102. The Bathroom Boys

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, wash your hands.

Hey Merlin, sorry we're late.

MerlinHi.

MaxHi Merlin. We were just running a microphone into the bathroom.

AlexOh, and we'll get to that later. Max, you want to introduce our very, very special in-studio guests?

MaxAbsolutely. This week, I am honored to be joined on Dubai Friday by our official microbiology correspondent, Dr. Don Schaffner.

Speaker ADr. Don, welcome to Dubai Friday. I am honored to be here. Thanks for having me, guys.

MaxI have literally forgotten to do this every single time we've had a guest, so I'm going to do it immediately right now. Thank you. Dr. Don, people are going to listen to this episode. They're going to be amazed and titillated by what you have to say. the pearls of wisdom that fall from your mouth, where can they find your work and how can people see what you're about online?

Speaker AWell, so you can just Google Don Schaffner Records University. You'll find my university page. But the thing that I most love about my job is that every couple of weeks I get together with my buddy Ben Chapman at North Carolina State University and we record a podcast called Food Safety Talk. And it's a lot of fun to do and some people like to listen to it.

MaxNow- Including me. Alex created like a fajita effect of these Diet Cokes this morning. So Alex brought a Diet Coke into the studio and then Dr. Don saw it and was like, oh, I could really go for a Diet Coke. And then I walked into the studio and I was like, I want a Diet Coke. Everyone's got a Diet Coke. And I will say my experience of food safety talk is much the same way. It has a – there should be some sort of word to describe the way that it spreads, you know, from one person to another.

On the tip of my tongue. Yeah. Like a filthy spoon. Merlin started Merlin started listening to this thing and I think Merlin talked about it on back to work maybe and I remember thinking Merlin listens to a podcast about food safety I have a lot of time

MerlinI don't really have a job I was like that is

Maxthe craziest thing I've ever heard and then but then my next thought was like I've got to hear this thing and I started listening to it and it's so fun and it's they're they're smart and they're funny and it's full of really good turns outs absolutely and it's what it is one of those podcasts it's in a there's a rarefied kind of couple of podcasts where I think about them long after I've heard an episode you know years later I'll be doing something I'll be like I remember exactly where I was when I learned about this or something and food safety talk is definitely in there and I will say like I've talked to other people about food safety talk or they've heard me listening

to it and now and then it the same thing of like first their first comment is like I can't believe you listen to a podcast about food safety I'm like no it's really good it's funny and then they start

Alexlistening to it and then they tell everyone about it it's funny and upsetting in all of the ways that really really like hit all the alex cox brand things i just realized i looked at you dr don i'm not gonna look at you the rest of this show it's i'm gonna pretend you're merlin on the other side

Speaker Aof the country you know it's it's it's very strange when i first started recording a food safety talk with ben we knew each other before and then we were recording the podcast for a while before we saw each other in real life and when i first saw him in real life i had the same effect Like, I can't look at you now. I can only have you in my ears. I've kind of gotten over that. But yeah, podcasting is weird because it does that. It very, very much directly affects your brain. But then at the same time, it's your ears that are affected. And so when you meet somebody, and I had this experience of meeting people that I've only

known through podcasts in real life. And it's just, it's a very weird, weird thing. So I know what you're talking about.

AlexMerlin, how do you see us sitting?

Merlinwell i'm reminded of the um the tim and eric sketch with zach galifianakis called bathroom boys and i'm imagining that the three of you are probably in wigs throwing underpants around in a bathroom uh getting ready for a hot date with maggie from the walking dead um check it out if you haven't seen it so to me you're the bathroom boys oh thank you know the acoustics are good you guys are you seated on a urinal or how does are you you're making eye contact in a restroom Did you put a sign on the door that says,

attention, there are cameras in the bathroom, don't come in?

MaxGuys, there are no time. We have no time for jokes this week. It's going to be, I have so many times. Can I make a sound for you, Merlin? You guess what this is? Yeah, I don't know. Okay, what do you think this is?

MerlinOh, Jesus. That is so triggering for me. It sounds like playing cards.

MaxIt's actually not playing cards. It's another kind of card.

MerlinIt's It's not Against Humanity card That would be too on the nose

MaxIt's something that you could find Let's say that there was something called a hipster PDA Oh Did you prepare? I have fucking topics You got topics on index cards? I have the Merlin Mann's fucking stack of index cards Here

MerlinLet's go I love the ones we prepare

MaxTopic. Here we go. Do my Friday topic. Dr. Don, later today, I saw some suitcases out here. Later today, you will board an airplane. This is true. Please tell us about your procedure for boarding an airplane, navigating an airport, getting on the flight. Do you do anything? Do you have any sort of prophylactic strategies or advice? You're like a foot fetishist. He becomes a shoe salesman.

MerlinOh my god. Let's try on these pumps. Oh my god. Now these. Now. Now frown at me. You're using your platform.

MaxYou're platforming. You got to do what you love. Yeah, that's right.

AlexFollow your bliss.

Speaker ASo I, this is going to be rather boring. I don't have a special procedure. I think, Max, I think you probably worry a little bit more about germs than I do. and I think about germs. I think about cross-contamination, but no, I do not have a special airplane boarding procedure that's related to germs. I don't like to be late. I was early today. I like to be early at the gate.

I like to get in line. Is that an attack on me? A little dig, I think. Oh, no.

MaxNo, no, no. Oh, my God, I'm attacked already.

Speaker AWe're starting early. Oh, my God. It's that call-out culture you were talking about. No, it's me. It's not about you, Max.

MerlinIt's about me. No, Don, I understand. Some of us are professionals and like to be on time for everything we do. That's just because that's how we are as, what's the word I'm looking for? Oh, professionals. Like when you do something for money, you show up on time, and then you do a good job. Is that a thing you do? Dr. Don, you're a doctor. Do my friend. Is that a thing you like to do? New topic.

MaxNew topic.

AlexTopic change. Here we go. Time of the bell. Abort, abort, abort. No, no. a golf niner niner. I've given you so many things today. You are not my boss today. You cannot have a bell. You have your note cards. You have your doctor. You have your glow kit. No.

MerlinI love when the bathroom boys argue.

AlexAll right.

MerlinListen. All right. Topic. Topic.

MaxYou're on the airplane. You're, you know, whatever, 60,000 feet in the air or whatever an airplane flies at. Don't email me. And the little cart comes down. The little cart comes down. The flight attendant. The flight attendants. They've got, they're offering beverages to everyone. Number one. You just pour it onto your tray. Do you take a beverage? And if you do, let me ask you, let me start here, Dr. Don. Would you drink a coffee on an airplane? Oh, I've heard things. I've heard things too. I've heard things.

Speaker AI have drinking. I have consumed coffee on an airplane. I will in the future consume coffee on an airplane. I tend to not be worried about things as much as you, Max.

AlexWell, it's hot, right?

Speaker ABut honestly, I mostly fly United, and their coffee sucks. And so I tend to not get coffee. I will get a hot tea, and that may have the same issues.

MaxNow, I've heard that they've tested these receptacles for any of the hot, basically the hot water system on the plane. And it's like something out of your laboratory.

Speaker AWell, and so we actually, we can talk a little bit about science. So we've actually studied some of these dispensers, not the hot dispensers, but people have studied cold dispensers And certainly there was a problem a number of years ago with iced tea. And if you don't design the spigot correctly, it's very, very hard to clean. And so certain companies that do a very good job with food safety have engineered that problem out. But often the people that design these pieces of equipment are engineers.

They're not microbiologists, and they design them in a way so that it's not actually cleanable.

AlexSo about once a week, I will have a black tea from Starbucks or a black iced tea. In your opinion, how many germs am I swallowing? How many bad germs?

Speaker ASo I would say close to zero bad germs. Oh. And again, I order tea products from Starbucks. I prefer the green tea rather than the black tea.

AlexReally, really shitting on us today. No, it's just talking about my opinion.

Speaker AWow.

MaxAlex, you just got savagely owned by a doctor.

MerlinHe has no problem getting it on time either. I've been to Starbucks with Don. We've been to a Starbucks together. We sat in a Starbucks. He was always on time. And John, we always cleaned up the table too.

Speaker AYeah, so I mean, the good news is, Alex, oh, well, so first the bad news is when these products get tested, often they contain a class of microorganisms that we refer to as fecal coliforms. I know that sounds really bad, but I'm about to lay some science on you. Okay. Pay attention. Just because an organism shows up as what a microbiologist would call a fecal coliform, it doesn't mean that it comes from feces. Stop laughing. Okay. It turns out.

Okay? It's a class.

MaxIt's a class. It turns out.

MerlinIt's good to eat some kind of poop. It turns out. It's fine. So the kind of garden variety common species that you find in the environmental conditions of the you know

MaxThis is already a double triple turns out because the first turns out is there's poop in the tea But the second turns out is that it's good to eat the oh, no, you're not you're not listening

AlexThere's not poop in the tea. There's organisms. I think we really are

MerlinSee you're gonna just go back to work and get on your plane like a gentleman I'm just be thinking about this all fucking day And it's the engineers you blame the engineers. I blame the engineers now, and it's not bad to have those

Speaker ANo. So the reason why microbiologists don't like fecal coliforms is that sometimes these organisms do come from feces.

MerlinAnd it just turns out.

Speaker AJust quadruple turns out. But these organisms that we classify as fecal coliforms are sometimes an indicator for the presence of organisms that actually do only always come from feces. So E. coli, for example. So Alex, if we were to test your tea and we were to find E. coli, I would be concerned. If we were to find fecal coliforms, I wouldn't be as concerned, depending on which species of the fecal coliforms were there.

