Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: This Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there, which I
Speaker 1: don't know if Jerry should be in here for this one.
Speaker 1: Why not. We're talking male puberty. You and I we're
Speaker 1: putting on our health class faces. Both of us got
Speaker 1: crew cuts for this one. You're wearing a whistle around
Speaker 1: your neck. I'm wearing knee socks and joys. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: was taught because I was raised in a pretty conservative
Speaker 1: Southern Baptist home. I was taught this stuff by my
Speaker 1: uh preacher. Nope, they didn't talk about this stuff. That's
Speaker 1: my point. I was taught in health class. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: by my pe teacher. This lady who seemed to struggle
Speaker 1: with teaching boys about puberty. I can I can't really
Speaker 1: blame her. She tried her best, but this is you know,
Speaker 1: when the pe teachers had to teach health as well,
Speaker 1: and I don't think that she got into that profession
Speaker 1: to teach health. She she was like, I like coaching volleyball,
Speaker 1: but um, I don't like teaching boys about puberty. She
Speaker 1: seemed very uncomfortable. It comes with the job. Lady t s. Well,
Speaker 1: if you are a Jim coach and you're teaching a
Speaker 1: health class right now and you're using us to teach
Speaker 1: for you, you you owe some money. Agreed. So we are.
Speaker 1: We're doing a great job so far, if you ask me,
Speaker 1: I think so. And this is you know, I think
Speaker 1: we have a responsibility because I was raised in that
Speaker 1: thing where like, you know, my parents didn't teach me
Speaker 1: this stuff. So I think it's important the kids. Uh,
Speaker 1: puberty is tough. I mean like it's important to normalize
Speaker 1: it and that kids know that these changes are happening
Speaker 1: and what they mean and healthy functions. You know. I
Speaker 1: think this is a bit of a service. It was,
Speaker 1: it is, it is. Yes, I was talking like we'd
Speaker 1: already finished finished, and this this article, by the way,
Speaker 1: it was written by the great Tom Sheath, did a
Speaker 1: wonderful job. Chuck. Yes, did you know that over the
Speaker 1: last like hundred and fifty years, um, the average age
Speaker 1: of puberty in girls has dropped by like five or
Speaker 1: six years. Yeah, so in eighteen sixty the average age
Speaker 1: of monarchy, oh yeah, yeah, sixteen point six years old.
Speaker 1: That's pretty late. In two it was ten point five
Speaker 1: years old. It seems young, right, and everybody's like, what's
Speaker 1: going on? It's probably the milk, like there's some horrible
Speaker 1: stuff going on, or they're saying, what's monarchy, Well, manarchy
Speaker 1: is the onset of menstruach for the first time in
Speaker 1: a girl. I think that came up in our totem Pole.
Speaker 1: It was a long time ago. Um, so this on
Speaker 1: side of monarchy has decreased by a lot and a
Speaker 1: lot of people are alarmed by it. But there are
Speaker 1: some evolutionary biologists out there who are saying, actually, settle down.
Speaker 1: We think that this is closer to the normal time
Speaker 1: when puberty should come on, and that like sixteen points
Speaker 1: six is way delayed, and it was actually a relic,
Speaker 1: a remnant of changes that were brought about by a
Speaker 1: transition to agriculture. The result of higher infections and poor
Speaker 1: nutrition led to a later onset of monarchy. Well, it's
Speaker 1: pretty it's easy to say, well, the girls start puberty
Speaker 1: here and boys it's not quite as defined, but they
Speaker 1: think that probably boys age of onset for puberty has
Speaker 1: gone back to as well. Yeah, so it's uh, we're
Speaker 1: going through puberty younger as young boys as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so even though it is very difficult to say this
Speaker 1: is and a boy starts puberty, that didn't stop some research,
Speaker 1: just especially a guy named Richard Tanner from trying. He
Speaker 1: came up with the Tanner scale. It is a scale
Speaker 1: of one to five and Roman numerals, and it's all
Speaker 1: based on the growth of your genitalia and pubic hair. Interesting,
Speaker 1: and it's it's it's not completely subjective, but it's pretty subjective. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you might have heard of the Tanner scale by
Speaker 1: seeing the posters in restaurants all around the country. Yes,
Speaker 1: right next to the employees must wash hands before returning
Speaker 1: to works exactly. All right, So we're talking about puberty,
Speaker 1: which is that transition um that all kids go through.
Speaker 1: We're talking about male puberty of course, in this case,
Speaker 1: just male puberty and this one yea, even though I
Speaker 1: already talked about female puberty. Well, we should probably tackle
Speaker 1: female puberty at some point um. For for little boys,
Speaker 1: they generally, like you said, the time has shifted perhaps,
Speaker 1: but right now between the ages of nine in eighteen
Speaker 1: is when it starts through completion generally typically typically you
Speaker 1: can start earlier, it can go later, it can follow
Speaker 1: different courses. Sure, it moves at different speeds and different guys. Yes,
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna say this a few times. If you
Speaker 1: are a boy out there and you're going through your
Speaker 1: changes in puberty at different rates than your friends, that
Speaker 1: is okay. Yeah, you're not a weirdo instincts, but it
Speaker 1: is very normal, that's right. And you just may you've
Speaker 1: heard of the term late bloomer. You may just be
Speaker 1: a late bloomer, and that's okay because you will bloom
Speaker 1: well and you might not even be a late bloomer
Speaker 1: except for this month right next month. But it's kind
Speaker 1: of like you know that horse race that you can
Speaker 1: do with the spraying the Yeah, you squirt the water
Speaker 1: in the hole in the horse's gap exactly, and they
Speaker 1: kind of moved back and forth. That's a lot like puberty. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: once you've really got a bead on that water gun,
Speaker 1: that's when the horse really starts moving. But practice all
Speaker 1: you want. You can squirt water and where, and it's
Speaker 1: not going to help accelerate your puberty, that's right, all right, So, uh,
Speaker 1: what happens the beginning of puberty, no matter when it starts,
Speaker 1: is going to get kicked off when a substance called
Speaker 1: ganado tropin is released. Um, I'm sorry, Canada. Tropin releasing
Speaker 1: hormone is released in the body. G n r H.
Speaker 1: That's the big that's the one that starts at all.
