Halitosis: Worst Smell Ever?

Occasional bad breath is one thing, halitosis is another. Or is it? From its odd origins as a marketing ploy to modern weight loss diets that can induce this embarrassing condition, you can learn all about bad breath here.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know fromhouse stuff Works dot com. Hey,
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles Chucky.

(00:21):
Do you realize that some people might this might be
the first episode they listened to and they've already turned
it off and they're writing an iTunes review? Something's wrong
with that guy? Yeah? What's up with the manga? I
can't believe they're it's so popular? How does anyone listen
to him? Yeah? What's up with the Yeah? And how

(00:43):
are they in the top ten? And that guy? It
must be like the a MSR thing? What is that?
You know? Where that? Uh? People make videos where they're
like stroking your hair, but it's really they're just moving
their hand by the camera. They're talking like this, what
really we calming? But there's a subset of humans who

(01:06):
have a central nervous reaction. I just had one, but
it's pleasurable. They call him like a brain orgasm, a
a m s R. I think is R A s R.
I think it's a M s R. I don't remember
what it stands for. But it's like a meditative video
type of thing. I guess to some people, apparently you

(01:27):
have like a reaction to it, and it's very pleasurable.
But it's non sexual. It's it's well when you just
whisper neurological to me, I had a bad react, right,
I can imagine. So I I don't claim to be
one of those people. Man, oh man, this is getting
off to a good start. But we should do an
episode on that sometime. We people have requested it a
few times. Yeah, I want to. I'm gonna go find

(01:48):
out what it is. Is we have to go to
the trouble writing an article for because there's not one
that's okay. I got a few of those in the
hopper that I'd like to do. I do too, I
just haven't been able to get around to him. You've
been lazy. No, I've been busy. I said, we are
you ready? Are you familiar with halitosis? With with hold,
I've got a little intro for this. You've heard the

(02:10):
word halitosi is obviously we're about to do an episode
on halitosis, so I hope so. But even before this,
you've heard the word halitosis bad breath. It's like a
clinical term for bad breath. And that is true, and
it always was a clinical term for bad breath. But
the reason, Chuck, that you and I know that the
word halitosis means bad breath is thanks to a nice

(02:31):
little marketing scheme by the three guys who ran the
company that made listerine back in the nineteen twenties. Yeah.
We we've talked about Dr Joesph lister before and that
listerine was an antiseptic, surgical antiseptic, yes, and that's and
it was marketed as a surgical antiseptic and then a
household antiseptic. And then they said, you know what we're

(02:53):
we need to expand our market share, so let's get
into other markets. And so they said mouthwash. We'll start
telling people use it mouthwash. And they made like their
office in turn, put some in his mouth, switch it around.
He died. So they went and reformulated it a little
bit at a little water, right, uh, and then bang boom,
they had listering the mouthwash. The problem was, as they said, well,

(03:16):
nobody's going to just start using a mouth wash for
no good reason. We have to appeal to their low
self esteem. And that's what they did by looking through
a medical dictionary, finding the word halitosis and saying that's it. Yeah,
it's an age old trick and adds is to prey
upon your how bad you feel about yourself on a

(03:38):
daily basis. Yeah, and especially using a medical jargon Michelle
who called it the medical gaze, where it was basically like,
if you add something that sounds medically to a problem
that your product can can take care of you, you've
got gangbusters right there. Yeah. And it was an archaic term,
Latin term that had gone away completely. Yeah. It comes

(04:02):
from the Latin halitus for breath and the Greek suffix osis,
which is used to indicate abnormality or a disease state. Yeah,
but prelistering people weren't walking around saying the word halitosis.
It had gone the way of the dodo as a word. No.
And even still it was kind of like people weren't
really doing a lot to take care of their breath anyway.
It wasn't a thing until this group from the Listering

(04:24):
company said we're gonna make it a thing, and we're
gonna make using mouthwash to combat this thing a thing,
and they did within a decade. It was just basically
like that's what you did, use mouthwash every morning? Yeah,
and they I thought it was pretty funny and where'd
you get that cracked? Yeah? Correct, Yeah, it was a
great article, and they said they went on to use
other words uh in advertising later on, like homatosis, which