MaxWhen I was in grade school, I just had the most vivid memory. When I was in grade school, we had to write a short story. We had these writing assignments. And one day we got assigned to write a story in a format called Fortunately, Unfortunately. Is anyone familiar with this? No. That sounds like a really good idea, like pros and cons kind of thing. So it's a story. So it's like, fortunately, I grew up in a house. Unfortunately, the house burned down. Fortunately, we got a bigger house. You know, it goes back and forth, and you try and tell, like, a crazy story.

It's like the parable of the Chinese farmer, I think, is kind of a more Buddhist version of that story. But this really sounds like a fortunately, unfortunately story, where it's like, unfortunately, there is poop in the tea if it comes from the dispenser. But fortunately, just because we call it poop doesn't mean that it is poop. But unfortunately, sometimes it is poop.

Speaker AThere's more right in what you said than wrong. So we're just going to leave it and maybe move on to the next card.

MaxSo you're in town because you're consulting for a big company that provides food for people. Can we say on an international scale? Sure. Okay. What are some of the interests? And you consult and advise this company. No, but let's just say this is a big food service company that many of our listeners have probably heard of. What are some interesting things at that scale of maintaining food safety and thinking about systems in the scale? What are some of the interesting things that you've encountered as part of that gig?

Speaker AWell, I would say that these guys, and this is not just because I work with them, they really care about food safety. These people will argue about stuff, and they'll debate stuff. The passion in what they do, they are really passionate. They're not phoning it in. Their passion about food safety is tremendous. And they really have led the industry in terms of pushing advances forward. And so it's really a pleasure to work with them.

And I also have to tell you that of all the things that I've done throughout my whole career, the thing that most impresses my kids is that I have that gig. Like of all the stuff that I do, that's the one that really impresses them the most.

MerlinIt must be really – I mean if it's – I don't know what kind of food we're talking about. Is it stuff that goes in cans? Is it stuff that's served to consumers? But in any case, like it seems like I don't know the phrase I want to use this chain of custody. The idea of starting with the good idea and ending with flawless local implementation must be very complicated to enunciate and enforce.

Speaker AAnd do it at scale, right? That's what that's kind of what I mean.

MerlinLike I think about some places where there's a how does one say you think about kinds of places where there's you could get this from different places. And you go, oh, like, let's go to the good burger chef, not the dirty burger chef. Or like, let's go to the nice, safe way. And like you see, like Walgreens are so different one to the other. It just seems so crazy. Maybe it's resource allocation. Maybe it's management. But it seems like it must be so challenging to track down the last 5% of where you feel like there's a problem and you can't track it down.

Speaker AIs that part of the challenge? Well, and in fact, that was kind of one of the topics for discussion. So the person that the academic that chairs this committee, the guy that brought me on board, was complaining about a local version of the same entity that we're talking about here. And he said, it's not good. Right. And what are we going to do about it? And we proceeded to have a like a 30 minute conversation about exactly how we can surface those problems and we can get that that rectified. And so, again, it turns out that their whole business model is, you know, again, I don't want to get too specific, but it's the way that it works is very complicated.

and there's a lot of things that they have to balance.

MerlinDon't you also have to think about sourcing ingredients from different places? You get the problems of like if you're going to make, I don't know, some kind of like let's say a beef patty or something. You think about does that come from different places? If you're going to make a can of soup, the tomatoes come from different places. You've got to think about all that stuff, right? Well, and here's the thing.

MaxSometimes you get a farmer who diarrhea is in the field. But is it diarrhea? And now you've got a problem. Well, what you're going to have is the good kind of poop particles and the bad kind of poop particles. And the good kind of poop particles, even though they're good, they could be an indicator for the existence of the bad kind of poop particles. It's a long walk back to the bathroom, Max. It's just you and a tractor. I almost diarrhea in a field this morning. I could tell that. We'll get into that story. Okay. Let's look in that.

Dr. Don, in terms of a workplace, you mentioned this big company. They have a sort of a workplace commitment, like a true commitment to food safety. So something I've heard, we've worked with FedEx, the company FedEx before. Something I've heard about FedEx that's kind of interesting is like their highest company value is being on time, right? Their delivery show up on time.

MerlinUPS is like this too.

MaxYeah, I think it's within the shipping industry, right? Like they really value like being on time. And something I've heard is that if you work for one of these companies and you're late for something, that you might as well pack your shit up because that is just not tolerated. It's like a fireable offense to be late for a meeting because they've just made some rules in their institution to underscore their commitment to being on time to things.

So now we have an office here. We've got a kitchen. We've got, I don't know, dishes that pile up in the sink, and people get sick all the time, and I feel like we should be instituting a culture of workplace food. Are you talking about zero tolerance? I'm talking about give us some guide rules here, right? When do I fire Alex? What does she do? What does she do where I'm like, it's finally crossed. You've sneezed right into the open container of Oreos. That's the final straw.

AlexHow many times do I need to leave the toilet seat?

Speaker AWell, I think what you're talking about, Max, is creating what's called a food safety culture here at Bards. No pun intended. No pun intended. and actually so this is kind of so there's a couple of different things I want to weave in together here so one of the people in my field who's most known for food safety culture and Merlin you had the pleasure of meeting this guy when you came to speak at the IA oh I was totally mobbed up in big food I met some big guns in food and so the guy what a hell of an event

the guy thanks the guy

MerlinI did I know I met didn't I meet a big wheel I met a real big wheel

Speaker Aso you met I think I met a Disney I met some big food wheels. You met Frank Giannis, who works for Walmart.

MerlinThe Frank Giannis.

Speaker AWho used to work at Disney, who has literally written the book on food safety culture.

MerlinLiterally.

Speaker ALiterally.

MaxIs that downtown Frank Giannis?

MerlinNo, you want to go to original Frank Giannis.

Speaker AGot it.

MaxOkay.

Speaker AWhat a good hoagie. Here's the punchline. Frank no longer works at Walmart. He works at the FDA. The FDA hired him to be the undersecretary for the FDA.

MaxOh, welcome to the swamp. Uh-oh. That's the swamp. Is that a little regulatory capture there? Sure. Were they like loosening the restrictions on food safety and Walmart now?

Speaker AIt's a good thing. He literally wrote the book on food safety culture, which you should read, and then you can figure out how to create food safety culture. I think you're in the pocket of Big Frank. Actually, he's rather small. He's a diminutive man.

MaxDid you even read that Michael Lewis book that I've been going on and on about where the guy who made AccuWeather, who's like one of the great villains of American history. I mean, this guy is a really loathsome, awful character. And he now is in charge of the National Weather Service. He's worked for like 20 years to debilitate the National Weather Service and make their weather less good so that AccuWeather gets an edge, and now Trump just appointed him to be in charge of the National Weather Service.

MerlinThis is like when they hired the, what's his name? The guy that got quit, the EPA guy, Who, like, had spent most of his career trying to, like, undo the EPA and then became the head of the EPA.

MaxYeah, you've got oil guys in charge of oil regulations. Yeah, it's regulatory capture. So now we've got the Walmart guy in charge of regulating the Walmart food safety.

Speaker ABut the thing is, Frank is, like, he's not a bullshit guy. Like, he really wants safe food.

MaxThey accidentally got someone who's a qualified expert.

Speaker AAnd actually, I have talked to my friends at FDA since the presidential, you know, president changed. And they say that they're mostly being left alone to do their good work.

MaxIn the Michael Lewis book, he says that there's a very important – so he talks about his section about how hard it is to monitor the slaughter of chickens. Americans consume an outrageous amount of chickens. I mean just a grotesque amount of chickens are slaughtered in this country for people to eat. It's the most popular meat in the country. and the chicken industry, basically there is no way to safely inspect every bird past a certain speed. I don't remember what it is, but the FDA is like you can only slaughter this many chickens per hour.

The chicken industry is like, would you let us slaughter twice as many chickens per hour? There was a big debate in the Obama administration and ultimately the FDA said no. Now I guess there's a big concern among the, I don't know what you call it, but the slaughterhouse regulators that they're just going to go ahead and let the chicken industry do whatever they want, and it's going to be very dangerous for people who eat chicken.

Speaker ASo let me disagree. So first of all, it's the USDA that regulates meat and poultry, not FDA. But we have a... Oh!

MaxOkay, well, I read one book. It's impressive that I got that many details right.

Speaker AIt doesn't make sense. We have a fucked up regulatory system. It should all be one agency, but it's not. Well, how does it say? USDA is anything involving animals, right? Meat and poultry, and then FDA is everything else. And then eggs are really weird because they fall between the cracks. But so here's the thing. And we're in Chicago. So this is perfect. So Upton Sinclair wrote this book called The Jungle. It revolutionized the meat inspection system. And they hired a lot of veterinarians. They stopped slaughtering sick animals. But we've moved on.

In terms of food safety, the issue we now know is microbiological. And so there are things you can do to control microorganisms that don't involve carcass by carcass inspection. Because guess what? You can't see the microorganisms.

MaxThis is like the video I sent you of the guy who washes his chicken in the dawn dish soap.

Speaker ANot a best practice. Not a best practice. For at least two reasons.

AlexDig Dug.

MaxWait a minute. So are we going to die? We're not all going to die.

Speaker ASo I think that in my opinion, the industry can increase line speeds and still maintain food safety. What we need to do is we need to transform the regulatory system to one that's focused on microbiological risks and less on other risks that would be addressed by a carcass-by-carcass inspection. Now, the inspectors are against this. The inspectors union is against this. But food safety would dictate that you can do things and you can increase line speeds in a way that is both safe and cost effective.

So anyway, it's – so I mean, you know, you're free to think what you think and read the books you want, but I would disagree. Okay.

AlexTrademark, Alex Interruption here. I haven't started reading the new Michael Lewis book because I continue to read Max's childhood science fiction series. Oh, hell yeah. Isn't it not good? Yes. Quick update. Are you going to read the embarrassing passage? Quick update. If we remember, there's some attractive scientists. Can we just stipulate that it's before you read this, can we just stipulate that it's a good book? It's a good book.

