0:02

A science story.

0:06

the united

0:06

well money right now it's nice

0:09

out loud good enough.

0:10

It was that golden moment.

0:12

Because science was on my side.

0:24

day,

0:24

everyone. Welcome to the historic light

0:26

where we bring you true personal stories

0:29

about science. I'm your host, Erin

0:31

Barker. And this week, we're bringing

0:33

you two of our favorite stories that have aired

0:35

in years past. from

0:37

scientists to Didi Ned Carney and

0:39

a comedian Wyatt Cenac.

0:41

In

0:41

both of these stories we're sharing today, our

0:43

storytellers are nailing the assignment

0:46

getting an a plus or just generally

0:48

overachieving. Our

0:50

first story is from Didi and Ed Carney.

0:52

It was recorded in July twenty

0:54

thirteen at Union Hall in Brooklyn.

0:57

The theme that night was close

0:59

to death.

1:10

Before

1:10

I tell you the incident that

1:12

I'm going to describe today, let

1:14

me tell you little about myself so it would

1:16

help to know why this sort

1:18

of shit happens to me. So if

1:23

you haven't noticed, I'm Indian.

1:26

That's that's part of the explanation. But

1:30

also, you know, being an Indian, you have

1:32

one point five billion people who are

1:34

very willing to replace you. If

1:36

you don't prove your worth and

1:39

so that makes all of us very competitive. Sometimes

1:42

in situations

1:42

where you don't need to be competitive.

1:44

Like, for example, I'll very

1:47

rarely go to the gym, but when I do,

1:49

I'm always, like, on the elliptical looking over

1:51

my shoulder at the level. that the other

1:53

person is on, and then I'll go one level up.

1:56

It helps if they're old and unfit. So that's

1:59

it.

1:59

So this used to

2:02

be

2:02

much worse about ten years ago when I

2:04

was a graduate student, and I

2:06

was fresh off the boat from India. I

2:08

didn't know a whole lot about working

2:11

in a research lab. And I had

2:13

just joined this very competitive lab.

2:17

And I was, you know, I wanted

2:19

to prove a point. I wanted to show everybody

2:21

that, hey, you know, I deserve this.

2:23

I deserve to be part of this lab. And

2:27

this was not easy because there was

2:29

a senior student. His

2:31

name from now on, I will refer to

2:33

him as the fill.

2:35

Phil the was

2:38

quite a bit of competition. He was a

2:40

senior graduate student. He had

2:42

identified a gene,

2:44

a new gene. And he had characterized its

2:46

function. It basically

2:49

means it was a big deal. And

2:51

he had just been interviewed. The week that

2:53

I got accepted into this lab, He

2:56

had just been interviewed by Toledo

2:58

Blade. It was

3:00

Toledo, Ohio. And Toledo

3:02

Blade is a big thing in Toledo, Ohio. Just

3:04

take my word. for it. So

3:06

he was interviewed by the Toledo blade and,

3:09

you know, those

3:12

hill was the talk

3:14

of the town. Everybody at University of Toledo

3:16

was like, oh my god. The fill got into, you

3:18

know. The newspaper I

3:20

wanted to be in the newspaper. I was

3:22

a fresh, you know, graduate student, and I

3:24

didn't know anything, but I still wanted

3:26

to you know, be famous and

3:28

be known. And I was just this

3:30

newbie and everybody was just trying to get me

3:32

out of the way or watching all my shoulder, making sure

3:34

I wasn't, like, electrocuting myself

3:36

or something.

3:38

So one day, I decided

3:40

I'm going to do something. You know? I have to,

3:43

like, you know, start my own project. And

3:45

so I decided I'm going to take the gene that

3:47

fill made and make a mutation

3:50

in it and then see what happens to that gene.