Speaker 1: That's right. And apparently you have that stuff in your hypothalamus. Yeah,
Speaker 1: You've got all these things hormones in your body, just waiting,
Speaker 1: waiting the coming one another, like nitro glycerin coming together basically,
Speaker 1: so you've got g n r H and your hypothalamus
Speaker 1: and apparently it has to move to the pituitary gland
Speaker 1: for things to get triggered. So puberty is like a
Speaker 1: Rube Goldberg esque process. Yeah. So, um, it takes something
Speaker 1: called g p R fifty four, which is another hormone,
Speaker 1: to coming contact with ganada trope and releasing hormone, and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden things start up and that
Speaker 1: actually brew when that process happens. That's called gody. Oh really, yes, interesting.
Speaker 1: I think the reason monarchy was such a funny word
Speaker 1: to me back when we recorded that. I figured it
Speaker 1: out all these years later because it sounds like malarkey. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is just a funny word to me, because no
Speaker 1: one says malarkey, but I think it's a great word.
Speaker 1: So monarchy and malarkey is just a little too close
Speaker 1: for my taste to keep me from laughing, you know.
Speaker 1: All Right, So the stages of puberty, they're generally five, um,
Speaker 1: and they overlap and it's one just big awkward mess.
Speaker 1: But you can kind of break it down into five stages.
Speaker 1: The first one is gonna begin, like we said, around
Speaker 1: nine or ten years old. Um, nine is a little early.
Speaker 1: Ten is um what they would consider normal. I guess
Speaker 1: sometimes it might happen as late as twelve to get
Speaker 1: things going, which by which time you're like, come on
Speaker 1: right start. I'll just remember being in school and some
Speaker 1: kids were like a foot taller than other ones, like
Speaker 1: my buddy Jim, I said, you know, like he had
Speaker 1: a mustache when he was like thirteen. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: I had a friend like that in third grade. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. Um. So again, different timetables for everybody, and
Speaker 1: it's all okay. Uh So when this g n r
Speaker 1: H is released in stage one, your testicles are going
Speaker 1: to start to mature and grow, uh, your body, your height,
Speaker 1: You're gonna start growing at about two inches per year
Speaker 1: at this point, which is pretty significant. Yeah, yeah, for sure,
Speaker 1: growing two inches in a year. When's the last time
Speaker 1: you did that? I guess probably when I was like twelve, probably,
Speaker 1: although I never hit one of those growth spurts like
Speaker 1: a lot of uh no did you? Yeah here there
Speaker 1: really Yeah, I don't really just slow and steady wins
Speaker 1: the race. Yeah, I don't remember any Like I remember
Speaker 1: some of my friends that had um like they're owns
Speaker 1: would hurt and they would actually have those growing pains.
Speaker 1: I never had that. Yeah, yeah, no, it wasn't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I remember coming back from the summer and a
Speaker 1: kid would have grown like six inches it seems like
Speaker 1: in several months. Then it would just blew my mind
Speaker 1: because I was and like I was a late bloomer
Speaker 1: and like drank wine from a deer skin. Now a yeah,
Speaker 1: so your testicles are growing, and because your testicles are growing,
Speaker 1: that means their house, the scrotum is also growing. And
Speaker 1: all this is because that go and add a chopin
Speaker 1: releasing hormone started up. That's right, And it's no um
Speaker 1: accident that it starts with gonad of course, it's all
Speaker 1: linked um. So um, your your testicles are growing and
Speaker 1: maturing at this point, but you're not able to reproduce
Speaker 1: just yet, No way, No, that comes with a little later.
Speaker 1: And I had a question like, why aren't we born
Speaker 1: capable of reproduction? And I thought like I would find
Speaker 1: some stuff on it. All I could find was one
Speaker 1: single Yahoo Answers question, and everybody was like, what kind
Speaker 1: of a stupid question is that? Basically, yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: it is kind of a stupid question. But the point
Speaker 1: is because you're not capable of taking care of yourself,
Speaker 1: therefore you you wouldn't be capable of taking care of baby.
Speaker 1: You have to develop socially, psychologically, and physically. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: female body probably couldn't handle childbirth either, right, So it
Speaker 1: makes sense to not come out of the womb being
Speaker 1: capable of sexual reproduction. It makes sense for that to
Speaker 1: have to to develop at some point. Sure, agreed. So
Speaker 1: they also in stage one, um, you're gonna start getting
Speaker 1: a little fine pubic hairs and uh, that's that is
Speaker 1: called pew barkie? Is it really? Not kidding? You just
Speaker 1: add archie to anything very much. I got your hierarchy.
Speaker 1: There's all sorts of things that come about, uh, and
Speaker 1: you might start to get your first erections at this point, Um,
Speaker 1: you are not gonna have any idea what's going on
Speaker 1: with your body. But it's gonna happen unless you take
Speaker 1: an advanced health class that like nine years old, um,
Speaker 1: or if you have like parents who are comfortable with
Speaker 1: talking like this. Yeah, but boys, sometimes you're getting bad information.
Speaker 1: Well there's to combat that kind of stuff there where.
Speaker 1: There have always been, um, educational films about this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. I found one from the fifties called Everybody
Speaker 1: Changes or something like that, and it's basically like a
Speaker 1: track and field coach answering questions from the track and
Speaker 1: field team like me, who all seem like plants frankly,
Speaker 1: and um, I guess still yeah, but it's pretty it's
Speaker 1: pretty good our podcast page, yeah for this episode. Al Right,
Speaker 1: so that's stage one. You enter stage two around twelve
Speaker 1: or thirteen. Your testicles are still a growing, yes, so
Speaker 1: that's the thing, and um, they they grow faster and
Speaker 1: most prominently first. That's like the sign that you're in Puberta.
Speaker 1: Everything else might not be happening, but your testicles are
Speaker 1: probably growing pretty quick before your very eye making a
Speaker 1: sound if you're listening closely. I knew we would be
Speaker 1: just like two dumb little kids and crew cuts didn't
Speaker 1: have any effect. Um, and this means you're gonna be
Speaker 1: producing testosterone as well, which is gonna make you crazy
Speaker 1: as well. Um, you're gonna start to grow quicker and
Speaker 1: height two to three inches a year. And one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why chuck is because that testosterone is being produced.