(04:48):
is you didn't have a tract of furniture, and uh
bromodosis if you had smelly feet. Yeah, and I don't
think those that they didn't catch on as well, not
like halatosis. For some reason, halitosis catch on and as
a result, there are people out there who have haldophobia.
I'm one of them. Oh yeah, not like I don't

(05:09):
need to see a shrink. But um, my first girlfriend
had halitosis. Yeah, And I think I can say that
because I don't think she listens, and I don't think
she knows she was my first girlfriend. Like I never
said you're my first girlfriend, right, But yeah, she had
bad and I say halitos. It's to me, there's a

(05:29):
difference between Everyone gets bad breath occasionally, but there's a
certain tang that's very identifiable that I call halitosis. And
she had it, and I, you know, I felt like
I had to kiss her and stuff. This is my
first girlfriend. I had to learn how to do that junk. Yeah, man,
And it was. I have dreams to this day, halitosis

(05:51):
kissing dreams that I like, we'll see something like gorgeous
girl in my dream and I go to kiss her
and she has like this awful rotten breath. Like it's
a occurring dream. So I guess I have holodophobia. I'm
very aware of it, and that's why I have a
tongue scraper and all that junk. Well, apparently that's one
way to treat it. Yeah, well, we're getting ahead of ourselves,
so spoiler, and I should say I have had a

(06:15):
mild case of holodophobia. It may or may not have
been warranted. I don't know. I have my own microphone
cover for that reason. I know, but it's not because
you're protecting other people from your halitosis, right, You don't
want your nose and other people's stuff, right, Yes? Okay,
because the microphone cover at one point smells really bad
and I got revolted and I ordered one the next day. Right,
So how halidophobia refers to your fear of your bad breath,

(06:40):
you fearing other people? Yeah, yeah, that's a different thing then. Okay, Yeah,
I was worried I have bad breath. I guess part
of me, like I have that concern because of other
people's bad breath about myself too though. I think that's
why I'm like manic about brushing my tongue. Oh yeah,
that's where I really got it. I sat next to
a movie I sat next to some dude in a
movie theater once, and like he was facing forward, I

(07:02):
was facing forward and I almost couldn't sit next to
him the whole time because it was that bad. You
should have moved. I don't know why I didn't. Let's
become my self punishing, I guess. No. I used to
do that, like a concerts. I always said that I
would just always time be next to the most obnoxious
drunk and I used to just bother me and get

(07:25):
under my skin. But then I was like, you know what,
I'm just gonna start moving. Yeah, this didn't make me like.
I wasn't mad at the guy. Felt horrible for him,
almost to the point where like I was going to
get in my car and follow him home, and then
like after he got into his house, I was going
to come in after him and then sit him down
and then maybe we have like um, some milk or something,

(07:47):
get him all calmed down. Let him sleep, and then
when he woke up the next morning, I'd still be
sitting in his kitchen table, and then I would say
to him, I have something to tell you. And then
I would say, you have really bad breath, man, and
he'd say, no, crap, dude, I have a condition. Well
that's why you don't necessarily want to say anything to anybody,

(08:10):
because they may Yeah, so let's get down to this. Garlic, onions,
these are the things that people frequently associate, how it's
hostes with yeah, which is a bunch of bs. Well no,
I mean like it can give you bad breath, yeah,
But that to me, that's the temporary bad breath that
one gets just from food. Yeah. And the reason why
you do get bad breath from, say, like onions in

(08:32):
particulars because garlic, I'm sorry, garlic contains something called allison,
which in the stomach is converted to alle methyl sulfide,
which is not metabolized and which comes back up as
gas from your gut. So when you have bad breath
from onions, it's not onion particles in your mouth still,
that's gas leaking out of your gut into your mouth

(08:54):
and just kind of sticking there. For a couple of hours.
You ever take garlic bills? Yeah, there they Yeah, I'd
just rather eat garlic any day of the week. Yeah,
I mean I eat tons of garlic. I love it.
But I have taken garlic pills in the past here
and there, and I will forget that I've taken one
and then you broke up like for breakfast. But it

(09:14):
doesn't taste like good garlic. It tastes aftful. It's medicinal garlic.
I didn't find I mean, the pill didn't taste like anything,
but my burps definitely taste garlic. See, it was for me,
I always. I just thought it was different, tastes different. Yeah,
I'd just rather like cut the top off of a
whole bulb of garlic, put some olive oil on it,
wrap it and foil, or put it in your clay