3:52

It's the elliptical all over again. and

3:54

I just, you know, one up. So

3:56

I decided, okay. And and, you know, if

3:59

you tell somebody who has even a year of

4:01

experience working in a genetics lab, Let's

4:03

say, oh, that's easy. Like, you know, take some genetic

4:05

material, run a PCR makeup mutation.

4:08

But to a fresh graduate student, this seemed

4:10

like you know, a big thing.

4:12

Like, it was a big plan. I

4:15

thought I was a genius to have come up with it.

4:17

But I wanted to keep this whole

4:20

thing a secret. So I started working

4:22

after hours, which is like after six.

4:24

Everybody used to be gone and stuff. But I was

4:26

very excited about this project. Now

4:29

when this particular incident happened,

4:31

that was the day that it was a pretty big

4:33

milestone for my experiment.

4:36

I knew I had gotten the mutation, but

4:38

I needed to check it. And in order to check it,

4:40

I had to put it into bacteria. And

4:43

then take those bacteria and grow the mongule.

4:46

Now if the mutation was there,

4:48

the bacteria would grow in colonies on

4:50

the plate the next day. So

4:52

all I needed to do, all that stood between

4:54

me and that mutation was plating

4:57

those things on

4:59

the plate. And

5:01

I was working after hours. It was about

5:03

midnight. I hadn't eaten anything,

5:05

you know. I was excited. And sometimes,

5:08

excitement blends with the hypoglycemia. It

5:12

does. It really does. I mean, in science,

5:14

happens a lot. So,

5:16

you know, I was working and

5:18

I was so excited. I forgot that, you know,

5:20

all I'd had was cereal for breakfast and

5:22

hadn't eaten anything. So

5:25

in order to do this, what you do

5:28

is you have a bunsen burner, make sure it's

5:30

sterile so that the other not

5:32

eBacteria, don't grow on your plate instead of

5:34

eBacteria. And you have

5:36

this beaker of alcohol

5:37

in which you dip the spreader.

5:40

and then you run it through a flame, and

5:42

then you spread your bacteria. Pretty simple.

5:44

Right? Well, I got everything

5:46

started. I chose a nice area. You know,

5:48

put a bun and burn took my beaker,

5:50

what I was hypoglycemic. And

5:53

so instead of dipping the

5:55

glass

5:56

rod

5:56

into the beaker of alcohol and

5:59

flaming it. I framed it

6:01

and then dipped it into the alcohol.

6:06

And just like that, like one

6:08

splinter of glass hit

6:10

that beaker of alcohol and it was a monstrous

6:12

beaker. In hindsight, I don't know why I

6:14

needed such

6:14

a big beaker just to go. But,

6:18

you know,

6:20

I used a big beaker. It was suddenly

6:23

in flames. And

6:25

this big orange flame just

6:28

stood standing in front of me. And you know how there

6:30

is this moment where you are like, I'm

6:32

not a genius.

6:32

I'm an idiot. Say

6:35

that was my moment. And

6:38

it

6:38

was awful. Suddenly, I

6:41

realized, you know, this was midnight. Nobody's

6:43

here. There's a beaker on fire.

6:45

and I realized that I had not chosen a very

6:47

good area to do this because there were

6:49

electrical wires everywhere and

6:52

there was a live gas line And

6:55

there were papers hanging. It was a, you know,

6:57

very old biomedical lab. You have, like,

6:59

papers hanging from everywhere, and

7:01

then this big flame trying to, like, you know,

7:03

light everything up.

7:04

So I you know, in

7:07

if I were not hypoglycemic, maybe

7:11

I would have, like, picked something heavy and know,

7:13

like a glass plate and put it on the beaker and it

7:15

would have been gone. But I

7:17

just couldn't think of anything. And I was so

7:19

hungry that I was thinking of doughnuts

7:21

And I was thinking of the fire,

7:24

and I just didn't know what was going on.

7:26

So and I didn't want to

7:28

die in a beaker fire.

