Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Uh,
Speaker 1: and we are coming at you the Stuff you Should Know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a public service edition. We do a few
Speaker 1: of these every now and then. Yeah, we want to
Speaker 1: make sure that you consumers out there are well taken
Speaker 1: care of, and we feel like we're the guys to
Speaker 1: do it, us and Clark Howard at least right now. Actually,
Speaker 1: I want to go ahead and issue a c o
Speaker 1: A that you mean demanded I issue. Uh. I am
Speaker 1: in no way, shape or form qualified to give anyone
Speaker 1: financial advice of any type whatsoever because you don't understand
Speaker 1: it or you're just not good with I'm I just
Speaker 1: I don't know enough about it. I'm just a caveman.
Speaker 1: Your were frightens and confuses me. But this is pretty
Speaker 1: straight up cash credit or debit. Plus there's also the
Speaker 1: the the clincher at the end where I say, hey, man,
Speaker 1: do what you want. Well, that's true, So there you go.
Speaker 1: At the Yeah, spoiler. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: It's depends on the context. Sometimes cash is great, sometimes
Speaker 1: credits great. Sometimes debit's great. Although I went back and
Speaker 1: read this and I'm like, I clearly favor personally debit cards.
Speaker 1: I just think they're better. Yeah, but we'll we'll get
Speaker 1: into this. Let me I have an actual news topic
Speaker 1: intro this time. So there is a lady named Lorie Black.
Speaker 1: She's thirty two. She lives in Auburn, Massachusetts. Okay, I
Speaker 1: don't know where that is. Plbert Hodgman does. Yeah. Probably
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, let's bring him in to answer, John,
Speaker 1: come on in, have a seat. Not so, No, he's
Speaker 1: not here. Okay, Well, anyway, we'll find out some other time.
Speaker 1: Where Auburn, Massachusetts, half of already has just went sweet
Speaker 1: and half of them went no. Um. Lori Black is
Speaker 1: a thirty two year old unemployed or out of work
Speaker 1: preschool teacher from Auburn, Massachusetts, and she also has the
Speaker 1: unlikely credit of having fifteen black Fridays under a belt.
Speaker 1: That's where the blimp attacks is Super Bowl. She's got
Speaker 1: fifteen of those under her belt, and her whole thing
Speaker 1: is that she can't afford to do this herself. But
Speaker 1: she is such a junkie for this kind of thing
Speaker 1: that she's come up with a great way to get
Speaker 1: in the game, get in the Black Friday game and
Speaker 1: not break her record, um and make a little bit
Speaker 1: of cash. And that is to be a Black Friday mercenary.
Speaker 1: So hold on, let me get this straight. You're saying
Speaker 1: that she has attended that many like Walmart openings or whatever.
Speaker 1: You're not openings, but the shopping experience, the kind where
Speaker 1: like she's the kind where you camp outside and and
Speaker 1: I thought about this, I'm like, well, I mean a
Speaker 1: lot of people like to do that. And I didn't
Speaker 1: realize in this This article from um daily Finance dot
Speaker 1: com points out that she lives in Massachusetts, and when
Speaker 1: Black Friday comes around in Massachusetts, you are for freason
Speaker 1: if you're camping outside waiting for a store to open.
Speaker 1: So what she's saying is like, I'll go stand in
Speaker 1: for you. I will go through the elbows, I will
Speaker 1: go I will bring my stiletto, and um, I will
Speaker 1: get you those deals that you want. You stay at
Speaker 1: home and stay toasty. And she's also figured out that
Speaker 1: nursing home patients who love Black Friday deals. Um will
Speaker 1: probably be her biggest clientele. You stay in bed shut ends. No,
Speaker 1: she's not praying on shut and she's offering a valuable
Speaker 1: service for of the total value of the purchases she
Speaker 1: makes for your stuff. Even yeah, I thought she just
Speaker 1: held and she goes shopping for you. She does everything.
Speaker 1: She's by Friday mercenary. So if you want to hire
Speaker 1: Lori Black, you can find a Craigslist add that she posted.
