HTDE: Haircuts in Space, Tutus, and the Nasal Ranger
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Hey, it's Peter. So a while ago, two of Wait Wait's producers, Mike Danforth and Ian Chilock, told me they wanted to add something new to our relationship, a new podcast they would be doing on the side called How to Do Everything.

It wasn't an easy adjustment for me to make. I thought we were all committed to mono-podcasty, but one of the rules of healthy relationships is you have to let your partners move on and grow. So, sure enough, they created How to Do Everything, a younger, more exciting podcast in which they could express themselves in ways that just seemed...

closed to them in the podcast that I thought had been enough for all of us. Well, it ran its course, as these things tend to do with young people. And we had settled back into our happy routine when they told me recently, well, they had been thinking about podcasting again. But this time, they wanted to make it part of one big blended family.

So, How to Do Everything is back, and new episodes will be in your Waitway podcast feed for the near future. And you can follow their own feed and submit questions for them to answer at howtoatnpr.org. It won't last forever. These things never do. But in the meantime, enjoy the first episode of How to Do Everything.

It's hard to clean a tutu. We've all been there. You can't just throw it in the washing machine. Eddie Grundy is costume production supervisor for the Dutch National Ballet. Eddie, you've got a tip for us. Tutu, obviously, you can't, like you said, you can't throw it in the washing machine.

A lot of what we do during a run is we'll, at the end of the performance, we spray it with vodka. And that's basically to kill the bacteria. The alcohol kills the bacteria in the costume. You use vodka? Yeah, it's an old trick actually that comes from Russia, funnily enough. They used it in all their...

and it's been taken over basically through theatres all over the world. So all you do is you take a spray bottle to each tutu. How many squirts, like three or four? Yeah, I mean, it depends. So you put the vodka into like a plant spray. Sometimes we mix it with a little bit of water. Depends how much they've been used. There's soloist costumes at the end of a ballet there.

soaking wet so you have to really drench them in the vodka and it evaporates so it kills the bacteria. Have you ever used vodka on your own non-ballet clothes? I've used it for suits. If I have premieres here at work sometimes then I'll come back if it's

Sometimes in the theater, it's hot and you come back and you're getting changed. And then I'll put some in my suit before I hang it away. For sure. Really? And there's no smell with vodka, right? No, that's one of the reasons we use it. Because once the alcohol evaporates, it doesn't leave a smell behind.

You can't really use gin for this. No, no, no, no. I think vodka is the one that doesn't have any scent really with it. We don't use the blueberry vodka or raspberry vodka. Oh, that's good. Yeah. None of those. Does anybody who uses this technique, does anybody do like one for me, one for the tutu? We've had a lot recently. I mean, I've been working in nearly 20 years now. And when I first started, we had a couple of

Russian girls that would say, can I just have a shot before I go on? So in the end we had to tell them, but we mix it with a special chemical so it's not drinkable. Yeah, we have to guard the bottles of vodka. You never know otherwise.

Yeah.

Yeah, thanks for listening. Thanks for sticking with us, even, what, through these four minutes so far. Might as well just keep going. Send us your questions. We look at all our emails. The email address is howtoatnpr.org. We literally have nothing else to do but look at your emails. On today's show, how to tell if you smell. But first... When astronauts Sonny Williams and Butch Wilmore arrived on the International Space Station back in June...

They were only supposed to be there for eight days. But due to some problems you may have heard with their spaceship,

They're going to be there much, much longer. Last week, NASA announced they won't be coming home until February 2025. Frank Rubio holds the record for the longest time in space, 371 days. We're going to see if maybe he can help Sonny and Butch out. They probably, for instance, weren't counting on needing a haircut up there.