(09:36):
garlic baker and put it in the oven for a
little while and show down. Baby. Yeah, just squeeze those
things right into your mouth. Good. Yeah, and it's so
good for you. We're in stinct today. Uh so you
say you you your bed is that you don't your
garlic and onions don't count to you? No, I think

(09:59):
they're there is bad breath you can just have because
maybe you forgot to brush, or obviously morning breath, which
we'll get to. And then I think some people, unfortunately,
are have a constant state of uh this very specific
bad breath. Yeah. So I think one in four people
have actual halitosis. Right, that seems a little high. But

(10:22):
maybe people are just doing a good job of masking it.
Maybe so, but some people aren't. So. Um, what it
comes down to, ultimately, chuck, halitosis is as simple as
the bacteria in our mouth. Yeah, the fact that we
have bacteria. It's the same thing as our armpits. Why
they smell bacteria breaking down stuff from our bodies beneficially

(10:48):
in distincty little gases, yeah, and giving off little bacteria
to the The average person has eight hundred types of
bacteria in the mouth, and um, they don't need Like
it's a good thing. They don't tell kids stuff like
this growing up in school because French kissing probably wouldn't happen,

(11:10):
you know, Well, well then maybe they should tell kids
in school there, but it's really kind of a disgusting thing.
Like you don't see people licking armpits. Some people might,
Ben Stiller, Yeah, what was that in Was it Ben
Stiller who was into it? I saw it? Or was
it a movie? Right? Yeah, I've seen that flirting with
Disaster Ben Still, but I can't remember if it was

(11:33):
Ben Stiller who was into it, or if it was
Josh Brolin was into Uh, Patricia Arquette's armpits, that's right, yeah,
and Patricia Arquette was married to be still, Yeah, and
she let him lick her armpit. I love that movie.
You Can't Catch the Wind, remember that part um all right?

(11:54):
Back to the mouth and how disgusting it is. Uh.
They say, if you magnified just a single cell on
the surface of that tongue, you would see about a
hundred types of bacteria just on that cell. So this
this bacteria. When you eat and you swallow food after
masticating it, which isn't dirty, it means to uh, you

(12:15):
leave little particles in your mouth. It gets stuck in
your teeth there. Maybe it's like you have beginning periodonal disease.
It might get stuck in your gums along your teeth
a little bit. The very least, it's gonna get stuck
to the back of your tongue and it just kind
of sits there, and the bacteria in your mouth love
this stuff. It's food to them, and they break it
down into particles and particles and they're like, this is

(12:37):
pretty good, but I can't get the energy from it fully.
So I'm gonna break down the amino acids even further
and then bam. When I do, I'm going to basically
emit sulfur sulfuric gases, and that's where bad breath comes from.
There's sulfuric gases that are again a byproduct of the
bacteria eating the food particles in your mouth. Yeah, let's

(13:00):
over proteins. Yeah, and it's um. The mouth is a
you know, it's a great breeding ground for it because
it's clammy and warm and it's just got everything that
the bacteria loves to produce those stinky, stinky smells. Um.
But dry mouth can also cause halitosis because that's what
you get overnight and why you have stinky morning breath

(13:22):
because your saliva production decreases when you sleep, Otherwise you
just be a drooling mess. Um. I wonder why that
doesn't work during naps on your school desk. I don't know,
you know, I guess because you don't go to sleep
enough maybe or if like your face is pressing against wood,
it's a signal of your body to increase wake up,
the teacher is coming. But chronic dry mouth UM is

(13:45):
something that can affect people during the daytime as well.
It's called zero stomia and um. If you have zerostomia,
you're gonna have a harder time fighting your bad breath
because your mouth is always dry. Like the mouth the
saliva just acts as a natural mouthwah exactly. Not only
rinses away like food particles, it rints his way bacteria.