7:29

Who

7:32

wants that? Right? But

7:34

I couldn't just leave the beaker

7:37

on fire. So I went to the phone,

7:39

the lab phone, and I dialed

7:41

the emergency phone. And

7:43

I can't remember what I said. There was like this

7:45

flood of words you

7:47

know, very thick Indian accent, and I was like,

7:49

oh, there's a week here. There's a lot of fire. And

7:51

she said, do you want me to

7:53

call call call code orange? And

7:56

I was, like, oh, I don't know what called audiences.

7:59

I was, like, okay. Fine. And my eyes

8:01

were on the beaker, so I hung up and went to the beaker

8:03

and started, like, moving papers

8:05

away and moving the wires away. I

8:07

tried touching the beaker, which was stupid. I burned my

8:09

fingers. And then I backed off

8:11

because I realized how dangerous this situation

8:13

was and I don't know. It seemed like it must

8:15

have been twenty seconds, but

8:17

it was probably more than that. And

8:19

suddenly, half a dozen firemen.

8:22

dressed in, like, complete

8:23

gear. I

8:25

mean, to somebody from India, they look like

8:27

astronauts. They were

8:29

wearing masks and their hoses and

8:31

stuff. And there's

8:32

a beaker with a fire. And

8:35

I was like, oh my god. And they were like,

8:37

ma'am,

8:37

we need you to get out of the

8:39

way. And so I, you know, I tried to move,

8:41

but I wanted to say it's just a beaker

8:43

fire. And but

8:46

they were trying to ignore me, and I felt pretty

8:48

stupid for having done this. So

8:51

they were like, man, ma'am, you need to get away.

8:53

And what is what are the contents

8:55

of this beaker? And I don't know if you've

8:57

noticed this like a law enforcement spent and people who are in

8:59

control, they use this unnecessarily formal

9:02

terminology. What are the contents of

9:04

the speaker?

9:05

when somebody says that, you forget what's in

9:07

the beaker. And so

9:11

it

9:13

happened to me.

9:15

So I said something which was between

9:18

ethanol and ethyl alcohol. And

9:20

he looked at me stamping and he's

9:22

talking into this radio and he

9:24

goes, there is

9:24

an unidentified chemical in the

9:27

vehicle. And I was

9:29

like, no. No. There is not. I will identify

9:31

it. And at that

9:33

point, they are just like shushing

9:35

me and moving me away. And then

9:37

they wear these thick gloves that they have and

9:39

they pick the beaker up and they take

9:41

it and put it in the middle of the hallway.

9:43

And then they convene and are talking to

9:45

each other what to do about this unidentified

9:47

camera on fire. And

9:50

now that it's in the middle of the hallway,

9:53

it looks like I don't want that to be

9:55

candle.

9:55

because there's

9:58

nothing around it. It's starting to do anything. So

9:59

I'm looking at it, and I'm like,

10:02

okay. I'm okay. No. No.

10:04

I'm fine. And suddenly, I'm like, oh, the

10:06

glass cabinet. That's going to have the glass

10:08

pane. So while these people,

10:10

the officers, are talking, I

10:13

go to the glass cabinet take a

10:15

glass plate and I run and put it on

10:17

the beaker and the fire is gone.

10:20

And the beaker the fire you

10:23

know, the firemen are just like,

10:24

oh, cool. And

10:26

there is this one guy who is

10:29

with them, but he seems, you

10:31

know, like, he's dressed in pajamas.

10:33

And he's like taking notes.

10:35

I assumed it was a safety officer, you know.

10:37

I mean, he's taking notes. He asked me, what's

10:39

your name, ma'am? And I gave him my

10:41

name. He wrote down the name of the lab and

10:43

what were you working on? And so he wrote all

10:45

that down. And

10:46

just as soon as, you know,

10:49

they had

10:49

arrived they will go on. I

10:52

went into the coffee room and stole somebody's

10:54

protein bar, and

10:56

then I felt better. I

10:58

mean, not about stealing, but just

11:00

having Ethan. Just

11:03

having Ethan, I felt better. And

11:05

then I came back, and then again, I was in

11:08

my mutant

11:08

gene mode. So I did

11:10

what I was supposed to do. I plated everything,

11:12

put it into the incubator. and

11:15

then went home. And I said to myself, you

11:17

know, if there are colonies on the plate tomorrow,

11:19

no no this shit is going to matter.