Speaker 1: I guess look for first, go to Google maps or
Speaker 1: Yahoo Maps or whoever maps and look up Auburn, Massachusetts
Speaker 1: and find the closest big city, and then go to
Speaker 1: Craigslist and go to that big cities. I don't know
Speaker 1: what posting, but you'll find it. I'm kind of curious
Speaker 1: about does she take on more than one person? I
Speaker 1: wonder is there a guarantee of how much they need
Speaker 1: to spend? Because if she's doing all this for a
Speaker 1: hundred bucks, then no, I don't think she'd do it
Speaker 1: for a hundred bucks, although she may be such a
Speaker 1: lover of Black Friday that hey might as well. So
Speaker 1: she's crazy, is what you're saying. I think she's a
Speaker 1: she's an eccentric person, but not really crazy. I'm sure
Speaker 1: she's very nice. Fifteen Black Friday sixteen. Here's pulling for
Speaker 1: Lorie Black to make that to to keep her streak unbroken.
Speaker 1: You're rooting for Yeah. So my big question is is
Speaker 1: if you're Lorie Black and you are using your own
Speaker 1: money that people are going to pay you for in return,
Speaker 1: what's the best thing you can use while you are
Speaker 1: standing outside of Black Friday Target midnight. Well that depends,
Speaker 1: so let's get into it. Uh, there are advantages to each,
Speaker 1: their disadvantages to each, Josh, and we'll go over those
Speaker 1: right now. Cash is anonymous. Yeah, if we're a drug dealer, Yeah,
Speaker 1: some people like the fact that you're not. Your purchases
Speaker 1: aren't being tracked if you use cash. Um. In my family,
Speaker 1: we like that our purchases are tracked because then you
Speaker 1: can look at your budget each month and say, this
Speaker 1: is where we're spending this, this is where we're spending this.
Speaker 1: You can still do that with cash, but that means
Speaker 1: you have to be You gotta keep up with all
Speaker 1: that stuff yourself instead of having your bank account program
Speaker 1: doing it for you. It's true. Um. There's also there's
Speaker 1: also a proof of ownership that cash in no way,
Speaker 1: shape or form has That's right, Remember and die hard
Speaker 1: with the German terrorists, where after was um unmarked bearer
Speaker 1: bonds same as cash. They weren't terrorists, they were common thieves. No,
Speaker 1: they were exceptional thieves. Right, that's exactly right in the
Speaker 1: Nakatomy building which is in Century City. So yeah, if
Speaker 1: your cast is gone, your cast is gone. Right, proof
Speaker 1: of ownership your your face sometimes is on the credit card,
Speaker 1: your names on the credit card. You've signed the credit
Speaker 1: card and debit card. They ask you to show proof
Speaker 1: of I D. Many times. Yes, you don't have to
Speaker 1: sign the credit card. By the way, is that right? Um?
Speaker 1: You if you sign it and you give somebody your
Speaker 1: credit card, you can be like you and I both
Speaker 1: know that I don't have to show you a photo
Speaker 1: I D. If my signature is on the back, if
Speaker 1: I've endorsed this credit card, that's good enough by law. Pal.
Speaker 1: But I never signed the back of my credit I
Speaker 1: put C I D in sharpie, not the letter C,
Speaker 1: the words C S E E I D. And do
Speaker 1: they do that most of the time. It's definitely picked up.
Speaker 1: Since the risk question started, I've noticed people did not
Speaker 1: do it. And now they do, and every time they do,
Speaker 1: I go, thank you for asking. Well, Plus it's ridiculous
Speaker 1: because you go to sign that stupid little thing with
Speaker 1: a ballpoint pin. It looks nothing like your signature because
Speaker 1: you're trying to squeeze it in on this little slippery,
Speaker 1: smudgy smudgy. And then the other thing, though, is signatures
Speaker 1: these days are usually I guess at a restaurant, you
Speaker 1: still sign a thing, but a lot of times now
Speaker 1: you're signing that stupid Jeopardy pad. So I don't even
Speaker 1: sign my name anymore. I just scratch something, yeah, because
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't sign my name. It looks like
Speaker 1: I'm like three years old. Yeah. My my signature is
Speaker 1: sometimes good, sometimes not. But the point is, if you
Speaker 1: sign the back of it right, somebody can practice what
Speaker 1: it looks like on the bat, make that signatures to
Speaker 1: feel like just compared to signatures. That's what it's there for.