Speaker 1: So basically, the catatropin releasing hormone sources chain reaction and
Speaker 1: it leads down to your testicles, and it basically says,
Speaker 1: start producing testosterone, and then that floods the body and
Speaker 1: has all sorts of crazy effects. But one of them
Speaker 1: is your bone cells have testosterone receptors and they grow
Speaker 1: in the presence of testosterone, So all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: they're being flooded with testosterone, which is why you grow
Speaker 1: so quickly while you under growth. Person, it's because of
Speaker 1: the testosterone having the impact on your bones. Um. And finally,
Speaker 1: in stage two, those fine pubic hares are going to start,
Speaker 1: as my gym teacher said, to become of course, and
Speaker 1: curly and darker. Um, you're going to get more erections,
Speaker 1: more frequently, and your body is just gonna start to
Speaker 1: become a little leaner you're gonna start to look, um,
Speaker 1: a little more like an adult. Um, like a tiny adult. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is funny. You know, by the end of the
Speaker 1: fifth stage, they said, at this point you look like
Speaker 1: a man. Your shoulders are broad. But you know, you
Speaker 1: look back on your high school pictures and you're like,
Speaker 1: I look like a little baby. Like I didn't start
Speaker 1: looking like a man until I was in my thirties. Right,
Speaker 1: But compared to like your six year old self, exactly,
Speaker 1: you resemble the male physique more than before. Absolutely, third
Speaker 1: stage of puberty for boys is gonna be thirteen or fourteen. Um,
Speaker 1: You're pubic hair is gonna get even darker and more full.
Speaker 1: It's about the pubic hare. Well, it's a big change,
Speaker 1: you know. Well it's part of the Tanner scale. That's
Speaker 1: why it's so um, it's very recognizable, that's right, that's
Speaker 1: why it's on the poster and olive garden. Uh. Your
Speaker 1: penis at this point is going to start to grow
Speaker 1: in linked uh. And of course all the while your
Speaker 1: testicles are still growing, You're getting more and more erections,
Speaker 1: and your height is gonna grow at about three inches
Speaker 1: per year at this point. And then your voice is
Speaker 1: gonna start cracking, which is super interesting. I know you
Speaker 1: dug up exactly what's going on there with your voice cracking? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting. Um So, remember testosterone makes stuff grow, basically,
Speaker 1: and one of the things that it makes grow is
Speaker 1: your vocal cords, right, which are basically two um cartilaginous
Speaker 1: bands that go over your trick ya your windpipe, so
Speaker 1: that when air passes through your lungs past the the
Speaker 1: your vocal cords, it makes them vibrate. And that vibration
Speaker 1: is what your voices, that creates your voice. When you're
Speaker 1: a younger kid and your vocal cords are still small,
Speaker 1: they can vibrate, vibrate a really fast frequency, like say
Speaker 1: two vibrations per second because they're smaller, right, But as
Speaker 1: they grow in the presence of testosterone, they grow bigger
Speaker 1: and thicker. They can't vibrate quite as fast, so they
Speaker 1: might go down to like a hundred and thirty vibrations
Speaker 1: a second. Well, that's a lower frequency, which eventually leads
Speaker 1: to a deeper voice. It's like a guitar string. The
Speaker 1: thicker guitar string is lower perfect analogy, that's exactly right, right.
Speaker 1: Another thing that happens which creeps me out to no end.
Speaker 1: But it it's part of it is your voice box,
Speaker 1: that part of the the the top of your trachea
Speaker 1: that holds your vocal cords grows in size and tilts forward.
Speaker 1: And my friend, you have an atoms apple after that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not always. Um well, I mean you, some are more
Speaker 1: prominent than other. Yeah, you know, it depends on like
Speaker 1: the shape and structure of your next But even if
Speaker 1: you can't see it, if you just kind of rub
Speaker 1: your finger up and down from your chin to your chest,
Speaker 1: it's in there. You're gonna feel your atoms apple. But
Speaker 1: it's so creepy to me. It's kind of like it
Speaker 1: produces the same emotional state as thinking about peeling a
Speaker 1: fingernail back. Yeah, that's what atoms apples due to make interesting.
Speaker 1: Like just the thought of my atoms apple. I don't
Speaker 1: even like to touch it, but I can't stop, so
Speaker 1: so odd. Wow that is odd. Yeah, but anyway, that's
Speaker 1: your atoms apple, and that's why your voice changes. Um.
Speaker 1: It goes from growing from very small to growing large
Speaker 1: and it deepens. One of the other things too, Chuck,
Speaker 1: I thought this one was really cool. The testosterone in
Speaker 1: your skull, the facial bones. Yeah. So you know, testosterone
Speaker 1: causes your bones to grow. That includes your facial bones
Speaker 1: as well. And as they grow, UM, your sinuses grow.
Speaker 1: So that means that there's more empty space for your
Speaker 1: voice to resonate in, which also makes it deeper. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And they don't know, UM evolutionarily exactly why. But the
Speaker 1: theory is, which makes perfect sense to me, is that
Speaker 1: UM one to attract women or to intimidate other men
Speaker 1: with that deep voice, which or just a signal I've arrived,
Speaker 1: don't you hear my voice? Yeah, which sounds totally different
Speaker 1: than when you say, right voice, Yeah, you haven't arrived. Uh.
Speaker 1: So that's in stage three. UM, stage four, around fourteen
Speaker 1: or fifteen, you're gonna start getting that armpit hair. You're
Speaker 1: gonna start maybe getting a little facial hair. Although I
Speaker 1: didn't get facial hair until quite a bit later, and
Speaker 1: I don't even remember when I got it. I think,
Speaker 1: I mean, I wasn't shaving, and I just can't get
Speaker 1: rid of it. I know, look at me, I look
Speaker 1: like Fidel Castro, especially when you wear that hat, the
Speaker 1: Castro hat. Yeah, it's weird. Um. Your pubic hair is
Speaker 1: gonna get more coarse, your voice is gonna drop even
Speaker 1: deeper and you're gonna start to get acne. Yeah, which
Speaker 1: is really sad. Well that's part of the result of
Speaker 1: um seem Yeah. We did a great podcast on acne. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we did, and uh, look this up even September two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven. The comito, which is Latin for worm, that's
Speaker 1: the stuff that you squeeze out of the center. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, should we discover what acne is real quick?