11:21

I don't have to tell anybody about

11:24

this. I

11:26

mean, why does anyone have to know about this?

11:28

The fire is gone. Nobody

11:30

died. So the next

11:32

morning when I wake up, I'm

11:34

all about the colonies. You

11:37

know? I'm thinking, oh, do I have

11:39

colonies? Maybe I have my muting gene?

11:41

So I go to lab, you know, really like

11:43

excited. And on the way to the lab, I stop at the

11:45

incubator, and there were colleagues.

11:49

Beautiful, sexy, fat

11:51

plump columnies. As

11:53

far as columnies go flat and plump is sexy.

11:57

So then And then as I'm going to

11:59

my lab to

11:59

announce to my boss that, you

12:01

know, I

12:02

did this. I see

12:04

that there is this little Crowd

12:07

of people gathered at the entrance of my

12:10

lab. And I was like, maybe they

12:12

saw the call in his room. because

12:14

at this point, I'm just thinking of my own genius.

12:17

Right? So I go

12:19

and Doug is standing there. Doug might

12:21

wise it. and he is laughing

12:23

so hard that he has tears

12:25

coming down his eyes. And

12:27

I was like, maybe he's just happy that I got

12:29

a mutant gene. So

12:33

he looks at me and I go,

12:35

did you see them? And

12:37

Douglas, yes, I saw

12:39

And I was like, isn't it amazing?

12:41

And he was like, really,

12:44

why is it amazing?

12:45

And I

12:47

look confused and I realized from the corner

12:49

of my eye that there is this roll of paper

12:51

that's being passed around and all these other

12:53

people in the crowd and I start to figure out

12:55

that maybe they're all not happy

12:57

about my colleagues. And

13:00

so I look around and Doug goes, oh

13:02

my god. She has

13:04

no idea. And I was

13:06

like, no idea about what, and

13:08

he takes the newspaper and hands

13:10

it to me. and

13:12

among the headlines of the Toledo

13:14

blade.

13:16

It says

13:19

campus officer extinguishes

13:22

beaker fire. And

13:26

I look at the article And

13:28

I say to myself, what did you hope? My name isn't in there?

13:30

And my name was in

13:31

there.

13:33

And I was humiliated. And

13:36

it said there that I was doing

13:38

this at midnight. It explained exactly

13:40

what I was doing. And

13:43

upon reading this, I had to say face.

13:45

The competitive edge was still there.

13:47

So I go, he did

13:49

not extinguish it.

13:50

I did. I

13:53

put the glass plate on it. They were

13:55

just they were talking about someone and they

13:57

just laughed. they laughed.

13:59

They were

13:59

like, really, it's not even about that. Your name is

14:02

in the paper. So

14:04

I became pretty

14:06

famous for this. Right?

14:08

because, I mean, I said fire to

14:10

beaker. They invite they named me

14:12

pyro a DD. That

14:15

was my gangster name.

14:19

And and

14:23

then They invited me to the

14:26

university's safety

14:29

class. I

14:32

was in a keynote speaker at

14:34

their safety glass. That

14:37

was nice. I mean, that's pretty important.

14:39

Right? So

14:41

anyways, but, you know,

14:43

there's a positive spin on

14:45

this. The colleagues that I told

14:47

you about,

14:48

that funded my grant

14:50

and got me my PhD. So,

14:57

I mean, I deserved the PhD,

14:59

you know, even though I set fire to a beaker.