Speaker 1: But Josh, you are protected nonetheless under the Fair Credit
Speaker 1: Building Act. If you lose your credit card, you only
Speaker 1: have to pay for up to fifty worth of the fraud. Yes, uh,
Speaker 1: if you lose or get your debit cards stolen, the
Speaker 1: Electronic Fund Transfer Act covers you same deal fifty bucks
Speaker 1: as long as you report it stolen within two days
Speaker 1: of noticing it was noticing it was gone, and then
Speaker 1: it jumps up to five bucks that you're liable for.
Speaker 1: It's not like they say, well, you gotta pay for
Speaker 1: everything and thank you big government for that. Yeah seriously, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean that's one time it works. Yeah, well there's
Speaker 1: there's another time. We'll get to it. Okay. Um, so
Speaker 1: you've got you have anonymity with cash, but you have
Speaker 1: a lack of security. Yes, you have security with plastic,
Speaker 1: both debit and credit, but you don't have any anonymity.
Speaker 1: They whoever they are, they can track your purchases. They
Speaker 1: definitely can, and they is usually law enforcement. And I
Speaker 1: guess if you if you go to the security UH
Speaker 1: aspect of it. Credit cards and debit cards, Um, well,
Speaker 1: debit cards have a leg up over credit cards because
Speaker 1: of your pen which is like it's like a signature
Speaker 1: in numbers that only you know or only you should know,
Speaker 1: and so they probably don't even ask to see your
Speaker 1: card if you use your debit card and you enter
Speaker 1: your PIN number, because they just assume that's you. You
Speaker 1: know your pin, you're not gonna steal a wallet and
Speaker 1: just get the debit card right the first time out,
Speaker 1: so they do you have it? But I have a question,
Speaker 1: and maybe someone knows this, why don't credit cards have pens? Now?
Speaker 1: I don't know that. I wonder why it would seem
Speaker 1: to be just one extra added layer. You're swiping it
Speaker 1: just like a debit card. So I don't know. I'm
Speaker 1: wondering that I have no idea, right, maybe somebody knows
Speaker 1: out there in the finance world. Uh. Cash and debit
Speaker 1: have the other advantages advantage which is a lack of fees.
Speaker 1: When you buy someone with the credit card, unless it's
Speaker 1: an American Express, which have to pay off each month,
Speaker 1: you are charged financing fees. And if you take a
Speaker 1: hit and your light on your bills, those fees are
Speaker 1: going to increase and increase to ungodly levels at times,
Speaker 1: you know percent you might be paying well. The average
Speaker 1: interest rate as of this week in the United States
Speaker 1: for credit card is fourteen that's this week. That is
Speaker 1: so much money. Um. The average debt that Americans with
Speaker 1: credit cards carry is sixteen thousand, six d and thirty five.
Speaker 1: That's not home debt. But it's not just credit card debt.
Speaker 1: The credit average credit card debt is between right now
Speaker 1: in the United States, for credit card holders, that's their
Speaker 1: credit average credit card debt. So yeah, man, if you
Speaker 1: get bumped up a few points, you're gonna feel it.
Speaker 1: And especially if you're just making minimum payments and then
Speaker 1: going out and buying more stuff and paying just a
Speaker 1: little bit off but you're adding more to it. Well,
Speaker 1: it's not very hard to do the math. You might
Speaker 1: as well put your own caller on. And if you're
Speaker 1: young and fairly naive about finance, you know what a
Speaker 1: minimum payment is. That means you're just paying the finance charges.
Speaker 1: Well you say that if you're young, But get this.
Speaker 1: I saw a stat that showed that most credit card
Speaker 1: holders were wait of credit card holders under like age
Speaker 1: thirty pay off their monthly balance, which is more than
Speaker 1: the adults. So you got to leave it to the kids.
Speaker 1: You do something right this time for once in your life.
Speaker 1: Do you know what we what kind of balance we
Speaker 1: carry zip? Really that's pretty great. We didn't used to,
Speaker 1: but we got to a point where we were looking
Speaker 1: at finance charges and we just couldn't live like that anymore.