Speaker 1: That build up of seebum, that oil, which is necessary
Speaker 1: the water prouc your skin. Yeah, but you overproduce it
Speaker 1: during puberty. Yeah. Plus you're also sloughing off skin cells
Speaker 1: at a crazy rate. Yeah, that's a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 1: All of those things are trying to exit through pores
Speaker 1: and hair follicles and they can't always make it. So
Speaker 1: when it gets built up, it blocks. It goes through
Speaker 1: the three stooges syndrome and trying to get through the
Speaker 1: door at the same time. Right, and then uh, certain
Speaker 1: types of bacteria acne bacteria come in and infect it
Speaker 1: and it swells and then you have a pimple. That's right,
Speaker 1: that's all there is to it. It's fine and Tom
Speaker 1: actually goes to the trouble of providing some advice on
Speaker 1: what to do with it. And it's great advice because
Speaker 1: you think you might want to scrub it to death
Speaker 1: and use every super drying um product you can find
Speaker 1: with a scouring pad. That's the exact opposite what you
Speaker 1: want to do. Yeah, because that that can make it worse.
Speaker 1: You want to gently wash your face or your shoulders
Speaker 1: or your back or whatever or everything a couple of
Speaker 1: times a day, keep it clean, which is a problem
Speaker 1: because young boys aren't known for loving showers at this point. No, no,
Speaker 1: But if this is a thing to you and it's
Speaker 1: bothering you, then go to the trouble of doing something
Speaker 1: about it. It's pretty simple and straightforward. Just wash your
Speaker 1: face gently with just lightly a couple of times a
Speaker 1: day and that's it, um, And don't overdo it because
Speaker 1: that just irritates it even more. It makes your face
Speaker 1: so mad. Yeah, that showering thing is so funny to me.
Speaker 1: In our buddy Mark Farley from the TV show played
Speaker 1: Clint Kinking Beard Can't Kinking Beard Um said that he
Speaker 1: had a Facebook post the other day about trying to
Speaker 1: get his son to take a shower. It was just
Speaker 1: like marching him to the you know, to the firing
Speaker 1: squad or something. I remember that age was like, now
Speaker 1: I don't want to take a shower. I don't want
Speaker 1: to do anything. But now like the shower is the
Speaker 1: best part of the day, you know, Yeah, it's nice.
Speaker 1: I still hate taking showers the process of it. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'd rather be doing anything else. Then afterward, I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: I love showers. Interesting, it's just like going to the
Speaker 1: trouble of taking it. It's just bothers. Well, sometimes I'll
Speaker 1: do that. Uh, have that thing around it. Just don't
Speaker 1: want to be wet. Yeah, that's another one too. So
Speaker 1: I want in the wintertime, you don't want to be
Speaker 1: you know, you're gonna be cold. Good point. And at
Speaker 1: the end of stage four um euro Penis. At this
Speaker 1: point we'll start to grow thicker and continue to grow longer.
Speaker 1: But again, guys, this isn't happening at the rate that
Speaker 1: you would like. Uh, don't worry about it. Just hanging there,
Speaker 1: just hanging in there. You'll you'll be okay, you'll be fine.
Speaker 1: And they been doing this for hundreds of thousands of years,
Speaker 1: that's right. Uh, And finally stage five M fourteen to eighteen.
Speaker 1: You're gonna grow most of your height at this point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: although you might grow in your twenties a little bit,
Speaker 1: but yeah, but not. This is where you're growing the fastest.
Speaker 1: Um you You are growing several inches a year basically,
Speaker 1: whereas up to this point you're growing to two to three.
Speaker 1: Now you're growing up to maybe five inches in a year.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. Yeah, that's quick growth. Yeah. And that's like
Speaker 1: when I see my nephew now he's like six one,
Speaker 1: he is so tall, it's so weird. Um, he's not weird.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, it's weird to see your nephew
Speaker 1: like taller than you all of a sudden. Just want
Speaker 1: to make sure we clarify that he knows he's not weird. Um.
Speaker 1: Your shoulders are gonna be broader at this point, your
Speaker 1: muscles are going to be more fully developed. Uh, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have new muscle fibers, You're gonna everything is basically
Speaker 1: just getting thicker on your body. Yeah, they call it
Speaker 1: filling out. I think again, that's because its testosterone and
Speaker 1: all of these other um hormones that you are producing.
Speaker 1: You were producing them mainly at night while you slept before,
Speaker 1: which is significant that it's released from the hypothalamus because
Speaker 1: the hypothalamus also regulates sleep, right, um, so while you're sleeping,
Speaker 1: the hypothalamus is like, I guess, keep myself busy by
Speaker 1: having some of these new hormones produced. As you go
Speaker 1: further along in the stages of puberty, you um actually
Speaker 1: are producing them all the time and in vast quantities,
Speaker 1: so that that would account for your muscles growing bigger
Speaker 1: and your skeleton growing faster than ever, and all this
Speaker 1: hair coming out everywhere and growing course and everything. You know. Well,
Speaker 1: and that's since you mentioned it, I wasn't gonna bring
Speaker 1: it up, but um, your pubic hair in stage five
Speaker 1: is going to start to creep all over your body.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be in your inner thighs and creeping up
Speaker 1: your stomach. You might get chest hair, and you're just
Speaker 1: wondering what in the world is happening to me? Um.
Speaker 1: So those are the stages and right for this, we
Speaker 1: will come back with more on puberty, but not on
Speaker 1: public care. No, We've got more on pubic care, more
Speaker 1: on both. So Chuck, I've got a little more on
Speaker 1: pubic hair. Um. So there's it's kind of an evolutionary
Speaker 1: mystery to why we have it um because if you
Speaker 1: think about it, it doesn't really do a whole lot
Speaker 1: for guys. Doesn't protect anything, It doesn't keep vital stuff warm.
Speaker 1: Not really Okay, I thought it would warm stuff up. No,
Speaker 1: it's like no, not really, not enough to explain, like
Speaker 1: why it's concentrated where it's concentrated, mostly you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. So they think probably what's going on is
Speaker 1: Number one, it's an outward overt signal that the person
Speaker 1: has gone through puberty and is capable of sexual reproduction.