15:03

But just for your entertainment, I'm going to

15:05

tell you this. If you go to Toledo

15:07

Blade website and you

15:09

search my name, it

15:10

comes up. So

15:12

have fun with that. Thanks.

15:24

That was

15:29

a deity, Ed Carney. A deity is a

15:31

biomedical scientist, market research,

15:33

and business strategy consultant, artist

15:35

and storyteller who is passionate

15:37

about science

15:37

awareness, human and civil rights,

15:39

access to education, and bridging

15:42

disparities in healthcare.

15:45

As always, remember, you can check out

15:47

storyclider dot org for upcoming live shows

15:49

all around the US, Canada, and the

15:51

UK. as well as opportunities to

15:53

learn how to tell your own science story through

15:55

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15:58

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15:59

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16:02

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16:04

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16:11

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16:14

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16:16

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16:18

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16:42

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16:42

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16:45

work possible.

16:46

Our second

16:47

story today is from Wyatt Cenac.

16:49

It was recorded in May twenty sixteen

16:52

at the Green Space in New York

16:54

City. This show was produced in

16:56

partnership with Studio three sixty with

16:58

Kurt Anderson.

17:07

I I

17:07

grew up in Texas,

17:11

which For those of you who don't

17:13

know, Texas is one of those states

17:15

that gets to determine

17:17

what your children's textbooks are

17:19

like. It's true. So

17:21

now if you open your kid's

17:23

textbook and there's something in there

17:25

about intelligent design, You're

17:28

welcome.

17:30

It's where

17:34

intelligent design, it's in textbooks now, and

17:36

that's such strange thing because I feel like it

17:38

invalidates all the work of

17:40

talented paleontologists like

17:42

William Hanna and Joseph Barbera

17:45

threw their

17:53

work with the Flintstones you

17:55

know, realize that

17:58

dinosaurs don't oh,

18:00

brontosaurus don't talk. Other dinosaurs,

18:02

a pareodactyl that's also a lamp

18:05

can talk. but not

18:08

Dino. Which

18:11

before any of you write in and say, hold

18:13

on Guantino wasn't a brontosaurus.

18:15

He was a snorkeosaurus. That's

18:17

true, but the taxonomy is basically

18:20

the same. I

18:23

say I was gonna say, I grew up in Texas, and

18:26

science was not one of those big

18:28

things for me. My

18:30

high school science wasn't that

18:32

big of a deal. Like, we

18:34

had biology class and

18:36

we learned how to dissect

18:38

a frog to use it for

18:40

meat. And,

18:42

you know, we've had chemistry where

18:44

we learned the compounds of the periodic

18:47

table that we might need to use

18:49

if we wanted to make our own ammunition.

18:52

But for the

18:55

most part, science wasn't that big

18:57

of a deal. And that that's not to say

18:59

that Texas people don't

19:01

care about science or even that at my high school, we

19:03

didn't care about science. We did. You

19:05

know, my high school, it was it was a

19:07

progressive place in its own way, and I learned a

19:09

lot. It it was actually in

19:11

high school where I learned

19:13

that sexuality is a fluid concept.

19:15

And I went to a Catholic, all boys

19:18

high school and a

19:20

priest taught me that.

19:23

Oh, not just me, he taught a whole

19:25

classroom of boys. he

19:29

was my English teacher.

19:31

Still not the here's the thing. So

19:33

I had an English teacher who

19:36

one day decided to

19:38

explain to us that sexuality, it's

19:40

fluid and that there is a spectrum. And

19:42

he said, you know, people aren't just

19:45

gay or straight. It's not as cut and dry as

19:47

that. It's it's a spectrum and to think

19:49

about it as like a scale from

19:51

one to ten. and say one

19:53

might be all the way gay and

19:55

ten might be all the way straight. He

19:57

said most people fall somewhere

19:59

in the middle there. And he said, you know, a

20:02

seven might be if you

20:04

were, say, sitting on the toilet and

20:06

decided to stick your finger up your

20:08

own butt. This is a

20:10

real thing he said. And

20:15

I'm sure there are some of you right now that are

20:17

thinking, well, wait if that's a

20:19

seven. What's you're eight and nine. For

20:22

me in that moment, I was thinking,

20:24

wait a minute, I've been to

20:27

asses where you were handing out communion.