MaxIt's a children's book. It is young adult. It's children's book. The Hunger Games is horny. Harry Potter is horny.

AlexFor other children. Okay. Oh, well, that.

MerlinAll right. Here we go. She's opening a box now.

AlexIt's Dr. Ling and Dr. Fontana, said Rachel, more because she knew that the two female scientists were jogging partners than because she could make out their features. Good news at last, cried Roger. Rachel scowled. Among the males of the AI gang, it was generally agreed that of all the science. it was generally agreed that of all the scenic spots on the island the most beautiful at any given moment was wherever the raven hair dr.

like all right uh trademark interruption over it is a very good science girl it's young adult

Maxlisten kids read twilight okay i think they're talking i think they're breast pendulous in a

Merlinchild-like, child-friendly way? Are they bobbing?

AlexThey were. They were. Oh, well, they addressed that in a child-friendly way,

Merlinlike the way you get a crush on a nine-year-old Hermione.

MaxOh, boy. Can we stipulate that you're still reading these books because they're good and you want to know how it ends? It's very good. It's very good.

AlexThey're fun, aren't they?

MerlinI think they sound pretty horny.

AlexThey are.

MaxThere's one paragraph per book

Alexwhere they talk about

Maxhow the boys are all horny for this one scientist.

AlexWhatever. uh dr don do you know what national day it is is it national it's not national hand washing day

Speaker Athat was that was earlier um that's the one day a year when i wash my hands

MaxI save it up Whether they need it or not Big day

AlexLast week it was National Bosses Day Today it is National Food Day Oh Yeah Oh I love food Right? Anyway

MaxOh can I talk about It's a day for food Can I talk about the bridge thing that I was at Because I'm just excited about that Because I just came from it

AlexYeah give some context to the thing you sent us this morning

MaxYeah so I got invited from Friends of the Chicago River to see, so in Chicago, so speaking of the jungle, Chicago's famously built along a river, the Chicago River, and for many years, we were like the slaughterhouse to the world, and everyone just dumped these animal carcasses into the river, and the river flowed into the lake, and then people started getting sick because there were all these animal carcasses in the lake, and in a marvel of engineering in the 1800s,

The city, their solution was instead of like, hey, maybe we should stop dumping all these animal carcasses into the river, they were like, let's reverse the flow of the river so the animal carcasses go upstream to St. Louis. And we did. We built a system of locks and bridges that reverse the flow of the river. And Chicago to this day has the most bridges of any city in the world. And they're really cool. More than Portland? More than Portland. Oh, yeah. and they're 98 years old

they're called

Alexand unlike Portland they actually you can see where it goes and you don't end up on the other side of the city not that I'm bitter about that

Maxthey're called Bascualtronnion Bridges they're 98 years old and the way it works is it's a mechanical so about twice a week during the summer the bridges go up to allow boats to go through and they're they're major arterial streets in Chicago so they do it so they don't do them all at once they do them like one at a time and it's like almost like a system of locks, right? It's like the boats move up one street and then the next bridge and the boats move up. But it's pretty amazing because they do it in the middle of the day and it stops traffic and pedestrians and everything. So I went to the Riverwalk Museum, which is in the Michigan Avenue Bridge House, and I

got to go into the bridge while they opened it and watched.

MerlinOh, this is that little machine, that cool machine you showed us? It's not so little.

MaxNo, I mean, it's really, it's like something from Machine Picks. It looks amazing. Yeah, so it's 98 years old. It's a 14,000-pound counterweight that goes down 40 feet below ground, and that's half of the bridge, right? So there's two leafs that open up. That's called the Bascual-Trunyon Bridge or a Chicago-style bridge, and it's these two leafs that both open up to let the boats go through. And it takes a crew of 12 guys to open the bridge. So the way they do it is there's two crews, and they leapfrog. So they do one, and then the next crew moves on, and they go all the way up the river and let the boats come through twice a week.

And it's pretty fucking sweet. I was really impressed. And so I got invited to, like, a breakfast at the museum. You know, there were maybe 10 people who came, and we got to go into the mechanical room and, like, watch this bridge go down. So one of the craziest things is if you swipe over to that picture I sent you, that's the street coming down at like a like a like a 60 degree angle that's the road oh wow that's lower wacker oh yeah isn't that wild that is very cool so anyway it's just it just blew my

mind and oh and then the funny thing that so like i don't know why i haven't learned i'm 31 years old i don't know why i haven't learned this but if i have caught you know when i have coffee in the morning i need to take a shit immediately after i have the coffee and i continue i always commit to going to these morning things and I wake up and I roll out of bed and I go straight to the thing and I'm like there'll be food there I'll have food there and of course I had a big thing of coffee and then we're stuck in this gear room watching the bridge go up it was nearly a disaster oh and you had to have your morning meeting at my morning meeting I don't know why I haven't you think this

Merlinout of the self-awareness I know never so what uh what was the situation there well I had to go to

Maxthe bathroom and I held it in and then I went to the bathroom later was it a commodeous bathroom

Merlinor did you just kind of like you just took what you could get? No, I just waited until I came to the office. You held it? Yeah. Dr. Don, you're a doctor. Is it safe to hold your leavings while you're on a bridge? I'm not that kind of doctor, Merlin. Well, I don't know. You've got a lot of opinions.

MaxNo, I think it's a long-term.

MerlinI'm just going to ask Lil Frank. No, it's safe.

MaxI've decided it's safe.

MerlinCouldn't you get like a sepsis? What about a fistula? Could you get a fistula?

MaxI bet you get a fistula. Do you ever lose your window? Yeah, you could lose your window. Alex is right. you can lose your window. Sometimes it's like a sneeze. Sometimes it goes back in. Oh, absolutely. Merlin, what's a fistula? Should I know?

MerlinOh, Dr. Don, would you like to tell, you're a doctor, would you like to tell Alex what a fistula is? Don't Google it.

AlexWell, too late now. Loading, loading, loading.

MerlinAlex, what's a fistula?

AlexWhat is a fistula? According to inflammatory... Boweldisease.net. A fistula is an abdominal connection between an organ and another structure. A structure? Okay. Fischules develop when an organ becomes inflamed or injured. There are very common complication of inflammatory bowel disease, IBD, occurring more frequently in Crohn's disease than ulcerative colitis. I know what this is. I can't say it. Ulcerative colitis. We call it UC ulcerative colitis. Yes.

It's the song that Hank Green made, his bowel problem. There's no pictures. Yeah, yeah. He did a very good song about it. That's how I learned.

MerlinAll of us bow boys got to get together. I'm telling you, me and Griff and Hank, we could get together. We could do a hell of a thing.

AlexDefinitely, definitely. You get anorectal.

MerlinThere's the anorectal anatomy you can see. I think you can get a hole through your tummy.

AlexOh, this looks like. So is this when the fecal maybe not poop, maybe poop, maybe not poop goes out of the stomach into the rest of the body?

MerlinI think it wants to escape. You know, I want to break free type situation. Don't hold your leavings on a bridge.

MaxLet's see what's next. I can talk about the Wolfrey Library. Yeah. So I haven't addressed this on the main show yet, but there's this thing called Wolfrey Library, and it's like a little, what is it? It looks like a little house with a glass window on it. Maybe, what, like two feet by two feet or something like that? And it just holds books.

MerlinBasically, it's a bookshelf that looks like – it's two bookshelves that look like a house a lot of the time.

MaxYeah, it's cute. It looks like a giant birdhouse or something. And you can – so Little Free Library is a nonprofit, and they provide neighborhood spots where you can sort of – it's like take a penny, leave a penny, but it's like take a book, leave a book. And I find them completely delightful. I see them a lot in Chicago in like – I would say like – I would see them like up north.

AlexYeah, there's a bunch of – in Andersonville. It's a very Andersonville type of thing.

MaxI see them in Lincoln Square. Lincoln Square has got a lot of community gardens and little free libraries and things like that. And I've always wanted one. I always thought they were the coolest thing in the world, and there are none in my neighborhood. So I finally achieved my dream after doing sufficient paperwork with the city to add a little planter. You know how people put those planters outside their house? I do. It's so fucking hard to have one of those planters. You have no idea.

AlexI know. Kitty told me about it. And I was like, wow, I can't believe it turned out freaking

Maxthe law. It's crazy. It's crazy. It was really challenging to do. But I made a little planter because I just needed a place to put the little free library. And so I built the planter, did all the paperwork and all that. And now I have a little free library outside my house. And I put a lot of effort into curating, into getting books. And I go out every day and put new books in. And there's been lots of drama. So one time I came out and all the books were gone. and I'm surprised it's only happened once. It's happened a couple of times. I mean, it has been emptied a few times,

but there was only once where I'm like, based on the timeline, I'm like pretty sure someone took them all. I see. There's been other times when I could at least believe that maybe it was just a busy day. Who does that? Who goes to a little free library and steals all the books? People who are very, people who are desperate and they go take them and they sell them to a used bookstore. And it's hard for me to be too mad about that because.

MerlinI figured it was a form of sabotage.

MaxI don't think so. it was oh you don't think it's youth no my friend tanner owns uncharted books here in chicago and i

Alexchatted with him about it really oh no different tanner okay never mind yeah okay not it's like

Maxhe's got a lot of going on yeah no not this is this is this is different this is bookstore tanner not design museum tanner so uh uh anyhow uh yeah so tanner told me occasionally he will um he will help because he knows the people in the neighborhood around the bookstore and he thinks he'll see guys come in his used book sort of hawkers, and they'll have things that were clearly taken out of a little free library that he knew right now. Anyhow, so it does happen. Listen, I can't be too mad about it, because the point of doing this is to help people out

and brighten their day, and if someone was hungry and selling those books got them through the day or got them a meal, what am I going to be like? They took my books. No, no.