Speaker 1: Therefore he is a viable mate. That's one thing that
Speaker 1: especially was a big signal when we weren't wearing clothes
Speaker 1: back in the day, right um. And then secondly they
Speaker 1: think also that is a transmitter of pheromones. Basically that
Speaker 1: when you when you enter puberty and you start to
Speaker 1: grow armpit hair and pubic hair and just hair everywhere,
Speaker 1: you also start to to um open up a new
Speaker 1: type of sweat gland, epicrine sweat glands, whereas before you
Speaker 1: just smelled like a little angel because you didn't stink,
Speaker 1: because you weren't producing weird types of sweat. Once you
Speaker 1: go through, um going at archy, all of a sudden
Speaker 1: you start to stink and start get the little body
Speaker 1: over here and there, right, And even though you don't
Speaker 1: want to take a shower, everyone else wants you to
Speaker 1: take a shower. So just go take a shower because
Speaker 1: you stink, stinking a little teenager, right. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that's making you stink is this new sweat
Speaker 1: with these new hormones that are come going out. But
Speaker 1: also supposedly you're still you're producing pheromones as well, and these, um,
Speaker 1: although we don't it's never been proven that humans are
Speaker 1: capable of sensing pheromones on other people, they think that
Speaker 1: there's a pretty high likelihood we do. And they think
Speaker 1: that pubic hair and armpit hair serves just basically big
Speaker 1: neon signs for these. Um, these odor molecules that were
Speaker 1: not necessarily capable of sensing got you. So thank you
Speaker 1: for that, for giving us body odor. Right, all right,
Speaker 1: So your body is growing like crazy, growing like a weed.
Speaker 1: As they say, um, you are probably going to start
Speaker 1: growing taller than girls in your class, who were probably
Speaker 1: taller than you before that, because girls typically will grow
Speaker 1: um height earlier than boys will, right, I remember lots
Speaker 1: of girls that were taller than me through most of
Speaker 1: my elementary school. Um, but don't worry, guys, You'll catch up,
Speaker 1: and don't worry girls. Yeah, because it's awkward for girls
Speaker 1: sometimes to be taller than a boy because all these
Speaker 1: weird societal norms, you know, societal norms that are not
Speaker 1: only weird but wrong. Of course. Um, when you're an adults,
Speaker 1: you realize it really doesn't matter when you are going
Speaker 1: through puberty. It is the exact opposite of realizing that
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. Yeah, it seems like it matters a
Speaker 1: whole whole lot. Yeah, that is not the case in reality, however,
Speaker 1: it's just what you're going through that's right hanging there. Um,
Speaker 1: you're also going to be gaining weight between fifteen and
Speaker 1: sixty five pounds through puberty. Um, You're extremities are gonna
Speaker 1: grow like crazy. That's why teenage boys have these big,
Speaker 1: clunky feet and these unwieldy hands, and they don't know
Speaker 1: how to operate any of them. Right, That's why there's
Speaker 1: like this associated clumsiness with puberty. It's a real thing, totally.
Speaker 1: It's not just this um character sketch that people use
Speaker 1: for humor, like pe pubescent boys and girls are clumsier
Speaker 1: than any other point in their life because their hands
Speaker 1: and feet are bigger than the rest of their body.
Speaker 1: That and then also if you ask a psychologist why
Speaker 1: they're clumsy, um, they will say that in addition to
Speaker 1: learning how to use these new bigger hands and feet
Speaker 1: and deal with them, you're also acutely aware. You're going
Speaker 1: through the most self conscious phase of your entire life.
Speaker 1: So you're suddenly having thoughts like do I look weird walking?
Speaker 1: And when you stop and think about walking while you're walking, right,
Speaker 1: that makes walking really hard. So that to the clumsiness
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah. Again with with my nephew, No, I
Speaker 1: remember before he was even super tall. I remember seeing
Speaker 1: these feet one time when I visited, and I was
Speaker 1: just like, what in the world it's going on down there, buddy? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you just had these huge, huge feet and then the
Speaker 1: body catches up and then you lose that clumsiness and
Speaker 1: you're like, Okay, everything's all proportioned now. Um, your chin
Speaker 1: is gonna get a little longer, your face is changing shape,
Speaker 1: your nose thickens up. Uh. And these are just like
Speaker 1: the physical changes. There's things going on inside your body
Speaker 1: as well. Apparently your blood pressure increases. Yeah makes sense. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: your metabolism decreases some, so you're gonna start to put
Speaker 1: on a little more weight. We already talked about. Um,
Speaker 1: the you're gonna start getting a little more stinky. And
Speaker 1: this is all like the normal course of things. If
Speaker 1: you start going through puberty too young, that can be
Speaker 1: a problem. Um, Like, if if you're super young and
Speaker 1: going through puberty, you might want to see a doctor
Speaker 1: because this could mean things problems later in life. It's
Speaker 1: called precocious pubescence. No, but it can be caused by
Speaker 1: everything from a tumor too well. Yeah, they they it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily a medical problem, but they it does suggest
Speaker 1: This article suggests that if you do, and the Mayo
Speaker 1: Clinic did too, that if you have a really young
Speaker 1: kid that's starting to show signs of puberty, you might
Speaker 1: want to just point it out to a doctor and
Speaker 1: see what they say. Right. I wonder what ages if
Speaker 1: I guess of nine is early than anything before nine. Okay.
Speaker 1: Another thing that's going to happen with your erections is
Speaker 1: you might have uh, wet dreams, nocternal emission, nocturnal emissions,
Speaker 1: that's right. And what dreams apparently is like a very
Speaker 1: common term. They used it in that nineteen fifties educational film.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I remember them saying that in my health class.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a sequel the porkis or something that,
Speaker 1: you know, porkies to wet dreams. Like, yeah, no, internal
Speaker 1: emissions is I mean, it just makes sense. That's right,
Speaker 1: And that's when stuff right there. Yeah, that one's you.
Speaker 1: That means you're you're sleep, you have a dream. Uh
Speaker 1: that's sexual in nature. And uh, if it's a full
Speaker 1: wet dream, that means you ejaculate in your sleep. And uh,
Speaker 1: the first time that happens in your little boy, you
Speaker 1: have no idea what's going on. Um, you just wake
Speaker 1: up and you're like, what in the world just happened? Right,
Speaker 1: But nothing to be ashamed do. Hopefully your parents are
Speaker 1: talking to you about this stuff. All very normal part
Speaker 1: of the process. Yes, just quietly take the seats off
Speaker 1: your bed and tell your parents that you've decided to
Speaker 1: start doing your own logary from now on. Exactly. Well.
Speaker 1: I was a late bed wedder though, so I didn't
Speaker 1: know what the heck was going on. I was just
Speaker 1: leaking fluids at night. I had no idea what to do.