Speaker 1: It's great. So every month you paid off. We use
Speaker 1: American Express only because we get the sky mileage you
Speaker 1: for everything we buy that you know where they don't
Speaker 1: demand that you use like a debit card, and we
Speaker 1: pay it off each month. That's great. It is. It's
Speaker 1: a good way to live because when you start looking
Speaker 1: at the finance fees that you're paying, like at the
Speaker 1: end of the year, it's depressing. Like I used to
Speaker 1: when I was single and living alone, I used to
Speaker 1: just ignore that. Well, I think that's what a lot
Speaker 1: of people doing, that's what they want. Um, you want
Speaker 1: some more stats, Yeah, I got a lot of stets too,
Speaker 1: but go ahead, okay, Um, the average American consumer, Chuck,
Speaker 1: has three point five credit cards. I don't know how
Speaker 1: you have half of credit card, but three point five
Speaker 1: credit cards. It seems like a lot to me. If
Speaker 1: you live in New Hampshire, New Jersey, Josh, of the
Speaker 1: people in that state have ten or more credit cards
Speaker 1: and those two and that nuts. That is very nuts. Alright,
Speaker 1: a kind of alright of Americans have a credit card
Speaker 1: have a debit card. That is a lot of people
Speaker 1: that have a credit card and a debit card. Okay,
Speaker 1: about people do not have a credit card? At all,
Speaker 1: and of people they have to make pay it off
Speaker 1: every month. And listen to this. The average consumer's oldest
Speaker 1: obligation is fourteen years old. So that means obligation means
Speaker 1: you've got something sitting on there from fourteen years ago.
Speaker 1: I thought they had to stop reporting after seven years.
Speaker 1: Well no, I mean if it's on your oh like
Speaker 1: credit like stuff you bought that you're still paying off.
Speaker 1: It is up to fourteen years old for the average person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the average oldest obligation. So that trip to Europe you
Speaker 1: took in nineteen whatever, fifteen years ago, you might still
Speaker 1: be paying off. That's crazy there, consumer, And that's when
Speaker 1: I was in Europe. Actually, consumer debt December thirty one,
Speaker 1: two thousand ten, all consumer debt in America, I can
Speaker 1: almost I Alan can't say it. Eleven point four trillion dollars.
Speaker 1: That's how much America owes. That's how much the American
Speaker 1: people owe, not the government, that's how much the just
Speaker 1: the regular old Joe's though. All right, So that was that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was, But these are good stats. People need to
Speaker 1: know the stag Are you going with stats? Still? Uh? No,
Speaker 1: I'm done? All right, So where are we let's let's
Speaker 1: recap here. Cash is good, but you lose it easy, right,
Speaker 1: and if you lose it or its stolen it, you're
Speaker 1: almost That's what I meant to say, likely to not
Speaker 1: get it back, not that you lose it easy. Um.
Speaker 1: Debit cards are good because they offer protection from the
Speaker 1: federal government. They got a pin, you gotta pin. Credit
Speaker 1: cards offer the same protection. They don't have a pin, right.
Speaker 1: They charge fees, interest financing fees, yes, and sometimes membership fees,
Speaker 1: and debit cards now again have a higher leg up
Speaker 1: as it stands. Right. The second against credit cards because
Speaker 1: the were draft fees that used to just kill people
Speaker 1: are now illegal unless you opt in. Oh yeah, they
Speaker 1: remember there was the Card Act, so as of I
Speaker 1: think August two, you had to officially opt in with
Speaker 1: your bank to say I want overdraft protection and therefore
Speaker 1: you can charge me over draft fees. Sure, which at
Speaker 1: one point in my life I loved overdraft protection because
Speaker 1: I was right and check my butt get in cash,
Speaker 1: and I didn't mind paying those fees. Oh dude, those
Speaker 1: fees are crippling. Yeah, But if you know, if you
Speaker 1: were me in nineteen in the mid nineties, you like
Speaker 1: those fees, I got you because you could just stay afloat,
Speaker 1: and that's what it was all about for me back then.
Speaker 1: Or you could just you know, do your finances correctly true,
Speaker 1: which I did not do. Or and I remember back
Speaker 1: of America got in trouble for this. They always did.
