvement. And that's a big, big plus
for bidays that you even if you still use toilet
(43:31):
paper to dry off, you're using so much less than
you would without a bidat that it's it's um. You're
just saving tons of trees by using a bidet. That's right.
You are using water. But if you've ever used one
of these seat attachments or seats like you have, it's
not a ton of water. Um, it's not like a
bathtub or anything like that. You know, no, not at all.
(43:52):
It's um. And if you have, you know, the more
advanced your your bidat is. And it doesn't have to
be like the most high end bidet for this to happen.
But I mean, like pretty quickly as far as technological
development goes in the biday you get um, the amount
of water is going to be much more efficient than
you know, just like say scorting a a dishwasher hose
(44:14):
up there. I'm just fascinated by that. It's pretty great.
Do you got anything else? I had nothing else? Well,
there you have. Everybody. There's bid days. We told you
there's gonna be a lot of t m I and
we delivered. And since I said t m I, everybody
it's time for listener mail. Uh. This is from Mary
Kerr in Buffalo, New York. Hey, guys, been listening to
(44:36):
stuff you should Know for years. It's been my companion
on many a morning run, road trip, and just tidying
up around the house. I listened to the shorty on
six six six and Chuck mentioned his license plate had
six six six in there. I thought of the story
about my brother Matt. He recently moved to Wisconsin and
was at the d m V to change his license plates.
(44:57):
The d m V employee handed him his new license
plate and number, which was six six six mph like
six hundred sixty six miles per hour. I know, I'm
I love it, not bad. Uh. The employee looked at
the plates and said, uh, do you want a different number?
And he thought about it for a second, and he
thought a different number would be best so that he
(45:18):
didn't appear to be a speeding Satan lover. And so
the the d m V employee graciously changed out the plates.
Um And I'm not gonna read what plate they changed
it out for, because it's just now occurring to me
that I don't want to out her brother's license plate
for some reason, Oh, that's that's true. It was, um,
asked man. She said, just a silly story. Couldn't help
(45:43):
a share. Thank you for your knowledge, levity and distraction
that you've provided over the years, especially in this time
of stress and uncertainty. And keep doing what you're doing.
And that is from Mary and Buffalo, New York. Nice.
Thanks a lot, very much appreciate it, Um. Although I
do have to say person only, I'm a little disappointed
in your brother. But that's okay because he probably doesn't
(46:04):
care if you want to get into this like Mary
did till so you can hear that we're disappointed in
your your your sibling. Well, you can send us an email,
then wrap it up, spank it out of the bottom,
and send it off to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio
dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
(46:25):
iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my
heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.