(14:05):
It rents is away the dead skin cells and dead
mouth cells that the bacteria also eat. Um. And Yeah,
the dryer it is, the less that action takes place.
And you've got stinky breath. Yeah. So if you're on
anahistamines or um any depressants or painkillers, uh, dry mouth
is a side effect of some of those drugs, so

(14:27):
you might have a harder time. Uh. And if you're
sick anyway, you're gonna stinky your breath too. Like if
you're fighting a sinus infection, let's say it's gross yes
breath because that mucus trickles back from your sinuses down
to your tongue and sits there and gets eaten up
to nasty stuff. Is this whole thing? I'm just cringing.

(14:51):
I'm gonna have one of those dreams to it. There's
you could a sninky hello toastis breath dream? Yes, the
hot girl bad breath. It's always the same. Really know
you're having dreams about kissing hot girls with bad breath. Yeah,
she thinks it's funny. She thinks it's because of my uh,
repressed religious upbringing, repressed sexuality. Like I won't even in

(15:11):
my dreams allow myself to kiss the model. That's hilarious,
Like she'll have I call it vomit tongue. It's so gross.
Oh yeah, that is pretty bad. Yeah. If they're the
worst dreams, I can't explain to you because they're really
headed in the right direction at first, you know, and
it's terrible. And when you're an old mary man, that's
all you got. I got, you know, vomit tongue. No,

(15:32):
just you know your dreams. You can't be I know
it to me. I'm just can't be assaulted for having
a dream. I guess you could, but that's not a
very nice wife. That give me my dream time. I'm
going to sleep. I'm donna sleeper right now. Let's pull
out with the keyto acidosis. Man, okay, so chuck when

(15:53):
you have um, when you eat onions, when you have
garlicen and food particles, all this stuff that's normal bad
breath stuff. There's also other things, metabolic things often that
can give you, like a a different type of breath.
It may or may not be bad. One bad one
is if you have liver problems, you're liver shutting down,

(16:17):
you're gonna have what's called mousey breath. Can you imagine
what mousey breath smells like? Like? Apparently your breath smells
like live writhing mice, mousey breath. I can't think of
what else it would denote. I don't know what a
mouse smells like. Uh sure, I mean, have you ever
smelled like a rodent cage? Yeah? But they smell like

(16:40):
cedar and poop? Is that what it smells like? That's
what they mean a cedar? Uh So it is keto acidosis,
the the no carbon effect. Yeah, okay, Yeah, that is
something that will warn you about if you're trying to
attain what's known as ketosis with like an apkins type
diet um. Some people, when they are reached that blissful

(17:04):
level of fat burning, it also takes their it's toll
on their their mouth and their breath. Yeah, it's like
a fruity, acid tony smell. Okay, that sounds better than mousey. Yeah,
it's it's gonna better than yeah. Yeah, when you're in keytosis,
you when you deprive your body of carbohydrates, it doesn't
have that energy to burn right there, so it starts

(17:26):
turning inward and going after your fat stores. And when
the body burns store fat, keytnes are what is released
as energy or burned as energy. And this, yeah, it's
the smell from burning keytones is what gives you that
fruity breath. Yeah. I've seen websites, you know that they
now have the articles. Of course, if you're if this

(17:47):
is the diet you want, this is how you can
help yourself. And one of the things us always eat bread.
It's like, yeah, but all of a sudden, you're not
on that diet. Yeah, so that's no solution. Yeah, you
can get knocked that of quitos is pretty easy. I'm sure. Yeah,
I think eating bread would do. Uh well, I guess
we should talk about um after a message break maybe

(18:09):
how you can help yourself out if you have plitosis.
All right, so let's say you are sadly just one
of those people that just has that funky breath one
in four right, Yeah, if you're among that, it does
seem high. Yeah doesn't. And that's like chronic halitosis, right yeah,

(18:34):
where it's not just like you know, brushing your teeth
isn't gonna do the trick. Yeah, yeah, that sounds like
a fact brought to us by the Listerine company. It
might be, but like I said, maybe um of those
people are really trying their hardest so you don't notice it,

(18:54):
and other people are just smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee
all day, which is a bad combination. Yeah, it's pretty
bad combinations. Does somehow they become greater than the sum
of their party, you know? Yeah, but that's uh, that's
breakfast for college students, you know. Cigarettes. So what do
you do if you're if you're gonna battle this stuff,
if it's more than just something like just a breath