AlexYeah, you made their day, really. That makes me feel a lot better about people.

MaxYeah, so I think that's my theory of what happened.

MerlinYou should start a little bank. you could just you could just put little bits of money in there I was actually just thinking

Alexwhat if Tanner like sets aside those books and then the people who want to contribute to like a little free library fund like goes and rebuys those book like the good one I don't know I kind of like the Amish ATM

MerlinI think you just put some signals out there

Maxoh boy so one time what happened was all the books got got taken and when I went out the next morning all the books were gone and there was a bunch of crazy Christian stuff in there of like So there's like so there was a Bible but then there were also like you know that I don't know if you guys know anything about Christian books But there's like a whole world of like secondary literature like Christian secondary literature So they were like there were like all these like books of like the lesson of this apostle or something It's like, you know, they look like Barnes & Noble books, but they're just they're Christian. It's like bizarro world, right?

And so I thought maybe someone in the neighborhood didn't like all the like Marxist like theory books that I was They didn't like all my like critical theory books that I was putting out there what manifesto is this yeah they didn't like my like horkheimer and adorno and they were like i'm

Alexgonna teach him a lesson oh my god and they don't know what that book is max so but then

Maxbut then double triple turns out it turns out that the poop was good because i met i later met the lady in the neighborhood who i i later met the christian lady in the neighborhood and what what shirt were you wearing max oh did i tell this story yes tell it again did i win on the after show I'm not sure. Oh, Jesus.

MerlinBut Lady in the Stroller came by, la, la, la.

MaxAnd what shirt did you have on? Yeah, I was wearing my Destroy Fox News hoodie with the Fox News logo on it, but it says Destroy Fox News. And we had a very cordial conversation, and she was loading up that library with Christian books. And she was newly moved to Chicago and all of that. She was actually very nice. And upon meeting her, I have ruled her out as a suspect. I don't think she's black love.

Alexdo you

MerlinI looked on deviant art and I cannot find is black glove the name of the sexy character I can't find any deviant art on the AI gang

Alexoh no nobody make it please nobody make it that's why I wanted people to read this book

Maxbecause it is not a thing it's like not a thing there is no fan culture for that no one's horny for this the same way that they're horny for the animorphs

Alexare any of you familiar with the left behind series well franchise

MaxI had an awful student activities director in high school who suspended me who had the left and she was very Christian and she had the left behind series on her bookshelf and I'll never forget being in a meeting with her where she was chastising me for something trivial and getting me in trouble and I looked over her shoulder and there was the left behind series and I was like I

Speaker Ahate this lady it sure is a series I think I think my in-laws have it so yeah I'm isn't that the one

Maxwhere all the, what is it? There's something bad happens to the Jews, but all the good Christians ascend to heaven and they leave their gold fillings and their clothing behind.

AlexYes, it's the rapture. What happens to the Jews exactly? Well, I didn't get that far. They all go into service jobs. Well, that's the thing. There's the Jews. Oh, God. There are Jewish characters. There are Muslim characters. And then just those God-starred atheists. Oh, and they're Catholics too, actually. Like bad Catholics? Yeah, no, no, no, because only evangelical Christians have. Oh, yeah.

MerlinThat's the funny thing about the evangelicals is in some ways they the Jews are super important to their plan. One reason they're so horny for the Jews is it's all about Jerusalem. There's all kinds of Jerusalem stuff that has to happen before the rapture. And that's why all the televangelists are so so Jew heavy. I know because they need that to happen in order for the rapture to come. Plus, who doesn't like a pastrami?

AlexThere's an important part of this that I don't think even you guys know. these were like hard sci-fi books and by hard sci-fi i mean like hard difficult something well it was in like they they created these like crazy scientific like christian concoctions to like detect who was an angel who was a demon okay dig dug max do you have any more topics boy do i oh yep topic oh i'm sorry for the

MaxThe Little Free Library, listen, I don't exactly know how to incorporate the Little Free Library into the Dubai Friday universe, but I do think it's going to be the source of future stories, and I am actively seeking donations for the library. What I've been doing is hitting up all the used bookstores in Chicago and trying to find cool stuff to put in there. But if you are listening to this and maybe you have some extra books, don't chin me your shit. Listen, here's the challenge I would give to our listeners.

MerlinIt's like food. Max, it's like food donation. Don't give me a dented can of corn. Give me something I can use.

MaxRight?

MerlinDon't just give me the hominy grits you didn't eat. Give me something good. Do not donate your old socks with the holes in them. Give me a good sweater.

MaxAnd the challenge I would give people, my imagined audience for the Little Free Library are maybe like a kid who's coming home from school and they're going to open up this library and they're going to discover a book that they wouldn't otherwise find that would open up their mind to like something cool.

MerlinLike involving like an athletic scientist.

MaxAbsolutely.

MerlinLike a black glove.

MaxAbsolutely. And I can trace back in my life to those moments when I had a cool teacher who recommended a book to me or I found something at the library or an older kid was like, hey, check this out. 100%. And I could like draw a path back to my life of like that book got me interested in this idea or just changed my life. And I think every nerd has some, Dr. Don, do you have something like that? Well, yeah, so I was really identifying with Merlin

Speaker Athe last time you guys talked about this because Encyclopedia Brown, that was my thing, right? I just love those books.

MerlinYou couldn't put the baby on the car if you've been driving for three hours.

Speaker AExactly. You are Encyclopedia Brown.

MaxAnd every week is the mystery of who pooped in the salad.

Speaker AThe one that I remember, Merlin, and see if you remember this one, is that he could drink the hot sauce because he had ice in his mouth.

MerlinDo you remember that one? I don't think that works. What? Okay. I'm the microbiologist, but there'd be like a third of them kind of make sense. And then just a whole bunch of them just didn't make sense.

Speaker AWell, yes. And I like to remember the good ones. But yes. Was it physically hot sauce? Was it like a gravy that was scalding hot? No, it was a contest. That would be a hell of a contest. The mystery of the scalding gravy. Yeah. Go.

MaxOh, this is so unpleasant. I'm getting ice in my mouth. Presented by the Windjammer Cafe Nice pull Oh dear Anyway I think a lot of nerds Have this thing They have that book Where it's like It all goes back to that book That was the book that changed it for me So if you have that book in your life Find a copy of it on Amazon

New and used Go to your Even better Go to your local bookstore And send it to me The address here is 1917 North Elston Chicago, Illinois 60642 and you can just put Max Temkin, like, Little Free Library or Dubai Friday or something like that. And it's greatly appreciated, and I will put it in the library. I've been doing some tweets where I just post pictures of the books in the library, and, you know, it's kind of fun to think about, like, I don't know why it just, like, thrills me so much, but, like, the idea is, like, I'm just, like, I love, like, you just put these books out into the world,

and the next time I come by, someone took it, and it just makes me, it gives me, like, a little thrill every time. Is that weird? No.

MerlinNo. It's nice. It's nice. Well, first of all, you do love a project, but I think you also like the idea of helping people. I think you do, and sometimes in a kind of keening way. But you do. You're desperate to help people in a good way. Alex, do you have anything you want to promote this week?

Come on. You've got to have something.

AlexOh, yeah. Everyone should add me on Goodreads. Oh, add her on Goodreads. Yeah, that's the last place that makes me happy on the internet. Instagram's fine, I guess.

MaxCould you talk about it? So I technically have a Goodreads account, and what I use it for is harvesting the highlighted quotes from my Kindle books.

Alexoh I didn't even know you could do that

Maxyeah so when you do a highlight on your Kindle the highlighted text appears in Goodreads and then you can copy and paste it into your favorite text editor so it's like that's the only thing I use it for is like every so often I go on and I look at all the highlights I have and I'm like ooh a bountiful harvest I think you can also download that somehow I don't remember how but I feel like you can now Merlin Alex told me that you have I have to be careful here. Alex said that you have some tools

and techniques for let's say using the Kindle books in ways that are more productive than I currently am.

MerlinArguably the ugliest application ever made is called Calibre. C-A-L-I-B-R-E. Calibre is nominally an e-book management application. It's an open source app and it's really a hell of a thing. if you've never seen what it looks like. And what you do is you point that out of a folder, and it converts books to formats. Like, let's say you have something, I believe you can do stuff like, say, go PDF to EPUB or go .txt to HTML or whatever, and you define rules for how you want the formatting to work.

And it is believed that that is an application that can convert, I don't know, .azws. I don't know what they're called, but I believe you can convert book formats for your own archival purposes, I believe, using Calibre.

MaxAnd would that take the, let's say that there was some sort of thing on the book to prohibit that from happening,

Merlinsome sort of digital rights management technology? Yeah, sort of like for metaphorical reasons, you call it some kind of a locking mechanism. Right. It is believed that this can help with that, I believe, but I'm not sure. Okay. I'm not sure. It is definitely a very ugly app. But no, to be honest, It's mostly what I used it for was the most basic thing was which when I would get a totally legal EPUB from somewhere, it can manage that. It does all the metadata and it can communicate with your Kindle device.

AlexOh, oh, oh my goodness. Well, if you could, can't, can you get for obviously just only legal reason? Can you get Mobi files on a computer?

MaxHow do you do that? Now let's say I'm Dr. Don's student. Oh my God. Dr. Don assigns me his own textbook. What does that textbook run for, Dr. Don? I don't actually teach classes, so I don't have a textbook. Oh, I don't know how microbiology works.

MerlinI'm an extension professor.

MaxYeah, there you go. Merlin knows extension. Okay. All right. Well, let's say I'm in the microbiology department at Rutgers, and I get assigned a textbook by Dr. Don. It's going to run me $285. I was going to say $285. Oh, my God.

Speaker ATextbooks are very expensive.