Speaker 1: That's fantastic. Um. And the erections you're gonna get erections
Speaker 1: when the wind blows. Um, you might get erections in
Speaker 1: the boys locker room. And they said that is not
Speaker 1: a uh indicator of sexual preference. Um. It is also
Speaker 1: a very normal thing that happens. Pretty much. Anything can
Speaker 1: do that to you, So don't don't worry about that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Again. You really should not base your
Speaker 1: worldview and your ideas about what life is going to
Speaker 1: be like on the period of puberty, because it is
Speaker 1: the weirdest time of your higher life and not just yours,
Speaker 1: either of all of your friends, of your teachers, eventually
Speaker 1: your little brothers, sisters, your parents, everybody, everybody, the weirdest
Speaker 1: time in their life is puberty. It's just a really
Speaker 1: odd experience. All right, you want to take another break?
Speaker 1: Why not? Man? All right, we'll talk about these puberty
Speaker 1: hormones when we come back. So, Chuck, we talked about
Speaker 1: that little time bomb of a hypothalamus holding the go
Speaker 1: at a trope and releasing hormone, and it's just waiting
Speaker 1: for the GPR fifty four to come along and trigger
Speaker 1: its release and the g n r H gon ada
Speaker 1: trope and releasing hormone makes its way to the pituitary gland,
Speaker 1: which is a little peace size plan that I think
Speaker 1: it was Descartes thought where the soul resided. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think so. He turned out to be wrong. But that
Speaker 1: does actually trigger the production of two other important hormones, right, um,
Speaker 1: lutinizing hormone and follicle stimulating hormone. And these two things
Speaker 1: are that they're kind of like the chemical messengers that
Speaker 1: go down to the gonads the testicles and say, start
Speaker 1: growing and start producing testosterone and sperm. That's right. This
Speaker 1: is the process by which you become able to reproduce.
Speaker 1: This is the process by which you grow a mustache.
Speaker 1: That's right. Uh f s h um. When it reaches
Speaker 1: those testicles and it's follicle stimulating hormone that is going
Speaker 1: to cause the growth of what are called uh seminiferous tubules,
Speaker 1: and those are the tubes basically where the sperm is
Speaker 1: produced and all the stuff is in your body. Again,
Speaker 1: it's just like it's waiting on the go sign exactly.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like this boy needs to become a man,
Speaker 1: all right, we're just waiting for the signal and it's
Speaker 1: gonna take sixty eight years and then another thirty to
Speaker 1: forty years after that. Right, So with the lutinizing hormone,
Speaker 1: that UM goes to the tests and it says, hey,
Speaker 1: there's these things called lading cells and they produce androgens,
Speaker 1: which are hormones that basically help your development as well,
Speaker 1: including testosterone, and they say start producing this. So these
Speaker 1: two things go down and you start producing sperm and
Speaker 1: testosterone as a result, and the sperm seeks its way
Speaker 1: out in any way shape or former can, whether you
Speaker 1: like it or not. And then the testosterone just spreads
Speaker 1: throughout the body and again it does everything from making
Speaker 1: your the bones in your face grow to making your
Speaker 1: voice crack like Peter Brady, to making you grow afoot
Speaker 1: in a couple of years, UM, to growing mustache. That's right,
Speaker 1: not ironically either, because when you did it, when you
Speaker 1: were thirteen, you were super cool. You know who was
Speaker 1: like the best example of a pubescent boy on television?
Speaker 1: I think do you ever watch King of the Hill? Oh? Sure,
Speaker 1: remember Joseph. I don't remember Joseph the Dale's son, but
Speaker 1: really was John Redcorne son. Yeah, neighbor Bobby's friend Joseph.
Speaker 1: He was awesome. He started to go through puberty, he
Speaker 1: had like that little mustache. He didn't he get mad
Speaker 1: for reasons he couldn't explain, just perfect. He was great.
Speaker 1: I was a big fan of Bobby too, of course.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Oh here's another cool thing. Um. We talk
Speaker 1: a lot about the physiological things that happened, the body
Speaker 1: actually physically growing, but there's also the mind and psychological
Speaker 1: changes that happened. And your brain is developing in such
Speaker 1: a way that it's really really neat. You're gonna start
Speaker 1: having interest in things that you never thought you had
Speaker 1: interest in before. Um. Yeah, not just like riding the
Speaker 1: bike down to the creek and teasing the girls. You
Speaker 1: start thinking about life and why some people are poor
Speaker 1: and other people are rich. Yeah, all sorts of like
Speaker 1: kind of deep stuff all of a sudden now attracts
Speaker 1: your attention. Yeah, and you you are going to start
Speaker 1: kind of thinking about life beyond the three ft in
Speaker 1: front of your face, right or summer vacation. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: although summer vacation still rules for a while. I don't
Speaker 1: need to discount that. No, no no, no, but you're gonna
Speaker 1: start thinking about like maybe what do I want to
Speaker 1: do with my life? And what kind of career do
Speaker 1: I want? Where do I want to go to college?
Speaker 1: Like these things naturally to start popping up in your head,
Speaker 1: and with that comes a lot of anxiety because I've
Speaker 1: never thought about what my places in the world. Right, well,
Speaker 1: what if I don't end up being rich? What will
Speaker 1: become of me? Then? Yes, you're gonna be confused, You're
Speaker 1: gonna be anxious. Um, you're also I'm gonna find that
Speaker 1: you're attracted to other people. That Yeah, that's when those
Speaker 1: first seeds are planted, and that causes anxiety in and
Speaker 1: of itself. Do they like me? Am I good looking?
Speaker 1: What is good looking? What do I look? Dumb? Walking?