(19:16):
mant can handle what's going to happen here? Well, the
breath mant just good thing to mention that that can
provide a little temporary relief, but it's just masking the
funk underneath. Right. She's really not gonna get very far
as a solution, No, because all it's doing is creating
the sensation of freshness in your mouth. Yeah, because it
I get I don't know what breath mints do. Have

(19:38):
frequently wondered, like, what is like um um mental do
does that open up your pores? So like the air
feels colder and fresher? Oh, I don't know, Like what
creates that sensation? You don't know? That sounds like a
don't be dumb episode to me, but I think it
might be. Um. What you want to do is get

(19:59):
to the root of the problem, which is at bacteria
and uh, like we said, food particles in your teeth
um is a big cause. So brushing and flossing and
the old tongue scraper and brushing the back of the
tongue you scrape the tongue. Doesn't that make you gag? No,
it doesn't bother me. I've gotten used to it. I mean,

(20:19):
you know, occasionally, if I overreached, that might be a
little but I'm not like retching in the bathroom every morning.
I think we should keep a webcam in your bathroom
when you're getting ready, just to catch those times that
you do just make a comple vine compilation hilarious. Uh
So attacking the source of the food particles, and you know,

(20:42):
I have the fake tooth now, so I have to
be extra careful to really brush along there because why
I think it would be like they've made it out
of some new super polymer that like reflects bacteria. Now
that the tooth itself is not the source, but it's um.
You know where it meets the gum is not a
natural tooth. So yeah, I just have to like really

(21:05):
brush the crap out of that area. My gum, you
get the crap out. I don't use mouthwash that which
is interesting. No toothpaste, well apparently, um it's not necessarily
and plenty of mouthwash is a suggestion for this um,
specifically types that contain according to the British Medical Journal, uh,
chloro hexadrine glucinate, chlora hexadrine glucinate or what you want,

(21:30):
because they kill bacteria. I take issue with this. Yeah,
one of the main functions of mouthwash isn't to just
go in and kill bacteria. Although most mouthwashers do that. Um,
it's the swishing action loosens food particles and gets them
out from in between your teeth. What I'm saying is

(21:52):
you don't necessarily need to use a mouthwash that kills
bacteria because you kind of want healthy bacteria. You want
what's called the um uh an oral ecosystem in your
healthy oral ecosystem or ecology in your mouth uh you
want remember remember the poop Shake episode, the poop transplant

(22:14):
vehical transplant episode, we ended up talking about the microbiome
and how important it is to humanityature same thing with
our mouth. Yeah, you don't want to kill all that
bacteria now, And there's plenty of bacteria that causes problems,
like Streptococcus mutans is what gives us cavities. But there's
also plenty of beneficial bacteria where you would have a
mouthful of dead skin cells all over your tongue if

(22:37):
it weren't for this helpful bacteria breaking the stuff down.
It's your problem. Everybody wants to kill bacteria. That's not
necessarily a good thing. As a matter of fact, I
think we're learning more and more that it's not a
good thing. So I say avoid the mouthwash that kills
bacteria and just use some sort of mouthwash that maybe
has a minty flavor, but it's just really just swishing

(22:59):
the food particles out and getting rid of the bacteria's
food that's creating their stinky sulfur ducks. Yes, exactly, um.
And because getting rid of the food is a big
part of it, I would suggest brushing your teeth after
lunch too, you know, like don't make it just when
you get up and before you go to bed. I say,

(23:19):
go for three times a day. Whoa man who has
time for that? Everybody? Another good trick is to drink
a lot of water. Um. But you know, just keeping
your mouth hydrated daily basis is gonna help. You said
that saliva is like a natural mouth wash. Water helps.
It does the same thing, loosens food particles, gets rid

(23:42):
of dead skin cells. In the back of your tongue
apparently is like ground zero for it. Like I think
there's like twenty times more bacteria there than elsewhere because
it's like this bumpy surface that's out of the way
of all this other stuff, So things really stick and
accumulate back there. So that's the that's an area you
want to target. Apparently with the tongue scraper. Yeah, and

(24:05):
you could just brush it as well. I do both.
But if you are a grown adult and you're not
either brushing your tongue or using a tongue scraper, then
you're not doing it right. Is that right? Yeah, somebody
needs to teach you. I give a quick part of
a quick you know, brush with with my toothbrush over
my tongue. But I worry about killing taste buds like