20:34

And I also don't know what this

20:36

has to do with the James Choice book we

20:39

were reading. So

20:43

my high school, not the most science

20:45

heavy high high school. It was more

20:48

we were more into service that

20:50

was one of those graduate high school, we all had

20:52

to complete forty hours of

20:54

community service, which is kind of a

20:56

nice thing to do at an all

20:58

boy's Catholic preps school. It's a nice

21:00

thing. It's a nice way to give back to the community,

21:02

but it's also a nice way to prepare

21:05

your students for the day that they get arrested

21:07

for a fraternity prank gone

21:09

wrong. which is gonna happen.

21:11

But so we ought to do

21:13

community service, and I remember they

21:15

gave us this list of

21:18

different places that you could choose

21:20

to to serve at. And they're

21:22

places like soup kitchens and

21:24

old folks homes, and

21:26

Full disclosure, I did

21:29

not wanna do any of that

21:31

because I was seventeen and

21:33

I was selfish but I also felt

21:36

like I live in Texas. I don't

21:38

know why we're serving hot soup to

21:40

people in a place that's

21:42

already hot. And I

21:45

don't wanna go work at an old folks home

21:48

and read to old ladies because

21:50

that feels a little like driving miss Daisy

21:53

cosplay. So

21:57

I just wasn't into it and I I had to find something and

21:59

I found one thing on this

22:01

list and it was a huge list and I found one thing

22:03

and I was like, oh, okay, this This

22:06

one is for me. This is the thing I wanna do

22:08

because I've I've fancied myself a

22:10

a man of reason. And

22:13

this was it was a place of

22:16

science that was on this list, and I knew it was a place

22:18

of science because it was

22:20

called the science place.

22:23

And I wasn't sure what the science place was.

22:25

I really hoped that it was

22:27

maybe a lab where I

22:29

could work with a

22:32

scientists that maybe everyone else

22:34

had just kind of written off as

22:36

mad. But

22:39

I knew they were just driven

22:41

And then maybe I could work with that scientist.

22:44

Maybe, you know, work on some

22:46

experiments. Maybe I bring a bag of spiders

22:48

and we have a lab accident.

22:51

and I'd become the incredible hulk.

22:54

You might be

22:56

saying, hold on a second. Why? What does spiders

22:58

have to do with becoming a

23:00

hulk? Look, I'm not the scientist.

23:02

I was just a kid who made a bad investment

23:04

on some spiders. The

23:08

science place was not a laboratory. It was a

23:10

children's museum. And and

23:14

given what I told you about Texas

23:16

and how we're helping your textbooks. You

23:18

should know the science place. It was

23:20

not a fancy museum. It was a rinky dink

23:22

little place that had some

23:25

geos and then a bunch of animatronic

23:28

dinosaurs that didn't really work

23:30

all the time so much so

23:32

that when we would have to explain

23:34

to children, we would say, well, when the

23:36

dinosaurs went extinct, so

23:38

too did the technicians. and

23:41

make the tyrannosaurus Rex'

23:43

head move. But so we

23:45

were there and so we had to give tours and we had

23:47

to give tours at the

23:49

science place, and I was

23:51

mainly stationed in

23:54

the health sciences room.

23:56

and health sciences room was just a room

23:58

dedicated to teaching children the

24:00

dangers of drugs and alcohol.