Speaker 1: They always posted from the largest amount the smallest amount,
Speaker 1: under the idea that your smallest amount, there were more
Speaker 1: of your smallest amounts, so that when they started hitting
Speaker 1: you could get more and more overdraft fees. Right, the largest,
Speaker 1: the smallest or smallest the largest, whichever way you get
Speaker 1: hit with the more overdraft fees. That's the way that
Speaker 1: they always post. We could screen the most. Yeah, without
Speaker 1: any regard to chronology whatsoever. It was. However, however, many
Speaker 1: overdraft fees. They got in trouble for that and correct
Speaker 1: and corrected it. Yes, that's what led to this correction.
Speaker 1: That is UH debit cards are generally fee free. Your
Speaker 1: bank most likely has as a fee free debit card. Um,
Speaker 1: if you're getting cash out of the a t M
Speaker 1: at your own bank, you're probably not gonna be paying
Speaker 1: any fees there. So that's always nice to save on
Speaker 1: your fees. Unless well, that was another Bank of America thing.
Speaker 1: Remember very recently they said they were going to charge
Speaker 1: five bucks to use their debit cards five bucks a month,
Speaker 1: and Occupy Wall Street was like what and they rolled
Speaker 1: that back to they did. Apparently a bunch of other
Speaker 1: banks rolled it back except Wells Fargo still has it
Speaker 1: outstanding there they're apparently going to go ahead with their
Speaker 1: five dollar fee. So interstand another point that we should consider, Josh.
Speaker 1: If you have a problem, if you have a shopping problem,
Speaker 1: then cash is your best friend. Because there's, uh, there's
Speaker 1: a thing and they even called it the pain of paying,
Speaker 1: which is when you take cash out of your wallet
Speaker 1: or purse, pocketbook and hand it to somebody. It's a
Speaker 1: very visceral, real feeling that you see the money leave
Speaker 1: your hand and go to someone else and it's gone forever.
Speaker 1: Obviously debit and credit cards that it just exists in
Speaker 1: the ether. You may get paid electronically, you may and
Speaker 1: you could live your life without seeing a single dollar
Speaker 1: bill very easily these days, pay your bills remotely, don't
Speaker 1: have to write checks. You can do it all on
Speaker 1: the on the internet now, So that makes it pretty
Speaker 1: easy for a shopoholic to rack up some debt without
Speaker 1: realizing it or not, Yeah, without realizing it. Right, it
Speaker 1: takes away it makes money less transparent. Um like Social Security. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's no longer social Security checks. It's all electronic, which
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a scam. I think it's a
Speaker 1: money saving effort because people would move in with their
Speaker 1: old neighbor and check their mail every day, right right,
Speaker 1: you know who did that? Or just check their mail
Speaker 1: every day, not even moving. Um, there's a there's a
Speaker 1: whole there's a school of thought which is pretty rational
Speaker 1: and reasonable that there's not gonna be paper money that
Speaker 1: much longer because of stuff like that, big sweeping moves
Speaker 1: like this. Um, I don't know if about that. Well,
Speaker 1: there's paper money. Paper dollars are under assault right now.
Speaker 1: You remember the super Committee with the deficit reduction plan
Speaker 1: that their tax was coming up with. They have suggested
Speaker 1: phasing out dollar bills entirely and replacing them with dollar coins,
Speaker 1: right Okay, and um I beat down on that. Well,
Speaker 1: it would save like fivety six billion dollars over thirty
Speaker 1: years and dropping the bucket, like, what's the savings coming? Printing?
Speaker 1: So it costs more to print a dollar coin than
Speaker 1: it does to print a dollar bill, but dollar coins
Speaker 1: um average circulation life is three times longer, so ultimately
Speaker 1: it costs less over the thirty years of the dollar
Speaker 1: coins lifespan. The coin is more hardy. Yes, but you're
Speaker 1: gonna run into a company called the Crane and Co
Speaker 1: out of Massachusetts who has a friend named John Kerry
Speaker 1: who's on the super committee. And Craning Company are the
Speaker 1: ones who make the special paper four dollar bills, and
Speaker 1: they're like, no, no no, no, we can't write this. So
Speaker 1: you're always going to run into those guys. Another final
Speaker 1: um nod to to credit cards is uh, like I mentioned,
Speaker 1: I get sky miles on my m X Delta. So
Speaker 1: a lot of these programs offer rewards, whether it's towards
Speaker 1: sky miles or vacation points, hotel points, cash back. I
Speaker 1: think Discover actually write to check every year, don't they?