Speaker 1: Right now? Right? What is walking? Is my stash coming
Speaker 1: in thick enough? What is a statue? Yeah? And you
Speaker 1: just but it's true, like when when your brain is
Speaker 1: bathed in androgens for the first time, they find that
Speaker 1: not only does it restructure and reorganize the way you think,
Speaker 1: which is why all of a sudden you're starting to
Speaker 1: think about deeper stuff and into the future and everything,
Speaker 1: but also the way it worked already changes. So this
Speaker 1: reward pathway that used to get you to go eat
Speaker 1: more blow pops because they're so great. Um, all of
Speaker 1: a sudden is now concentrating on finding a date. So
Speaker 1: you're you're what you place value on changes and let's
Speaker 1: be because your brain is literally saying like, go do
Speaker 1: this because this is gonna feel great. Yeah. I definitely
Speaker 1: even remember when self awareness sort of kicked in. You know,
Speaker 1: when you didn't just walk by a mirror all of
Speaker 1: a sudden you looked at it and you're like, well,
Speaker 1: this is what I look like? Is that is am
Speaker 1: I handsome? Do I look funny? Uh? I just kind
Speaker 1: of short? Is that a bad thing? Um? Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: self awareness is the best way to describe it. And
Speaker 1: as a result of this, depression can sid in. Sure,
Speaker 1: there's such thing as pubescent depression, which yeah, and it
Speaker 1: is in many ways. It's a very natural result of
Speaker 1: starting to question things and realizing you don't have all
Speaker 1: the answers and it's just things getting more complex. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why it's it's very important for parents to have
Speaker 1: a to try to have a good line of communication
Speaker 1: as possible, but it's going to be even more difficult
Speaker 1: because there may be possibility that you're pubescent boy didn't
Speaker 1: want anything to do with you at this point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there may be a chance that that's the case. Well
Speaker 1: not always though, Um, I was or my nephew. Again,
Speaker 1: I hate to keep picking on him, but he's super
Speaker 1: close to my brother and my sister in law, and
Speaker 1: you know, they have a great relationship. But I'm still
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's still some bit of that teenage stuff.
Speaker 1: And that's that's a good thing to have to for
Speaker 1: the most part. That when the when the boy strikes
Speaker 1: out on his own or doesn't want to have anything
Speaker 1: to do with you, or all of a sudden, your
Speaker 1: car is stupid, so drop me off two blocks from school. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that shows signs of like them forming an independent
Speaker 1: spirit or whatever. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. You
Speaker 1: should encourage that, um and discourage them being little jerks. Thought,
Speaker 1: fine line, right, So, UM, as a parent of a
Speaker 1: pubescent boy, Um, you you have to give leeway, but
Speaker 1: you also have to like curtail behavior that's problematic. Yeah, absolutely, Uh,
Speaker 1: And we mentioned depression earlier. Of course, UM, keep an
Speaker 1: eye on that kind of stuff. And there's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with having your young boy or girl go get like
Speaker 1: talk to a counselor or something. Doesn't mean there's something
Speaker 1: wrong with you. It just means you may need a
Speaker 1: little outside help. No, shame, no, and chuck. We should
Speaker 1: say um because somebody will right in to let us
Speaker 1: know if we don't. What we've just described the social
Speaker 1: and psychological development of a person that's technically adolescence, and
Speaker 1: adolescence is this whole broad change from childhood to adulthood
Speaker 1: and actually includes puberty as a component. So puberty is
Speaker 1: part of adolescence. Yeah, we've been using them kind of
Speaker 1: interchangeably for the last little bit, but yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it works. Yeah, I agree, And it can be very
Speaker 1: trying to raise an adolescent. Um so hanging their parents.
Speaker 1: You went through it too, and before you know it,
Speaker 1: you'll all be buddies again. You you have it coming
Speaker 1: to you basically for what you did to your period.
Speaker 1: Pretty much, all right. I think we should finish with
Speaker 1: some pretty interesting, um male puberty rights from different cultures. Yeah,
Speaker 1: here in America, when you enter puberty and your boy
Speaker 1: your dad just gives you this kind of awkward punch
Speaker 1: in the arm and walks away, and I hope you
Speaker 1: don't bring it up ever. Again, that's the right of
Speaker 1: passage for puberty in America. Yeah, that's kind of what
Speaker 1: happened to me. Um. If you're Islamic, your parents are
Speaker 1: going to teach their sons um adulthood and basically say
Speaker 1: that from the time you have your first ejaculation is
Speaker 1: when you are responsible for your own actions. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: guess you have a little more leeway before that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: makes sense. Um. If you are Jewish, you might have
Speaker 1: a bar mitzvah on your thirteenth birthday. Well, whether you
Speaker 1: like it or not, you officially are a bar mitzvah,
Speaker 1: a son of the Commandment. That's right, um. But there
Speaker 1: new traditions have developed where like you do starting at
Speaker 1: the synagogue and then your party afterward. But you're just
Speaker 1: automatically on your thirdteenth birthday, that's right. Have you? Um?
Speaker 1: Do you watch Sharing out Live? Have you ever seen
Speaker 1: Jacob the bar mitz a boy? No, it's really cute.
Speaker 1: It's uh is it new? No, she's been around for
Speaker 1: a while. It's a woman who Vanessa Bear does it though.
Speaker 1: She has a little curly wig and a and a
Speaker 1: yamaka and sits down low in the chair and the
Speaker 1: whole concept of The skid is that she UM is
Speaker 1: this awkward bar mits of a boy who can only
Speaker 1: read like a prepared speech, and so they'll ask her
Speaker 1: questions and she'll just kind of bat her eyes and
Speaker 1: then start reading from her prepared speech again, and she's
Speaker 1: like a New Yorker and it's it's really very cute
Speaker 1: and funny. So Chuck, you know, we did a pretty
Speaker 1: good episode on circumcision. Yeah, a male circumcision. We didn't
Speaker 1: do female circumcision yet, UM, but in in that episode
Speaker 1: we talked mostly about Western circumcision, but and a lot
Speaker 1: of cultures, including Malaysia and some parts of South Africa.
Speaker 1: UM circumcision is part of the ritual of entering puberty,
Speaker 1: so you'll be circumcised when you're like eleven twelve, UM,
Speaker 1: and it might be part of a larger ceremony as well.
Speaker 1: Like UM. Aborigines in Australia UM perform circumcision at puberty,
Speaker 1: but it's also paired with UM what's called a walk about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when they're sent out to walk right, basically they're like,
Speaker 1: you go away from us and go learn to hunt
Speaker 1: and survive on your own, but first we have UM
Speaker 1: to do something to you. Yeah, well they also have
Speaker 1: and I was trying to find out how if this
Speaker 1: is still done with great regularity. But they also the
Speaker 1: Aborigines practice male birth control rituals. So after circumcision, they
Speaker 1: will pierce a hole through the base of the penis
Speaker 1: put a splinter in there to keep that hole open.