MaxYeah. Yeah. There is a racket, right, of professors. I've had this where my law school professors assign their own books. They get a cut. Yeah. It's very annoying. But let's say I wanted to, let's say, acquire that textbook by other means. You're telling me I could use this program to put Dr. Don's textbook on my Kindle application.

MerlinI'm not telling you anything. All I'm saying is it's a real unattractive app that does stuff. Okay. That's my highest recommendation.

Speaker AYou know, the book that you should get, Max, is the one that I recommended earlier in the show, Food Safety Culture by Frank Giannis, so that you can create. Oh, Frank, he's back. Downtown Frank Giannis.

MaxYeah.

Speaker AOkay.

MaxThat should be the title. That's our title.

AlexFood Safety Culture.

MaxWhat can you tell me? Is it really called Food Safety Culture? It's really called Food Safety Culture.

Speaker AThat's a good title. Yeah. I've got some links for Alex for the show notes.

MaxIs it? Can I read it? Is it?

Speaker AOh, it's written at a level that you should have no problem understanding.

MaxOkay. I am actually very interested in this. All right, Dr. Don, let me do our Friday topic. Topic. Topic. Dr. Don, as you know, our listeners are soon to be celebrating the holiday of Thanksgiving. And Thanksgiving is a time when I think a lot about food safety because you're preparing food. You've got a wide variety of foods. You've got the raw turkey. You've got your stuffing and all of that. And you're feeding a big number of people, and everything's kind of intermingling. You've got sociopaths out there who are putting the stuffing in the raw turkey.

Could you walk us through some of the most important Thanksgiving home kitchen? What do people need to know to not kill their guests?

Speaker AYeah, so there's a couple of points. One, of course, anytime you're preparing raw meat and you've got vegetables around, You'd want to avoid cross-contamination, right? So be careful about what cutting board you use to put the turkey on or whatever.

MaxI have heard that turkey—I don't—tell me if I'm wrong about this, but I've heard maybe from other food things that I've read that turkeys can actually be more dangerous than other kinds of raw meat.

Speaker AI don't think that they're necessarily more dangerous, but they are bigger, and so you have to—if you're going to cook it, you have to account for that weight and give yourself enough time.

MaxNo, so I just mean in terms of the decontamination procedure afterwards.

Speaker AI don't think that there's anything more dangerous about turkey than other poultry. I haven't seen anything about that.

MerlinI always heard a lot of chatter about don't put your stuffing in the cavity. You've got to be real careful about that. I don't know. Is that a disabused myth thing?

Speaker ANo, that's a real thing because the cavity is going to be in the middle of the bird, so it's going to be the coldest part. Density. Yeah, if you make that stuffing with a raw egg or something, will the egg potentially be contaminated? You're telling me I really shouldn't eat raw eggs. I mean, I know I shouldn't eat them, but should I really not eat them? The risk is low. It's about three in 10,000. So you could eat a raw egg a day for your whole life. I like those odds.

MaxIt's not that bad.

MerlinBut if you want to make a Caesar salad and you have a farm egg.

MaxWhat's going to happen to me if I am that three in 10,000?

MerlinYou take it out of the cardboard, it says farm egg. You crack it open and you eat it on the spot. You've got a three in 10,000 chance that it's going to be a bad boy.

MaxFarm egg. what's going to happen to me if I do eat the rye and I get sick

Speaker Aif it's salmonella and it probably will be you'll get salmonellosis does that give you the trots it could just be diarrheal illness that will resolve in a few days or it could be systemic and it could get in your bloodstream and you could have to go to the hospital and you might die not that everybody dies but there is a certain number of people every year in this country that die from salmonella probably I'll just get diarrhea though right you're young you're healthy

Maxdon't need a rye on a bridge that's number one You're saying I can have a little cookie dough.

Speaker AYes, but the other thing you have to realize with cookie dough is that we now know that the flour in cookie dough is also potentially risky.

MaxWhat?

Speaker ACome on. Why? I'm sorry, guys. I'm really sorry.

AlexWhat do you mean by the flour in cookie dough? Is it all raw flour?

MerlinAlex pops up when she hears concerns about flour. So the basis of every single thing that I kind of eat.

Speaker AWell, as long as it's cooked, it's probably okay, right?

MaxDr. Brown, we keep our flour in a damp, open container that sits in the sunlight, and I've had it for about eight or nine years.

MerlinWe keep it down. We keep it in a sieve down in the root cellar.

MaxIs that the right conditions? Yes.

Speaker AIt's perfect.

MaxHow much clumping is appropriate? It's perfect. No, you brush that off.

Speaker AJust brush it off.

MerlinThat's like a pudding skin. You just peel it off. Just peel it off. It's like a separate tree. If your flower clumps and has a skin, that indicates freshness.

AlexOh, boy. Dick, Doug, I feel like we should get to our... Oh, fine. I'm sorry. I know.

MaxWe knew this was going to happen, but I'm sorry.

Speaker AWe're very deep in the stack. We can't get to the challenge yet. Okay, okay.

MaxWhat's wrong with flower?

Speaker AYeah, please. I actually want to know what the deal is with the flour. I'm sorry. Yes, and I do want to get back to the turkey, but the flour. So there have been outbreaks of E. coli and salmonella linked to raw flour. Oh, no. Again, it's a low probability event. I can tell you that I am working with a famous flour company that you would recognize to help them do a risk assessment to exactly figure out what the risk is. Now, the good thing, one of the turns outs with flour that's kind of interesting is a lot of foods that support the growth of microorganisms,

the longer you keep them, the higher the microbial population goes. Because microorganisms don't grow in flour, the longer you keep the flour, the lower the levels of microorganisms get. And they think that maybe at least one of the outbreaks was where they had wheat that was in one of these silos that they milled very quickly and they got it out into the market very quickly. And, of course, wheat comes from the field. There's animals out in the field. There's pooping that happens out in the field. The farmer with the diarrhea. The farmer or the goose or the cow. What are you saying?

MerlinIt's like a Nicaraguan white-gauge cigar. You give it a few months to kind of mellow out. Exactly. Let the toxins in the skin release a little bit.

AlexSo there are 62 days until Christmas. How long do I need to wait until I can start eating my raw cookie dough?

Speaker AOh, so now this is cool. So we've been actually doing some research on this in my lab, And we actually have a procedure where you take the flour and you just heat it in the oven for a certain amount of time. And then you know that you're going to get a certain reduction in the concentration of microorganisms. So if you want to make raw flour. Sous-vide your flour. Sous-vide flour challenge.

Not sous-vide, just in your regular oven. But yes. You could also sous-vide it. That would also work.

MaxThat's not a molecular gastronomy project. Does it affect the baking properties of the flour in any way?

Speaker AIt might, but if Alex is all about the raw dough, she's not going to bake it. Oh, fair enough.

MaxThere's no rising involved. So what do you recommend? Right, because you're only doing this if you're not baking it anyway. Oh, okay, I'm on board. So yeah, tell us the procedure.

Speaker ASo there's a YouTube video out there, which I thought was complete bullshit, and so I had one of my students investigate it, and it turns out if you follow the directions in the video, and I'm going to go from memory here that I might be wrong, but we'll fix this in post, right? Yep. 350 for five minutes should do it.

MaxWe'll get you in on the phone to do the ADR it in. It'll be like, cook it for 400 degrees for a power.

Merlin15 minutes. I didn't say the deadly thing. Do the good thing. 375 for 15 minutes. Don't do the deadly way. Hi, I'm Dr. Don.

MaxNow I give you permission to bake the flour.

MerlinNo one cares about me until I put on the baker's hat.

MaxOh, boy. All right, and then let's close out the turkey talk as well.

Speaker ASo one really important thing with any raw meats, don't wash them in the sink first, right?

MerlinTell us why. Why is it bad to wash things with Dawn? Because you get the splatter. Splatter.

Speaker ASo two things. Dish soap is designed for washing dishes. Don't put it on food, okay? Rule number one. Number two, even if you don't use dish soap, don't wash – because what that will do is it will spread the contamination from the surface of the bird around your kitchen.

MaxIt splatters. Yeah, for sure. Absolutely.

Speaker AYou ever watch a toilet flush? Yeah.

MerlinYeah, all the time. I'd like to make sure everybody's done. Everybody done here? It's a good host to make sure everybody leaves the party on time.

MaxNow, I've heard after I – so after I handle poultry, you know, we have, like, wooden countertops and things like that.

MerlinThat's a euphemism.

MaxSo I try to handle –

MerlinHoney, honey, you can go to the grocery store. I need to do some poultry.

MaxWell, I guess Merlin thinks food safety is a joke. Well, it's all one big joke to Merlin, I guess. I'm sorry I'm late. So, wow. I guess it's all just a big joke to you, Merlin. Until someone gets sick, huh? Until you get salmon on. I'm taking lives. I'm taking lives. So what I've heard, so I try not to, you don't want to get the poultry on the wood, right? You prefer to work with that on a plastic. And then when I clean, I will... You don't handle poultry on the wood. You don't. It's all one big joke to you. Yeah, don't squeeze the chicken neck.

Wow, real mature. Real mature. Now what I've heard is you get a little diluted bleach spray to do your fine soap and water. And then you finish with the diluted bleach spray. It can't finish without the water.

Is this humorous to you, Merlin? It's not funny. This is taking lives. Anyway, the actual scientific information is coming. Our listeners are going to get sick. What? Our listeners are going to get sick, and they're going to be diarrhea-ing in the field. and just remember it's all one big joke to Alex and Harlan. They're just laughing away over here. And guess who was trying to help you was Max.

AlexOkay.

Speaker ASplatter. So yes, don't use wooden cutting boards for anything other than maybe cutting bread. We have wooden cutting boards in our house. We use them for that.

MerlinOh no! Max, you and I both have the fancy boy wooden cutting board.

MaxYeah, so I have the, what is that?

MerlinYeah, the thing. We put the mystery oil on. Yeah, the boost block.