(24:25):
I love tasting things. You're not gonna kill any taste buds.
Sure you can kill taste buds with that. Uh, well,
I haven't killed any. Are you sure? Think about what
kind of a super taster you could be without your scraper? No,
I do worry about that. I'm kind of like, I'd
rather have low level bad breath and be able to
taste great stuff then have no bad breath whatsoever and

(24:49):
not be able to taste I would rather have no
bad breath and still taste everything. Well, yeah, that's the
holy grail. What kind of like flim flam world? Are
you living it? It's called Chuck's life. It's nice, it's nice.
If none of this stuff works for you, you you may
have a problem. Like you might want to go see
a dentist, uh, and maybe even a doctor. Well, yeah,

(25:11):
the dentist might say, yeah, I go the doctor you
have a mousey breath, which means your liver shutting down,
and find a new dentist. You know, there's a smell
test that they do that dennists do. Yeah, what they'll
do is still say, Okay, this is gonna be gross,
but I want you to breathe through your mouth and
I'm going to sniff close to your mouth. And then

(25:35):
they say, okay, now I want you to breathe through
your nose and I'm gonna sniff close to your nose,
and they can determine whether it's a nasal and like
a problem in your nasal cavity, I can give you
bad breath, you can have stinking sinuses, so gross, or
if it's in your mouth, and then they can further
to do like yeah, if it's not dentist doing this, yeah,

(25:57):
and if it's in your if it's coming through your nose,
it's suggests possibly not just your sinuses, but it could
be pulmonary to like you could have some sort of
lung problem that's creating gases that stink and they're coming
out of your nose rather than your mouth. So I
guess they train you to do that indental school. Huh.
I guess i'd have to. That's not a very popular day,
you know, everybody pair up. Oh my god, and there's

(26:20):
the one guy in the corner like eating a sandwich, Like,
what can I give a two more tips? Please get
ten more if you eat a crunchy breakfast like granola,
cereal or something like that, Okay, it's going to clear
out a lot of the gunk from the night before.
You just want to make sure you get rid of
all those food particles afterwards. And then if you're interested

(26:44):
in a mouth wash that is not antibacterial really certainly Yeah.
Uh it's you take a half a cup of warm
water and eighth of a teaspoon of cinnamon and one
teaspoon of honey, swirl all together and uh, swish it
around and gargle it. That's like um, like old timey

(27:06):
mouthwash apparently. Yeah, and we could probably recommend apple cider
vinegar just for anything that's like the wonder the wonder liquid.
It seems like, dude, I was once on my way
to a full blown kidney or um, maybe urinary your

(27:26):
urinary infection, some bladder infected. Something was going on, and
it was starting to go downhill fast, and you muse,
like drink this and drink a lot of it. And
I started drinking apple cider vinegar and like raw cranberry juice,
like the real cranberry juice. UM over like about an
eight to twelve hour period, like really hit it and

(27:47):
um gone, and like it was happening, like that happening
was going on, and like I afforded it. He stopped
the happening. I do a shot every morning now of
apple cider vinegar, and don't get the just the stuff
in the store that you you should be cooking and
cleaning with. There's the I can't remember the brand, but
there's the the super potable one, but the one that, yeah,

(28:11):
the one that that you'll find it a health food store. Yeah,
I can't remember the name of it. But there's like
one brand that everyone goes to, and it's it's tough. Man.
If you ever just do a straight shot of it
without deluding it, it's hardcore. Yeah. Yeah. Everything I was
doing was taking maybe a shot and then deluding it
in like eight ounces of water and it's still very difficult. Yeah,

(28:31):
you can do it though, especially when you're fighting off
some sort of infection. Yeah, and you want to brush
your teeth after that, because scs just brush your teeth
all the time. Uh. If you want to learn more
about halitosis, I don't know what more you could possibly learn,
but you can try. You can type that word into
the search part how stuff works dot com and it
will bring up this article. And since I said search parts,

(28:53):
time for a listener. Ma'm We're gonna address our April
Fool's prank officially here with this one. Um. I want
to say, first of all, Josh, you and Ben. I
was blown away by the performance. You guys sold it
so hard like and we just threw it together. We
were like, hey, let's just try. It wasn't some big plot.