Speaker 1: So basically you urinate and ejaculate not through the end
Speaker 1: of your penis, but through this hole, which makes it
Speaker 1: really hard to reproduce. And uh, I imagine it does
Speaker 1: make it hard to reproduce. Yeah, And I don't know
Speaker 1: if this is like what the modern Aborigines do or
Speaker 1: if it's just an ancient custom. It's like there are
Speaker 1: one child policy. Oh maybe so, I guess then when
Speaker 1: you pull the splinter out, it heals up enough to
Speaker 1: restore reproduct Well, now the splinter is pulled out and
Speaker 1: there's a permanent hole there, so then how how do
Speaker 1: you reproduce? Well, you plug it up with your finger,
Speaker 1: I think compared to that, I'm sure if you're a
Speaker 1: Pueblo boy, you're like, oh, I just have to take
Speaker 1: an ice bath, let's do it exactly, which is one
Speaker 1: of their rituals. Um there's a tribe called the Toro
Speaker 1: tribe of Papa Papua New Guinea, and they have um
Speaker 1: forced homosexuality as part of the rights of passive for
Speaker 1: a boy. What you essentially do is a boy is
Speaker 1: paired with an elder man and they ingest semen and
Speaker 1: that is part of the ritual to become a man
Speaker 1: from a boy with this tribe, so they just drink.
Speaker 1: There's no sexual act. There's drinking of sperm. Oh no,
Speaker 1: there's it's it's with the sexual act and then later
Speaker 1: on you were paired as a man with another boy. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that is I mean, it's a tribe of like
Speaker 1: thirteen hundred people in Papua New Guinea and they become
Speaker 1: a mentor. They believe that in the semen is your
Speaker 1: most concentrated life force. So that has passed along to
Speaker 1: a boy. I had not heard that one either. Um.
Speaker 1: There's a tribe in East Africa where they shaved the
Speaker 1: boy's head and then cut them to the bone on
Speaker 1: their forehead, three deep horizontal cuts and they have a
Speaker 1: scar called a gar and it's a symbol of manhood
Speaker 1: lying on aunt beds. The Luceno Indian tribe um when
Speaker 1: you become a manure too complete the ceremonial act of
Speaker 1: laying on an ant bed and being you know, bitten
Speaker 1: and stung by ants without reacting. You just have to
Speaker 1: keep like a stone face. Wow, that's one of their rituals. Um.
Speaker 1: And they also are given a hallucinogenic drug to exacerbate
Speaker 1: it or make it better. You think, No, this is afterward,
Speaker 1: I think called tolo kahi, and that's supposed to help
Speaker 1: them see visions. Um. I guess it's kind of similar
Speaker 1: to the vision quest of the Native American, which is
Speaker 1: the thing too. Yeah. So those are some of the
Speaker 1: more interesting ones thanks to correct magazine and um, do
Speaker 1: you remember I gave up cultural relativism in some respects. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I also it's not really I don't feel like
Speaker 1: it's my roller position to persuade other people to feel
Speaker 1: one way or the other about something. It's at the individual.
Speaker 1: I hear you. I got one more. The the m
Speaker 1: A t I s the matisse or madis hunting trials. Uh.
Speaker 1: This tribe, it's a Brazilian ribe. Um. When they send
Speaker 1: their boys out to become in and hunt for the
Speaker 1: first time, they put a bitter poison in their eyes
Speaker 1: that's supposed to improve their vision and enhance their senses. Uh.
Speaker 1: And if that wasn't enough, there's a series of beatings
Speaker 1: and whippings that take place to make you a man.
Speaker 1: And then at the end of that they burn an
Speaker 1: area of your skin and put this ground up frog
Speaker 1: goop um and with a wooden needle. And it's a
Speaker 1: poison that's supposed to increase your strength and endurance. So
Speaker 1: I guess that Western American like light punched the arm,
Speaker 1: we got a pretty good symbolism of all this other stuff.
Speaker 1: I'll take that. But it's true boys are treated roughly
Speaker 1: and definitely more rougher than girls are around the world. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: although I saw some of the girls puberty rituals and
Speaker 1: some of those aren't pretty either. Yeah, well we need
Speaker 1: to cover that absolutely. We need to do female circum
Speaker 1: decision and um, female puberty. I guess agreed. Well, those
Speaker 1: will be coming right up, I'm sure. Uh. If you
Speaker 1: want to know more about male puberty, you can type
Speaker 1: those words in the search bart how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: And since I said search bar, it's time for a
Speaker 1: listener and mail. I'm gonna call this coincidence. We get
Speaker 1: a lot of these where people experience coincidence is related
Speaker 1: to what they're listening to. Um. And this is from
Speaker 1: Andrew and Ohio. He said on December thirte That was
Speaker 1: on the way home from work, and as I do
Speaker 1: every morning, I'm sorry. On the way to work, I
Speaker 1: load you guys up on my phone and I'm taking
Speaker 1: to some learning adventure. Today's adventure was how broken bones work.
Speaker 1: So I'm listening and thinking, Uh, you guys start talking
Speaker 1: about you've never broken a bone before, and I start thinking,
Speaker 1: neither of I and you guys both say knock on
Speaker 1: wood exactly, and I think I don't need a knock
Speaker 1: what it won't happen to me. I get to work,
Speaker 1: still listening, walking towards the back of my walking towards
Speaker 1: the back of the box in my hand, I trip
Speaker 1: on the carpet fall and punched the ground with my
Speaker 1: right hand. He broke his pinky bone clean into um,
Speaker 1: sort of where the palm of the hand is like
Speaker 1: the bone just below the pinky. And he sent me
Speaker 1: a picture and it was just snapped like a twig
Speaker 1: and the break was so bad I had to have
Speaker 1: surgery to put two screws in a plate in to
Speaker 1: hold the bone together. As a healed um. As of now,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty much held up a whist, some feeling in
Speaker 1: the pinky, some range of motion, but I can say
Speaker 1: I've got a titanium plate in my hand, so I
Speaker 1: feel like it's a trade off forget iron man, I
Speaker 1: am titanium plate handman. But she says it's a working name.
Speaker 1: So uh, he said, Thanks a lot. Guys. If you
Speaker 1: happen to read this, um, please shout out to my
Speaker 1: fiance Ali Spence. We're getting married in June and I
Speaker 1: couldn't be more excited. So that is Andrew Hall of Wooster, Ohio.
Speaker 1: So congratulations Ali, and Andrew, congratulation. Watch where you're going, buddy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and don't tempt fate man. Nope, I don't need to knock.
Speaker 1: Would look what happened. If you want to let us
Speaker 1: know how superstition bit you, we want to hear about it.
Speaker 1: You can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know. You can send us an email to
Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast at how Stuff Works dot com, and as always,
Speaker 1: joined us at at home on the web Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics. Visit how stuff works dot com.