Speaker AWell, don't use that for meat.

MaxFor raw meat.

Speaker AFor raw meat, right. Vegetables, washed vegetables? Vegetables probably okay. Okay. Carving? Carving meat?

MerlinYeah, I guess.

Speaker AHow do you— That's low risk, right? Yeah, it's low risk because it's cooked, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I worry about being able to clean it. So the thing that people are worried about with wood is that because it has pores that things can soak down in, including bacteria. And I suppose, you know, if you get some, you know, if you have cooked meat and some of the contents are sort of soaked down into the pores, it's hard to clean. But, I mean, the research is—

MaxFirst of all, turns out, number one, I've heard that the wood has some natural antimicrobial properties possibly.

Speaker AWell, yeah. So a good friend of mine, dearly departed, Dean Cliver, did some research on wooden cutting boards that showed that— Again, turns out, we used to say don't use wooden cutting boards. Dean did some research that showed that, in fact, wooden cutting boards, maybe because of the antimicrobials in the wood, will actually have a positive effect. I kill bacteria. But there are other people who disagree, and so the science is mixed.

MaxNow, if I really get in there with soap and water afterwards, if I really get in there, you're telling me the meat juice is going somewhere where the soap and water can't go?

Speaker AWell, so this is a really nice segue to hand washing, okay, which is also soap and water. Remember that washing is not, it's not like cooking. It only gives you a little bit of a reduction. Wait, what?

Oh, yeah.

MaxUh-oh.

Speaker AYeah. Washing's not perfect. It's not magic. Washing your hands is not magic.

MaxOkay. Very uncomfortable right now.

AlexIs that going to be fine? Everything's fine.

MaxOkay. Is this big Purell talk? Is this going to end with you have to Purell afterwards?

MerlinYou've got to wash and Purell. They're different things. They're different things. Thank you, Marilyn. Yeah, I think we might have mentioned handwashing once before. Handwashing might have come up briefly once.

MaxSo I haven't even touched on that subject yet this week.

MerlinWe're 79 times. It's an ongoing thing.

MaxSo for the turkey, I'm sorry, let me just review. Raw turkey on the plastic cutting board, soap and water. When you're done, you hit the whole work surface. Anywhere where there might have been some splatter, you're going to want to do the diluted bleach just after the soap and water to really get in there.

Speaker AAnd if you are lucky enough to have an automatic dishwasher, That's where we put our plastic cutting boards, right, so that they go through the sanitize cycle and no automatic dishwasher. But, yeah, if you don't have that, then boiling water or bleach solution would work.

MaxWhat's the solution? What is the right solution there? Do you know?

Speaker AThis is why Ann Landers never published any recipes in her column, because she would always get the numbers wrong. Can I provide a link for show notes?

MaxSure, yeah.

Speaker AOf course. We'll send it in, yeah.

MaxWe do it by weight, and we have a little spray bottle of diluted bleach basically for raw poultry or things that I'm especially worried about. And if you follow the directions on the bleach bottle, which there should be. Now you spray that on the bird before you cook it.

Speaker AAfter you wash it with Dawn, right?

MaxGot it. All right, we'll put that all in the show notes.

AlexOkay.

MaxOkay.

AlexDig dug, challenge. Happy Thanksgiving. God, God, please challenge.

MerlinAll right, here's the deal, everybody.

MaxListen, this program you're listening to, you're probably thinking, you're probably thinking, this program, I can't believe how good it is. What am I paying for this? $20 an episode, $30 an episode? Well, in fact, I would remind you that you are getting this completely for free, and there's no ads. We're not selling you, oh man, what's that? What is that? Isn't there some crazy life insurance thing on Pod Save America now that they're constantly hawking?

MerlinWe're not selling you a job site. We're not selling you antimicrobial underwear, which can be real nice.

MaxWe're just selling you pure, unadulterated. Hello bean pillows. We're not selling you those. We're not selling you anything. Oh, Cash App? Yeah. Are we using the other apps? We're not using them. We're not selling you the all-new Toyota Camry.

Right or love.

MerlinIt's what makes a Subaru a Subaru.

MaxRight, Alex? We don't have an interview with the good engineers at the Ford Motor Company.

MerlinOh, we can take a little break to talk about how you hire better. Hire now. Oh, it's in combination with our Gimlet Media Lab advertising lab.

Speaker A100 employees, 100 employees.

MaxWell, here's in fact how Dubai Friday works is you guys have money and we want your money. So you can go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com. You can join our Patreon for $5 a month. And in addition to supporting our show and keeping it ad free, you will also get the special after show. And this is where we plan out the next week's challenge. And it's kind of a whole second episode. I think Dr. Don, time permitting, Dr. Don will join us for some or all of the after show. Dr. Don is looking at his watch and he looks concerned. No, no, no, not concerned at all. Oh, good. Okay, so Dr. Don will join us for the after show.

MerlinIf I knew everything Dr. Don knew, I would look concerned all the fucking time. I wouldn't be drinking that airplane coffee, that's for sure. I sure wouldn't be touching that watch. Thank God.

MaxYeah, and I think we talked about a bunch of different challenges, and we're going to do some of them in the after show. That's the plan. Okay. Oh, and what do you have to promote, Merlin? No, I'm just kidding. Go ahead. No, I mean, just, well, you know, I like to stay busy, you know. What about your ungainly X-Man meetup?

MerlinOh, the ungainly X-Man, it's an occasional thing. We painted our bedroom this weekend. That was live on Twitch. I listened to a bunch of heavyweight with my daughter. You can listen to that on Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Tomorrow afternoon is Thursday. I'll be assembling a table. You can stream it live on dotstisch.de slash Viser Yunga.

Friday is my daughter's 11th birthday party and that's a members only feed on TeenageHeadream.horse.

MaxMerlin, you're going to be I-Merlin. Yeah, look at my hat.

MerlinYou're on TV except it's on the internet. Take me seriously.

MaxAnyway, that ungainly X-Man meetup that's at Two Cats Comics.

MerlinYeah, 320 West Portal Avenue currently unscheduled. But go there anyway. Get yourself, buy yourself a Superman.

MaxGet yourself a Kirby Harley Quinn. What is that? Is that every other month?

MerlinNo, three or four times a year. But yeah, they always have. You could go and buy a copy of the new cover of Mad Love. They've reissued Mad Love, a very good comic. There's many good things out there right now. Many, many good comics. We got to move on to the bathroom boys. All right. Thank you. And thank you to everybody who continues.

MaxDoes anyone else have anything to promote?

MerlinI want to say briefly, thank you to everyone who continues to give us their fucking money. You guys don't get thanked enough and you do it every month and we're really grateful for it. So thank you to the people I'm not grateful. I feel like Max is not great

Speaker AI feel like it's literally the least they could do for you contact him and thank him. You will be banned who we banned from the show

MaxAnyone any final last call anything to promote dr. Don you want to hawk your textbook? I don't have a textbook $2.99 or free if you use Merlin's a piracy book piracy app bathroom boys Okay, so dr. Don We've got two hard plastic cases in front of us, and they're shrink-wrapped, and it's got some science stuff. We've got some batteries in here. Merlin's got his two. Merlin's got one. What are we looking at? Can I open this? Yeah, let's open it up. What is this?

Speaker ASo this is from a company called Glow Germ, and this is a company that a number of years ago came up with a really innovative idea. And the idea was that they would.

MerlinThat's a lot of plastic handling.

Speaker AThe idea was, and this is a lifetime supply that we have here.

MerlinSo, Max, this could be.

MaxNot if you really enjoy it.

MerlinMax, this could be part of your whole food safety culture program for carbs.

Speaker ALike, everybody can use this. Oh, random.

MaxWe should do a system of random inspections. Like, I'll do it like. Everybody stand up, hands in the air. Put your hands up. Glow germ coming around. Coming through with the glow germ. Asses and elbows.

Speaker Awho's the dirty boy and and so the idea is is that these are we're gonna do like the we're gonna do

Maxlike the enron thing but instead of firing the bottom 30 of our sales floor every quarter we're gonna fire the 30 of people with the dirtiest hands every quarter you give that two years boy are we gonna see some handsome food safety culture happening in this office furlough the dirty boys

Speaker Aum and so this is this is a simulated germs it's not actual germs it looks so much like something

MerlinMcCormick would make that you'd keep in your spice rack Don't put this in your spice rack No, this is when you buy MSG, this is like what it looks like

MaxI got some sort of powder on me Is that the germ? It's the simulated germ It literally says on the bottles, powder based Simulated germs This is so on brand for us, powder based simulated germs

Speaker AI'm getting ahead here And so it's kind of like, and Merlin, you're probably Old enough to remember this, do you remember the brushing Your teeth thing where they gave You the tablets in it The plaque tablets of shame, let's find out who's poor

Merlinand not cared for well.

Speaker AYeah.

MerlinAnd yeah, so you give me this little pinkish red pill. You chew it up and we'd see who has dirty teeth. Yeah, this is the same for hands.

Speaker AOh, I'm putting it all over me.

MerlinOh, I'm so dirty.

Speaker ASo the idea is that you put this on. Because, I mean, we did a challenge.

MerlinOh, boy, that really does light up with the light, doesn't it? Oh, Jiminy Christmas. This is incredible.

Speaker ASo the kit comes with simulated germs, but it also comes with a little light. and the light basically. Batteries included. Good work,

MaxGlow Germ Corporation. Batteries included. You'll love to see it. God, it's everywhere. That'll really ruin

Merlina Christmas morning, you know?

MaxYou get the new, you're excited, you get the new Glow Germ. Daddy's pants are shining. You're waiting all year to get the new Glow Germ. It finally, Christmas morning, it finally shows up and there's no batteries.