Frank, for starters, how do you get a haircut in space? You know, we plan for everything, right? And so for cutting your hair, we actually have a pair of electrical shears and we connect that to a vacuum system. And basically the vacuum just suctions up the hair as you're cutting it. It's not a pretty haircut for sure, but it's functional. I say that my hair, you know, my wife and I have this ongoing argument. I say I was starting to get some gray hair before I launched.

and it all turned black again when I got there. I think that's because of the fluid shifts that happen and the increased blood flow to your scalp. That's my theory. I don't know if I'll ever be able to prove it. That's amazing. I would think you're wearing NASA gear up there the whole time. I imagine for 371 days, you want to do something to maybe spruce up the outfit just for variety? Yeah.

Well, we do get a variety of shirts, T-shirts, workout gear. And unfortunately, we haven't developed a laundry system in space yet. And so we have a periodic replacement system, basically, where you just fly new things. And as things kind of come to their wear out date, you just replace it with another one. What do you do with the dirty clothes?

Yeah, so eventually, along with all the other waste, we basically refill the resupply ships with all the trash and waste that's produced on station. And then once that undocks, it does not have a heat shield, and it'll burn up on reentry. Fantastic. You incinerate your dirty laundry. Well, yes. Do you still do that today, Frank, now that you're back on Earth?

No, I have never incinerated laundry here on Earth. Okay. At 371 days, you must have spent a birthday in space. I imagine it's a huge hazard to blow out candles. What's a birthday party like in space? Yeah, your crewmates do a fantastic job of doing things like celebrating your birthday. We basically put some yellow tape on top of a flashlight, and that becomes your candle. Oh, wow. And so turning it off is a lot easier than blowing it out.

But it is really important to just be each other's family while you're there. And so we try to do that for each other throughout the year. So we have a couple astronauts who are going to be in space longer than they want to be.

They're not going to have laundry. They're not going to miss, they're going to miss haircuts. Yeah. What's one tip you would give them? Well, you know, they are trained astronauts and they are experienced astronauts. So they've been there and done that. Right. And so from that perspective, it's nothing new to them. And they're doing really the one tip I would give them. They're already doing, which is just stay as positive as possible and focus on the mission. Super proud of them. Super proud of how they're handling the situation. And I can't wait to have them back home.

Maybe you're stuck in space. If so, send us a question. Send it to us at howtoatnpr.org and maybe we can help you out. If you're stuck in space and we're the best you've got, things are not looking good, but we are still going to try our best. Again, that email address where you can send us an email is howtoatnpr.org. Thank you.

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Like SimpliSafe. This message comes from Easy Cater, a platform where organizations can order food for meetings and events from favorite restaurants nationwide with tools to help meet dietary needs, stay on budget, and manage food spend. Learn more at easycater.com. Hey, Marci. What can we do for you? Well, here's my question. I'd like to know how do I get someone to tell me if I smell and, like, smell in a bad way?

So, okay. Do you think you smell? I do. Yeah. And I think no one has the heart to tell me. Wow. What makes you think that you smell? Well, I guess like I use natural deodorant and I figure that's probably not doing the trick. And, you know, no one's just going to tell you. And even if you ask them,

they're not going to want to tell you because they don't want to be rude and it's also uncomfortable for them. Have you had the experience of asking somebody if you smell? Yes. Yes, I have. And they always say, no, you don't. Let me flip it on you. Have you ever told somebody that they smell? My husband, yeah. And my children. Okay. Anyone outside the family? No. No.

Only do you smell good. I was on an elevator once in a hotel, and I just said, somebody in this elevator car smells really good. Well, that guy actually, he liked it. He was like, yes, it's me, and I'm wearing it. And he announced what he was wearing. Was the guy in the elevator who smelled good, was he wearing natural deodorant? No.

That's a good question. I don't know. I can answer that. Yeah, he probably was not.

All right, I think we have a way to help Marcy. We need an objective measure of whether or not she smells. And our producer, Hina, has got her hands on something called a nasal ranger. A nasal ranger is an industrial caliber device. It looks like a megaphone. And you hold it up to your nose and point it at whatever smells. And it gives you a quantitative number of

representing how bad the smell is. And this is not something normally used on people.