(29:15):
We there's no practice plan for weeks and weeks like, hey,
maybe we should do an Apri Fool's joke this year.
And I said, hey, maybe I quit the show and
Ben took my place, and you guys just waned it
and like nailed it. Man. I was sitting here beside
you and I felt like I was watching my own funeral. Yeah,
it's weird. Yeah. You kept going like cut, cut, stop, stop,
and we're like, no, we have to press on. So

(29:36):
we're not jokesters typically, but it was I think it
was the only one to be released on April Fools Day.
Was the first time we had the opportunity to release
one on April Fools and look out two years from now,
because that'll be a yeah yeah. But if we do
like Josh left the show, everyone be like no, no, no,
or they'll be expecting that yeah, and we'll do it
and they'll be like, well, wait a minute, they thought that.

(29:58):
I would think that, you know, maybe we could give
you like I don't know, you could have a heart
attack on the show or something. Uh. But anyway, we
got an outpouring of people because I was dead or missing.
I know, people really really reacted to that. Like a
lot of people said they didn't realize how much they

(30:19):
needed you until well we're gone. And yeah, there were
plenty of people who said, like Josh, I pit had
been you, I would have felt the same way. But
um well I got to play the martyr. I got
the plumb roll. It was nice. It's like I got
had to do nothing and just get showered with actualation,
but it was it was very neat to see, like
people were like, never leave, don't ever do that again,
and it was pretty cool. Actually yeah, and also I

(30:40):
want to say I'm a half of Ben. He asked
us to to let everybody know whenever we could that
he actually was purposely sounding terrible. What he was doing.
He like that was play acting. Yeah. Yeah. The whole
point was like we wanted it to be super awkward, right,
I think you guys achieved that. Okay, So so go ahead,
back from the dead Chuck. So this from Matt from
Athens or Joe, Uh go dogs. Hey guys, my girlfriend

(31:03):
I have been listeners for years. I didn't realize just
how important the show was to us though, until your
April fools Day show. I had listened to the episode
before she did, and he didn't even tell her. That's
kind of mean. And I was keen on setting her
up for the gag, so I sat it out in
the kitchen table and told her that, uh stuff you
should know at some big news. I knew she'd be
sucked into the prank, but was not prepared for what
happened next. She started to cry and denounced the show

(31:26):
with one of you gone, saying she would stop listening.
She was worried about Chuck. I even had people are
worried about Emily. They were like they thought Emily was
in the hospital. Chuck started um. She said she would
stop listening and was worried about Chuck and started tossing
out possible explanations like the best of conspiracy theorists. She
was so sad that I had to fast forward to

(31:47):
the reveal. After her surprising yet pretty cute reaction, I
was hoping to swap out her emotional connection for a
birthday shout out. She's a contemporary dancer and uses the
id is in your podcast and her classes in choreography.
I think dances about Alan Turning. I gotta see this. Yeah,
it's crazy. I ad met this pretty crass way of

(32:10):
getting a happy birthday, but I think it's worth a shot. So, Matt,
you didn't tell us your girlfriend's name, So we're just
gonna say happy birthday to Matt's girlfriend from Athens. Happy
birthday Matt's girlfriend. I'm gonna guess the Jennifer Matt enjoy
sleeping on the couch this evening. You know, we fooled
some of our friends even Joe and Dazzo texted me
and said, you guys actually fooled me for about eight seconds.

(32:30):
Is that right? Yeah? Yeah, we got a lot of
people who said, like, I didn't fall for anything all day,
and the only people who got me the stuff. You
should know it's because you guys like destroyed it and
then the one with me for a minute, I thought
I was off the show. Have to leave. The ones
that I felt bad about though, we're the ones who
listened to it like after April one. Yeah, yeah, and
we're like Australia. Yeah, and they didn't realize it was

(32:52):
the it was yeah exactly. But yes, so everyone, thank
you very much for the outpouring of emotion. We both
feel very loved. Yeah, it's it's sure. I mean, we
know people like the show, but when you hear stuff
like that, it's like a while. Yeah, gonna depend on
this and uh, we know now that we're not allowed
to ever leave. Nope, it's well go out in a

(33:12):
murder suicide if anything. Cool agreed, So if you guys
love us so much, you can hang out with us
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(33:34):
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