Speaker ASo the idea is that you, so we did a challenge with bacteria. You guys may remember that. And that challenge took a long time because you have to culture the bacteria for multiple days. Well, you could do that with a hand-washing challenge, but then nobody would be able to know whether they wash their hands well or not until days later. And so the idea of the glow germ powder is the powders are like they're simulated germs. Holy Jesus. Oh, no.

AlexOh, no. Oh, no. Don't look at me.

MerlinDon't get it on your chair. Don't get it on your chair. It's on my pants. It's on my pants. Max is very contaminated.

Speaker AOh, hot pants, Merlin. Hot pants.

MerlinOh, no. My pants are super hot right now. This is fully a disaster. Oh, my God. Oh, no. It's everywhere. I tried using 90% alcohol, 91% alcohol, but I just spread it around more. Oh, God.

Speaker ANow it's on the floor of the studio.

MerlinI really apologize. Everything's glowing. Everything's glowing. Oh, no.

MaxNo. Wait a minute. I've got to take a picture of this. No. No. This is not the kind of... I know what I'm going to be doing the rest of the day. to food safety culture that I think we can tolerate in this workplace.

AlexOh, God. All right, Dr. Don, can you hand me some germs?

MerlinDo I have a lot of germs?

AlexI'm so upset. Thank you.

MerlinDr. Don, is the idea that you slather this all over your hands and then wash to see how good your technique is? Exactly.

Speaker AYou nailed it, Merlin. That's exactly right.

MaxDo I have to wash with the glow germ goo, or can I go wash my hands in a sink?

Speaker ASo here's the thing. The glow germ gel is an alternative to the powder, and it's a little bit less messy. As you saw, we opened the powder first, and we made a huge mess. It's kind of everywhere now, and everything's glowing. Oh, come on, Alex. This is for the good of the show.

MaxI'm going to powder myself. I'm powdering myself. So what do I do? I'm going to blast myself.

MerlinIt's like finer than flour.

MaxIt's really fine. A little goes a long way. Yeah, a little goes a long way. Oh, I see. It needs to be opened.

Speaker ANo, no, no, no. No, it doesn't. I mean, that's how we get that mess on the floor.

AlexDr. Tom, the fake germs seem to be encrusted on the bottom of mine, and I can't get the germs.

Speaker AOh, no.

MerlinWell, mine's everywhere, and when we try to get it off, it just spreads more.

Speaker AJust tap a little bit out.

AlexNo, it does.

Speaker AJust tap a little bit. No, no, no. Just unscrew the top and just gently force you. Oh, no.

AlexOh, no. I hate the show.

MaxLook, Dr. Tom, there is a paper in here.

Speaker AOh, okay. Sorry. Anyway, I should have tested this before.

MaxSo, wait. How come mine? Does mine have a battery? No, you had to put it in. Oh, where's the battery? They're in there.

Speaker AI didn't know. Oh, there are.

MaxI'm just going to not pay attention. Alex, I need a little pokey.

AlexI need a utensil.

MerlinYou can stick your fingernail in there and pop it out.

MaxI can't. My fingernails. What the fuck are you talking about, Merlin? You're talking to get the paper boy out? Yeah. Not for me. Oh, Jesus. Oh, God.

MerlinOh, God. No. And now go look at it. It's everywhere. And then it spreads and it smudges. It snudges.

Speaker AIt's all over everything.

MaxOh, God.

AlexThere's a little tab in here that's supposed to help you open. Oh, God. At least do it on the floor so I can vacuum. Oh, no.

MaxSo these aren't actual germs.

Speaker AThese are simulated germs, Max. They're not actual germs. But it could be like the flower. We don't know. I could take some back to my laboratory and test it.

MerlinIt says here on the front except no substitute.

AlexAll right. So, Dr. Don, how much should I have? Just a tiny, a little bit more than that.

MaxDr. Don, do you watch Star Trek at all? I do. Did you watch Voyager, Star Trek Voyager?

Speaker AWe're re-watching it on Netflix right now.

MaxWhat season are you on? Two, I think. Okay, well, you may remember this from the original run, or you'll get to it in season, I believe, four, but remember the episode where Captain Jamie has to battle the macro virus? My hands are a fucking macro.

Speaker AOh, my God. This smells horrible.

MerlinOh, God, it's everywhere. I'm sorry, yeah.

MaxForget the...

MerlinMy chair looks like a bakery cane.

AlexGood old bakery jizz So much flour

Speaker AThe studio will never be the same It's totally fine

MerlinYou're rubbing alcohol everywhere now My mouse is infected

AlexAlright So I just realized Cameron You're gonna have to Our lovely engineer Cameron's gonna have to Open the door for us And then We've set up a microphone to accompany us into the restroom while we wash our hands.

I guess I'm going to, you know what? I'm going to go first. Oh, God.

MaxAlex, we designed the microphone to go across the hallway into the bathroom, but there's someone in there right now. My guess is that they're probably halfway through a clash of clans of war in there. Max, can you hear me? Yeah, we can hear you, Merlin. You're on the speakers.

MerlinWhen the person comes out, could you please be ready to hit them real hard with the light and get a photo?

MaxYou know what would be funny is we should get them with the glow germ.

MerlinAnd do a quick interview on Mike. Ask them how they feel about being the on-air dirty boy or girl. Surprise, you're on air.

MaxYou're on Dubai Friday's Dirty Bathroom Boy of the Week. You just got powdered. This is probably – is this the best bit we've ever done on the show? It's up there.

MerlinSuch a good bit.

MaxThe roving bathroom mic. I think this is a regular feature. we're just all standing around we're covered in powder we're just milling around the studio just waiting to get into the one bathroom that the microphone will reach into do you think you might want to move away from the door so the person can come out with some privacy no you want to do an interview like a man on the street yeah yeah we'll do a little man on the street so what do you think of Mayor Rahm Emanuel how many clash of clans did you do

it's It's a friend of the show and illustrator, Kevin Budnick, is due by Friday's Dirty Bathroom Boy of the Week. What? We're just waiting for you to come out of the bathroom so we can go wash our hands. You'll hear it on this week's episode. Hi, Kevin. Say hi.

MerlinThis is awful. Hey, Dubai Friday.

MaxHi. Hey, Kevin.

MerlinThis is the show?

MaxThis is the show. All right. Come on. We're going to the bathroom. Here we go. Oh, God. All right. Who's washing their hands? Alex, wash your hands. I'll go first. All right. Oh, Dr. John's going to go. I'll go first. If you go first, we're going to learn the correct hand-washing technique from washing you. This is the Dr. Don. This is Kevin who does... Alex. Alex. In, in, in. Let's go. Wash your hands. Let's go. Let's go.

Okay.

MerlinHere we go. This is what Obama must have felt like.

MaxGood tech. All right, Alex. I'm giving Alex good technique. Good technique already. She barely touched the thing. Look, Dr. Don, after the last time you were on the show, we replaced. We undertook a massive renovation, and we replaced with the disposable. We did all from Purell, from your beloved Purell.

Speaker AThere'll be a kickback for me.

MaxGood. Get a little piece on the back end here. Okay, so I always get underneath. Okay, Alex, you have like a pumice of like a thick sludge of soap and water. Oh, well, all the germs are here.

MerlinSo are we sanitizing after this or no? Look at that.

MaxIs she going up to the wrists, or is she just kind of dawdling around in her palms? Disgusting. Is she going up the wrist? Yeah, the sink is filling with water. I think that's an issue with this. I think that's a documented issue. All right, I'm going next. Will you hold the mic for me?

MerlinAll right, here we go. Look at this, first of all. It's just caked. I'm just caked in the powder. Why are you so dirty?

MaxWhat are you doing? It's a simulated germs. Simulated germs. Oh, that's awful. Here we go. I'm going to do a similar technique, the Cox technique, barely touching the handles.

Speaker ABarely touching. Good. Oh, so we're going to need the black.

MaxWe need the black light. We'll go back in the studio, right?

Speaker AWe should put the black light in here, too.

MaxWe should look at the sink. Oh, Jesus. Really doing a first rinse, right? Getting the big stuff off. Now, I want this water as hot as possible. I'm going to kill these germs with the heat, Dr. Dunn. That doesn't work that way. Well, I've already done it, so I'm already scalding myself. Now, check this out. Ready?

Speaker AOnce over. Once in with the soap.

MaxVery good. No washes, no rings. No, I'm clean. You've got to go in clean. You come out clean. Check this out. Oh no! It looks like I might be done soon. No, look at that. Now I'm rolling up further. Good job, good job. I'm just fucking scrubbing in for surgery.

Speaker AGood job, good job.

MaxHere we go, round two, baby.

Speaker AMore soap. So Max is soaping up twice now. I'm just getting started. And he's about to overflow the sink.

MaxYeah, well, there's a drain on the floor. Now look at this. Look at this, all the way up to the wrists. Wow, look at this. Look at this, I'm wrist deep like a surgeon.

AlexRight? Here we go.

MaxGet my final rinse going.

AlexI don't know. I don't know. I don't know if you have it. That's true. I was not able to get on the screen.

MaxOkay, that rinse is complete. Now I'm gonna grab the paper towel. Oh, shuts it off with the paper towel. I'm gonna use that to turn the paper towel into the garbage. Not to be touched again. That's someone else's problem. New paper towel, gonna shake, gonna do a little shake like the TED talk. That TED talk, yep. And now I'm gonna dry, and then final, and then lastly, final stuff of the procedure. Hit it with a little bit of that Dr. Don Purell. And then, and now, here's how I'm gonna go back into the studio, watch this.

AlexAlright, no, no, no, hold on, hold on, hold on.

MaxWait, wait, wait, let's look, let's look, let's look.

AlexYou look like you're ready for something. Okay, we got some there. No, no!

Speaker ACheck the fingernails. Oh no! No, no, no! Check, check. The thumb, the thumb! Oh, the thumb. The cuticles. Oh, oh, oh, oh, look right there, right there. Oh, oh, oh!