24:03

and they would do that. They just had a bunch

24:05

of photos around of like what

24:08

your lungs look like and then what your lungs would

24:10

look like if you were smoking and

24:12

like cirrhosis of the liver and

24:14

all great things to send an eight year

24:16

old home thinking about. And

24:18

so that was mainly what was there, but the

24:20

one centerpiece there was a a

24:22

driving simulator. And the

24:24

driving simulator, it

24:26

was a simulator to

24:29

show you how you would drive if you

24:31

were drunk. And to

24:33

a seventeen year old, I didn't see

24:35

it as much as a simulator as I

24:37

saw it as a video game.

24:41

Because the way it would work, you would get in

24:43

and you would get in the car

24:45

and then you would punch in your

24:47

gender and your height and your

24:49

weight, and then you'd before

24:51

you started driving, they would ask you, like, how many

24:53

beers would you like? And so you put in a number,

24:55

and then it asked you, would you like some

24:57

harder alcohol? And you put in a number

24:59

and it kinda show you what you could

25:01

choose from? And then it was like, How

25:04

about some weed, some

25:06

coke? We didn't

25:08

know how eight year

25:10

olds knew all about that, but everything about it seemed like

25:12

a set up to me. But so

25:14

you put all this stuff in and then you get

25:16

to drive and then depending

25:19

on how drunk or how

25:21

you are, it affects how the wheel moves, like, the wheel will

25:23

get loose and then it'll get, like, really stiff

25:25

and the brakes won't work sometimes. And

25:27

sometimes you put on the gas and it'll just

25:29

floor it and you

25:31

really have to work really

25:33

hard and pay attention so that you

25:35

don't crash. And the moment

25:37

that you would crash The screen would just flash

25:39

at you and you would get reprimanded with

25:41

this message about the dangers of drinking

25:43

and driving. And that would

25:45

happen anytime you crashed.

25:48

whether you crashed after a

25:50

minute or whether you crashed after an

25:52

hour, which I kind

25:54

of feel like if you did it for an

25:56

hour. I feel like you shouldn't get a rapper man. You

25:59

you should get like just a like

26:01

a wow.

26:03

We got

26:07

lucky. Let's not do that again.

26:12

Also, let's maybe not drink

26:14

so far away from home.

26:19

And that

26:23

was a thing no matter how long you

26:25

drove, like the idea was to get

26:27

home but you never got

26:30

home. And so I started to

26:32

wonder, could you get

26:34

home? Like, can

26:36

you win this game? Is there

26:38

like a kill screen that's like

26:40

where you don't get killed? Like like, you know,

26:42

like a video game version of a kill screen

26:44

And I and so now this became my

26:47

experiment and week after

26:49

week instead of helping children.

26:53

I would climb into the simulator and I would try

26:55

to see if I could beat it. And

26:57

I started out and I was like, you know what?

26:59

What I'll do is I'll be the biggest person

27:02

I can be. I'll be a seven foot

27:04

tall man, like a seven foot tall heavy

27:06

set man, and I'll just

27:08

have one beer. Let's

27:12

see what

27:15

I can do. And I was like, could I

27:17

drive her five minutes? And I could drive her five

27:19

minutes. gonna drive for ten. Yeah. I can do

27:21

ten, fifteen, twenty. And I could drive

27:23

for a really long time. And

27:26

then I never got

27:28

anywhere and you can't just pull the car over and be like, I'm done.

27:30

Like, even if you try to do that, it still

27:33

crashes. And the screen flashes at you and

27:35

it's like, the dangers of

27:37

tricking and driving. And

27:39

to me, it was

27:41

like, no. Wait a minute. You're telling

27:43

me that A Semflitz all

27:45

three hundred pound man can't have

27:47

one beer. Well,

27:51

I'm basically Shaquille O'Neil right now.

27:55

And you're saying I can't handle a beer. I

27:57

handled the Eastern Conference.