Speaker 1: As far as you know, still do that. And uh,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna get that with the debit card or cash,
Speaker 1: so that's important to you. Um. There was also one
Speaker 1: that I left out. I left that out of this article,
Speaker 1: but I also left out did you generally, whether you
Speaker 1: like it or not? I was wondering why you're making
Speaker 1: such fun of it. To me, You're like, I'm sitting
Speaker 1: right here, um whether you whether you like it or not,
Speaker 1: it's pretty It's a reality of this moment in history
Speaker 1: that you need a credit history of some sort to
Speaker 1: get a car or house or do any large purchase,
Speaker 1: and you can't build one with a debit card or
Speaker 1: with cash. So if you can responsibly use a credit card, uh,
Speaker 1: you can generate a credit history. And that is a
Speaker 1: huge advantage that a credit card gives you over anything else.
Speaker 1: And I also wanted to say, I think it kind
Speaker 1: of slipped by. I'm not saying that the onus is
Speaker 1: is completely on banks to not um rape and pillage.
Speaker 1: I think that the onus is on the individual consumer
Speaker 1: as well to keep your checkbook balanced and do not
Speaker 1: rely on overdraft the to you know, really take a
Speaker 1: look at where your money is going, basically to be
Speaker 1: like Chuck is now you know, actually Chuck's wife is it?
Speaker 1: This was a great article. I was just kidding around
Speaker 1: about the I don't say it now. No, it's good.
Speaker 1: Don't say no. I think you you spell out all
Speaker 1: the points very definitely. And one more time, is it
Speaker 1: non to Humi? I think you should go out and
Speaker 1: um find out for yourself, being a responsible consumer, what
Speaker 1: works best for you cash or credit. Plus, you know,
Speaker 1: it's still sometimes nice too, and it's nice to throw
Speaker 1: down the Amex gold to pay for dinner for your friends.
Speaker 1: But it's also nice to you know, have the big
Speaker 1: bank roll in your pocket and and tell your friends
Speaker 1: to go rot. Well know, you can pay in cash
Speaker 1: and look like a like a big spender. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I see what you're saying. You know, like if spending ok,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, you can't do that. You the cash is
Speaker 1: like if you pull that out, you're a walking target.
Speaker 1: You make it rain? You gonna if you do that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Yeah, I can't make it rain with
Speaker 1: a credit card, you know. You know, there's throw it
Speaker 1: up in the air and it comes right back to
Speaker 1: have a bad idea either way cash, credit or debit.
Speaker 1: There here's the ending. Making it rain in any way,
Speaker 1: shape or form, with any kind of form of payment,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a bad waste of money. Only God
Speaker 1: can make your rain. Uh. If you want to learn
Speaker 1: more about um the hydrological cycle, or whether it's best
Speaker 1: play pay with cash, credit, or debit, you can type
Speaker 1: those words into the search bart how stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com and that'll bring up some good stuff. And I said,
Speaker 1: search bar. So it's time for listening round, Josh, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna call this a freaky email. Hi, guys, my mom
Speaker 1: was visiting my wife and I a few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: and they were they were both going through some old
Speaker 1: family photos in the living room. Mostly what I would
Speaker 1: over here was that's on so and so, there's great aunt,
Speaker 1: who's it? But occasionally she would mention Johnny Eck. I
Speaker 1: remember she would mention him every once in a while
Speaker 1: when I was younger, mostly in the context of some
Speaker 1: worldly advice. Johnny k would say, you should never put
Speaker 1: coffee grounds down the sink, etcetera. Anyway, they're in the
Speaker 1: living room going through these albums when my mom uh
Speaker 1: with my mom pointing at pictures naming people, and apparently
Speaker 1: she points at one and says, there's such and such
Speaker 1: and such and so and so and Johnny Ck the
Speaker 1: half Man, and all of a sudden, the needle falls
Speaker 1: off the record. My wife stopped here and they said,
Speaker 1: who whoa, whoa, whoaa, halfman? What are you talking about.
Speaker 1: My mom wasn't even face. She said, you know, Johnny
Speaker 1: Eck the half Man. So, yes, you guys know Johnny Ek.