AlexOh no. Okay, now Max, turn your hands over. This is the important. Oh my god, it's covered. You've got hot hands.

Speaker AIt's not really covered. It's hot. No, look at that. Look at that spot there. You missed that whole spot.

AlexNo! Dr. John, I was very ashamed of myself. And also, I did not use Perel. So the back of the hands, real bad.

Speaker AWell, the Purell shouldn't affect the power.

AlexOh, okay. So real bad. I'm pretty ashamed.

Speaker APretty bad. Pretty bad. But look at this. And you got under the ring though. That's good. Oh, yeah. Yeah, look at this. Look at this. I could really affect the patient with these hands. Oh, and look at the watch.

MerlinI knew it. I fucking knew.

AlexLook under your watch. Look under your watch. Well, I tried to get it, but it's not.

MaxOh, yeah. That's a disaster.

AlexWait, let's see how bad this one is.

MaxOh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Totally missed the wrist. Alright, here we go. Dr. Noun's up.

Speaker ALet's observe the technique here. Now I've learned from the two of you.

MaxThis is like watching, I can't think of the name of any Olympic athletes, but it's like watching a famous...

Speaker AI'm really not good.

MaxIt's like watching Apollo Ono do a figure skate.

MerlinNo, he's the guy who does the loops.

Speaker ABeautiful. Max, I think you're a better hand washer than me. I think we can agree on that already. I'm really not good at this. Look at this. No, it's... I'm really... Here's the thing. I know it's not very good.

MaxWhat did I do wrong, Dr. Don? Should I have spent more time with this out?

Speaker ASo we'll talk about this back in the studio. Because I do have...

MaxWhat's Merlin doing right now?

Speaker AAlright, Dr. Don, good flicking action. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20. He's doing the full TED Talk.

MaxNow, I will say that I'm probably singularly responsible for global warming on this planet because I do use two paper towels when I wash my hands. I have one to shut everything off. Sometimes I'll use that also to open the door because I don't like to touch the handles and stuff like that. Dr. Dan's a clean thing. Let's see how bad I am. Here we go.

MerlinBetter.

Speaker AI don't think I put as much on.

MaxPretty good. Take the nails.

MerlinTake the nails.

MaxDr. Dan is probably the cleanest of any of us.

Speaker AOh, no, no. See, that's a bad spot. Like, people miss. That's the same spot you missed. Yeah, it is. That's a bad spot. So the back.

MerlinThe heel of the hand.

MaxYeah, Alex, too. Me, too. Look at this. Me, too. So it's the heel of your palm. In all of us, it's like caked and powder. All right, we're going back into the studio now.

MerlinThanks for interrupting my bathroom time, guys. No problem.

AlexAll right.

MaxWell, that's just the fun of working at Cards Against Humanity is at any moment a bunch of people could barge into the bathroom with a microphone.

MerlinMerlin, Merlin, I'm so sorry.

AlexI'm so sorry, Merlin.

MerlinNo, you guys, I thought you would all turn out to be very clean boys, But it sounds like there were some heel problems, some watch problems, some nail problems.

Speaker ADr. Don, tell us what we just saw. So a couple of points. Actually, three points. So number one, hand washing is not perfect, even if you do it well. And we were obviously all of us.

MaxShould we all kill ourselves? What do we do?

Speaker AWell, don't worry. We're doing it slowly. No, we'll just do another episode. So hand washing gives you, at best, about a two log reduction. So two orders of magnitude. So if you have 100 germs on your hands and you wash your hands, you'll have one at the end. If you have 100,000 to start with, you'll have 1,000 at the end, right? And so it's not perfect. Even when people, even when surgeons go in and do a surgical scrub, that's why they do a surgical scrub and then they put on gloves because they don't want to infect the patient.

So hand washing is good. It's a good thing to do. I mean, Merlin, I think about that story that you tell all the time with your daughter. Like the first thing we do when we come into the house, you know, come home from school, we wash our hands. Transitions. Every transition. Every transition, you wash your hands. That's a great practice. But it's not magic. It's not like cooking the turkey that's going to kill all the germs. She's just a fucking kid. I know.

MerlinI can't.

Speaker AI can't. I can't.

MerlinI can't make her perfect. I can't put her in a chamber. I'm no Max Temkin.

MaxCan I come out now, Dad?

MerlinYou're still dirty, honey. You stay in there with you. You're in the dirty girl chamber now. You come out when you're wearing a bag of two.

MaxEvery night we sous vide ourselves. It's a low temperature, but you're in there for a long time.

Speaker A128 for a good medium rare. The other thing I'll say, and Max tried to use really hot water, but hot water doesn't actually do much. It's not hot enough to kill the germs. If it was hot enough to kill the germs, it would scald your hands. Yes, yes. So we actually published a paper, I think we talked about this before, that showed that whether you washed your hands in 60, 80, or 100-degree water, it didn't make any difference in terms of the overall effectiveness. So that's a turns out.

AlexI fight with my family all of the great holidays. I'm like, no, no, it's not going to matter how hot these dishes are unless it is.

MaxNo, different though. In the dishwasher, it does matter because there is the sanitized.

AlexRight, but not just washing things by hand, which is why.

MaxYeah, if you're washing it in the sink. Can I ask you a dishwasher question? Sure. So my dishwasher has a button on it that I have not read the manual for my dishwasher. But my dishwasher has a button on it that says sanitize.

Speaker AYeah.

MaxAnd I assume when you do that, it gets really hot.

Speaker AYeah. What's it do on the other times? So my, and I'm not a plumber, but my understanding is that water temperatures in the house are set at a certain level in your hot water heater so that people don't scald themselves or their babies or whatever, right?

AlexShipping their babies. It's true.

Speaker AYou can scald a baby. But to get the sanitizing effect, okay, which you can't get with the water from your hot water heater, what that dishwasher does is it has its own internal heater and it boosts the temperature of the water, okay? So most of the time, Max, it's just using hot water from the hot water heater. When you put the sanitize button on, it's boosting that temperature.

MaxWhy wouldn't I – maybe if I had something really delicate in there or something like that. Or like maybe if you had like Tupperware or something that you don't want it to –

MerlinYeah, or like those semi-disposable Tupperware-ish things. Let's say you put a deli-tayner in there.

MaxOn other occasions, I probably should be hitting that sanitized button.

Speaker AWell, it depends on what you're putting in the dishwasher. It's a trade-off too, right? The hot water takes energy, and if you don't need it, then that's extra energy that you shouldn't have expended. So what we'll do in my house is mostly it's my wife that pushes the button, and she'll just decide every couple of times. You know, they need a good zapping this time, and she'll push the button.

AlexOh, and it probably sanitizes the inside of the nasty dishwasher, right? Yeah, good point. Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool.

Speaker AAnd then the third point about paper towels is we did some research that was, again, part of that, I think it was part of that same water temperature experiment. But if you still have germs on your hands when you're done washing them and you use a paper towel, some of the germs will go on the paper towel. So just, I mean, I guess that's something else to worry about. I don't know. Just think about that. If your hands were really contaminated, using that paper towel, and this was the other thing, too, is that using the paper towel actually does a better job than those stupid hot air hand dryers. Oh, no, I hate those.

Yeah, I know. We probably all talked about before. Anyway, that's my three points on hand washing.

MaxDoes it matter, the technique that you have, how vigorously or how many times you hit it with the soap or any of that kind of stuff?

Speaker ACertainly, and we have a paper on this as well. The longer you wash, the better. but you reach a point of diminishing returns. And so the recommendation... So after the first hour, it's not... The recommendation is 20 seconds, which is like 15 seconds of lather time. So 20 seconds is good. I mean, my go-to cue is, do my hands feel clean? In other words, if I just had them wrist deep in turkey water or something, I'm going to do a good job until they feel clean.

If they're not that dirty, they don't feel that dirty, I'm not going to be so super careful about it. It just depends on what I – if I got poop on them, yeah, I'm going to try to get the poop off, right? I mean, so it all depends. What if it's the good poop, though?

AlexYeah.

Speaker AI think Merlin really wants to talk about Spotify, Max.

MaxDoes anyone else have any – I have so many questions. Well, I – What about the setup of our – Dr. Don, what about the setup in our bathroom?

Speaker AThe setup The setup Oh my god Just please No Just please The setup in your bathroom is good You have a tiny little Trash can But that one Has a lid That you have to push your foot But there's a giant big trash can And so you can throw your paper towels in there It's good You could go with a touch free faucet But the You know The faucet handles you have are fine It's a nice bathroom But you know Max What we should do So two points

Maxit's a nice bathroom raves dr don't so so two things i'm gonna put that i'm gonna make a little plaque that says that it's a nice bathroom like george washington slept here and i'm gonna make a little plaque and put that in the bathroom i'm honored so who cleans it things i can i can come

Speaker Aback another day and talk but also max we should have you on food safety talk and then you can ask Ben and I all these questions. We should do that, too.

MaxOkay. What about the soap that we selected, the brand of soap? Pretty good?

MerlinOh, my God.

Speaker AWell, so I have done work for the Gojo Corporation. I believe they have good products. They're good scientists. They're good folks. I'm happy that you bought the soap dispensers and the stuff from them.

MaxNow, at my house, I put two Purell dispensers by the doors where I come in. So right when I come in, I hit myself with the Purell. And at the house, I got the new VF formulation that you told us about. That's good, Max. That's good.

MerlinMaybe we onions. Alex, maybe you and I can talk later about a different kind of doctor.

Speaker AIs this a prank? Is this ever going to end?

MerlinJesus flipping crap. Yes. A doctor with a couch that you can clean. I don't really know. I don't really know.

MaxThat's so long. Everyone else should be thinking about how dirty their hands are all the time.

Show notes

Transcript

102. The Bathroom Boys

Show notes

Transcript

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