City inspectors use nasal rangers when they get a complaint about smell pollution. Yeah, this is the assumption we're making about Marcy, that she might be the kind of thing someone might call 311 about. She might be producing a suspicious odor. Mike and Hina are going to take this industrial disaster smelling tool and point it at Marcy, but first they're going to go to Mike's house to calibrate it. We are at my house. We have a cat and

And the cat is named Stinky. And that is a name that the cat earned. I'm just going to bend over into his litter box and sniff. So first I have to smell it without the nasal ranger. Bare nose. If I can get a reading bare nose, I can get a reading with the nasal ranger. I really feel like a city inspector. Okay. It's definitely a cat's litter box. 100% smells like a cat's litter box. Okay. I'm going to stick this thing on my nose and I'm going to give it a big whiff.

I'm doing my first reading at 60. And when Hina says 60, that is the highest possible setting of the Nasal Ranger. The worst smell in the world is going to hit 60. How it works, the Nasal Ranger has multiple filters in it and a dial that you shuffle through them. So when you're using it, you start with the highest setting, the thickest setting, that's the 60. And if whatever you're smelling can make it through that, you give it a 60.

If you don't smell anything, you dial it down to the next setting, the lighter filter, and see if you can smell it there. And you keep going lighter and lighter filters until you can smell the smell for the first time. And that's the rating of the thing you're trying to smell. A person should be in the two to seven range. Yeah.

You know what? I'm going to give this one 30. Okay, so that's actually good for us to know before we smell Marcy, that a cat's litter box came in at 30 out of 60. Can we just, just real quick, can we just smell me real quick? Now we know what smelly is. Let's see how I do. So the people at St. Croix Sensory who gave us this wonderful nasal ranger, they recommended that for smelling humans, I have to put a Dixie cup to your armpit.

in order to funnel your amazing odors into the nasal ranger. Oh, man. I took a pair of scissors and I cut the bottom from the cup so that if I stick this on your armpit, it'll funnel the smell straight into the nasal ranger. All right, let's go. Let's get in there. Are you okay with this, Mike? It's not me I'm worried about. It's you. All right, here we go. Oh, this is... I feel so bad. Oh.

Yeah, none at seven. Oh, all right. All right, reading you at four. Oh, I kind of got a reading at four. Let's try you at two. Okay. All this deep breathing makes me feel like I'm in a yoga class. It's a hot armpit yoga. Yeah, I would say you're between a two and a four. All right, I won't even ask if I smelled good. I'll just say, okay. You smelled like a human being. Thank you. Thank you very much. Can I jump in here? How did you learn to use the nasal ranger?

So I had to take a two and a half hour training sent to me by the people who make the nasal ranger at St. Croix sensory that all city inspectors take to get trained up. This is like a mandatory. You are not authorized to use this tool unless you do a training. You are not authorized to use it. And I actually got a certificate at the end of the training that certifies me as a nasal ranger inspector. Did you frame it?

I didn't even print it out. It's just a PDF that's saved on my computer. And now I feel like I'm missing an opportunity to really celebrate my greatness. Well, I think in order to get something better, you'd have to enlist the services of the Certificate Ranger. Hi there. Marcy? Hi, it's Mike and Hina. I'm Hina. I'm Mike. Thanks for welcoming us into your home.

I am so glad to have you here. We asked Marcy to do just what she would do on a normal day. That means she was wearing her natural deodorant. And I just want to take a second to give Hina some credit for

You made Marcy feel so comfortable. You took a second to make sure she knew what she was getting into. And she even at one point reached out and held your hands. Yeah. And we held hands for quite a while. Should we do like a... Do you just want to smell Marcy kind of bare-nosed first? Yes. Okay. So...