28:00

So then it became

28:02

a challenge. And I was

28:05

like, well, what what could How

28:07

could Shaquille O'Neil drive? on

28:09

two beers? Or how

28:11

could Shaquille drive on, like, three

28:13

beers and a couple shots of whiskey and

28:15

maybe some weed? And

28:17

the thing that started happening, I never

28:20

got home, but I got really

28:22

good at driving as drunk

28:24

Shaquille O'Neil.

28:25

So then

28:31

I found myself thinking, well,

28:33

Who else could I drive really well

28:35

drunk as? And I was like, what if I was

28:37

a tiny lady? What if

28:40

I was like, Mary Lou

28:43

Reton? And so

28:46

I punched that in. And

28:49

I got really good at driving

28:52

as a four foot

28:54

tall, ninety pound coked out

28:56

lady. And

29:02

then I just started to see, like, who else

29:04

could I drive as? And I started just

29:06

inputting different people And then

29:08

all of a sudden, I was like, oh, wait a minute.

29:10

This is the scientific method. I

29:12

get it now. This

29:15

is the experimentation phase. Got it.

29:18

And I just kept doing it. And let me

29:20

just say, at that time of my life, I didn't drink.

29:22

I didn't do drugs. but

29:24

I got really interested in trying to

29:27

prepare myself for

29:29

the time when I could do all

29:31

of that. And

29:33

not just do it, but just in

29:35

case if I wanted to go all out

29:37

with it, if I wanted to become a

29:40

junky, I could still become the kind

29:42

of junky that other junkies

29:44

would trust to get them home

29:46

safely. But,

29:49

yeah, I might steal your stereo to

29:52

sell it for drugs, but I'll

29:54

get you home to the shelf where it

29:56

used to be. And

30:00

I got really good. III graduated high

30:02

school, and I graduated high school with

30:04

this sense that I'm

30:06

a really great drunk driver.

30:11

which I feel like was not the

30:13

intended purpose that

30:15

they had when they made

30:17

that machine. but

30:19

I felt like, you know what? I never found that mad

30:22

scientist. I became the mad scientist.

30:24

And I gave myself superpowers

30:27

And an adult, I like, trust

30:30

me. I am an amazing. I could

30:32

drive drunk so

30:34

well. But at the same time, I also

30:36

walked away realizing You know

30:38

what? This is my gift. This

30:40

is I've seen enough comic book

30:42

movies. I've read enough comic books to

30:44

know. This is my

30:46

great power. And

30:48

with great power

30:50

comes great responsibility. A

30:54

responsibility that you don't have

30:56

in a cab. unless

30:59

you throw up in that cab,

31:02

which then it's only just throw

31:04

twenty dollars, get out really fast and

31:06

run away. Alright. Thank

31:09

you very

31:10

much.

31:24

That was

31:28

why it's

31:30

an act. Why it's an act is

31:32

median and former correspondent on the daily show with

31:34

John Stewart. You may also know him

31:36

from his HBO show, problem

31:39

areas.

31:40

The story writer is

31:40

so grateful to Adede and Wyatt for

31:43

sharing their stories with us. The story

31:45

writer is also very grateful for the

31:47

support of Science SandBox. a

31:49

Simon's foundation initiative dedicated to

31:51

engaging everyone with the process of science.

31:54

This podcast is produced

31:56

by me, Erin Barker, executive director

31:58

and co founder of the Story Glider, along

32:00

with managing producer, Misha Gayesky, and

32:02

senior podcast editor, Jen Chen, with

32:04

help from Education Director, Lilybee.

32:08

Special thanks goes out to store clutter's

32:10

board and the rest of our staff, including

32:12

Managing Director Anne Marie Blonstale,

32:14

Science Advisory fellow Edith

32:16

Gonzalez, and Operations manager Lindsey Cooper.

32:18

Without whom none of this would be possible.

32:20

The stories featured in today's episode were

32:22

from shows produced by me and my

32:24

story writer cofounder, Ben Lilly.

32:27

Our theme music is by

32:29

ghost. Until next week,

32:30

thanks for listening.