This is my first time meeting you. Let's hold hands. And I just want to say that we have no boundaries here. I am just going to smell your armpits. And I am so okay with that. I'm glad to be here. I immediately feel connected to you. You have the most welcoming eyes. Thank you. And I just feel like you're the kind of person that people would be on the street and be like, it's going to be okay. Like, let's just get it all out there. Oh, wow. And so I'm ready. That's the other deal. I'm going to give up in the world. Yeah.

Okay. Let's get into it. Do you want me to... You just lift your armpits, and I'm just going to take a whiff. Perfect. Oh, yeah. Now I can definitely smell you. Is that lavender deodorant? What is that? Yeah, it's a... It used to be called primal pit paste. Now it's called...

Frank something. And it's, it's very like, there's nothing bad in it. As far as I know, primal pit paste is quite the name. I'm a pit paste. Sounds like it's like industrial strength. Oh, it feels like gorilla glue. Yeah. 30. Okay. Now this is 30. This is, um, FYI. 30 was how smelly Mike's cat's litter box was. So it's cats, cats, toilet smell. I don't want to be there.

Well, you're not. So there's like a moment of anticipation. That's like, you're pregnant. That's what it feels like. I'm about to tell you. I know it. Whenever we find out, there's going to be no judgment about it. Okay. Yeah. It's just, I'm looking in your eyes. I'm back there. Okay. All right. Okay. I'm so glad my eyes are doing this for you. That's great.

Okay, so now we're going to 15. What is 15? Pretty smelly for a human being. Okay. Yeah. I just, can we, this is such a suspenseful moment. Can we bring in a little suspenseful music as we get the verdict on Marcy here? Well, let's do it. Okay. All right. So we are doing 15 right now. No, I can't smell you at 15. All right. This is seven. Okay. I can't really smell you.

I think that's good. Hold on. You said you can't really smell. I can't really smell her. Does that mean that you got a little bit? I will say I feel like I did get a little bit. Yeah, I think I got a whiff. Hey, lavender.

So Marcy, after all this, between a seven and a four, that is basically a normal human. I think that's something Marcy basically. Well, I think Marcy can go out into the world feeling better about her smell now, even if she does smell thanks to her primal pit paste. It's a good smell. If anyone ever complained, she can say, you know what?

According to the Nasal Ranger, I'm between a seven and a four. That's right. I'm nothing like an industrial accident. Well, that does it for today's show. Mike, what did we learn today?

Well, I learned that astronauts' hair, if they have gray hair, it starts to go back to its original color when they're in space. I feel like this could be an expensive cure to gray hair. Also, I think maybe keep going with it, and if you stay in space long enough, you return a baby. Oh, you think it's every part of your body regenerates? I guess if you were a baby, you couldn't do the spacewalk. You would have to do space crawl. Yeah, you space toddle.

What'd you learn, Ian? I learned that astronauts don't do laundry. They just burn up all of their dirty clothes. It does raise the idea in my mind, though, that maybe sometimes when I see a shooting star, what I'm actually seeing is somebody just burning up their pants. It's so beautiful. Those are technically sun. Those are shooting slacks.

How to Do Everything is produced by Hina Srivastava. Special thanks this week to Lindsay McKenna, Emily Kinslow, Maddie Bauer, and everyone on NPR's project management team. Our intern is Andrew Hillman. Keep it up, Andrew. You're doing great. Whatever it is you do, it was great. I'm Ian. And I'm Mike. Thanks. Thanks.

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Anthropic. Introducing Claude, their AI assistant designed to help teams enhance their workflows. When working as a team, miscommunication can steal the momentum away from a good idea. That's why Anthropic designed their AI assistant to be a valuable co-worker who can help turn those one-off emails and side chats into a project to keep your team on

on track. Claude brings all the conversations into one project space where it can create materials generated by your team's shared knowledge, like emails and style guides written as formally or conversationally as you need. Claude can even create code snippets, diagrams, and graphics in different languages. And because Anthropic is committed to user privacy, Claude protects your team's projects so your trade secrets stay secret. Discover how Claude can transform your work at anthropic.com slash Claude.

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