Speaker 1: He was basically just a torso, literally half a man.
Speaker 1: My mom explained that he and his brother had lived
Speaker 1: at my grandfather's house for a while when she was
Speaker 1: a kid, helped out around his Kitty amusement park. But
Speaker 1: Jerry just fall in there. You might want to look
Speaker 1: into that grand father running the train, doing odd chores
Speaker 1: and stuff and just entertaining the kids. I had no
Speaker 1: idea if my mom had mentioned it to me before.
Speaker 1: It was so nonchalant. It never hit me until now.
Speaker 1: My wife has a bit of a morbid curiosity for
Speaker 1: morbid curiosities, so she started digging around. Turns out it
Speaker 1: didn't take much digging. He was pretty famous. He's part
Speaker 1: of the Freak show at Barnman Bailey Circus and even
Speaker 1: in the movie Freaks that we've talked about. You know
Speaker 1: Johnny K. He's he walks on his fists, that's right,
Speaker 1: And he gained a pretty big cult following with its
Speaker 1: resurgence in the eighties. And says Steve is related to
Speaker 1: Johnny K. Pretty cool related or his grandfather was friends
Speaker 1: with him. His grandfather was friends with Johnny E. Thanks
Speaker 1: a lot Steve for them. That was pretty That is
Speaker 1: very cool. What was that in relation to I believe
Speaker 1: we mentioned freaks and the show on mortgage. Really I
Speaker 1: don't remember which one it was. Well, thank you, Steve.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. It's a pretty cool story. Um and
Speaker 1: more big curiosities are always interesting, definitely. Um. Also, Chuck,
Speaker 1: we should definitely say thank you to our buddy at
Speaker 1: Little Bit Sweets. We got our Christmas package Festivals, as
Speaker 1: she says, we got our Festivus package. Yeah, Liz, So
Speaker 1: I want to, um issue a proclamation. If you want
Speaker 1: to experience something awesome, I strongly suggest the pecan brown
Speaker 1: sugar brittle from Little Bit Sweets. Have you had it yet? Dude?
Speaker 1: Is really good stuff. Everything they make is amazing and
Speaker 1: this tops it all. This tops it all. This is
Speaker 1: the Honeycomb candy are my favorite? Yeah, like the Hondcomb candy. Guy. Um, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's good stuff, handmade candy, Brooklyn, New York. Liz always
Speaker 1: takes care. We're in the rotation now, which I just love. Yeah,
Speaker 1: get two or three these packages a year, so her. Um,
Speaker 1: and I'm hoping we hear from Mona Collingtine again. Remember
Speaker 1: Grandma Colling Teine's and like all those big that big
Speaker 1: thing of different cookies. Yeah, hint hint, yeah, mona, come on,
Speaker 1: get it together. Um. Anyway, a little Bit Sweets is
Speaker 1: little Bit Sweets dot com. L I D B A
Speaker 1: B I T S W E E T S dot com,
Speaker 1: Little bit Sweets dot com. Right, good stuff. Uh, and uh,
Speaker 1: thank you very much to Lose for that. And also
Speaker 1: we never said thank you to these guys. I haven't
Speaker 1: watched these movies yet, but um, when we did the
Speaker 1: exploitation film episode, uh, some listeners from the company's Scumbag
Speaker 1: Movies were like, oh, you like exploitation films. Hum, well,
Speaker 1: here was a bunch of free DVDs. So I have
Speaker 1: not seen any of the movies yet, but thank you
Speaker 1: very much for the thought and the gesture of Scumbag movies.
Speaker 1: And we will let you guys and everybody know what
Speaker 1: we thought of your scumbag movies after we watch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're way behind actually on administrative detail. It's piled up.
Speaker 1: So I think about that one every every like a
Speaker 1: few weeks, and I never remember, and I remembered, so
Speaker 1: I just wanted to get it out. So if you've
Speaker 1: sent us something I'd say. Look, in the next week
Speaker 1: or two, we'll we'll knock those out. The thank yous. Yes,
Speaker 1: so um, let's see. If you wanted to contact us,
Speaker 1: you can send us a tweet at s Y s
Speaker 1: K podcast uh, and you can visit us on Facebook
Speaker 1: dot com at Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know,
Speaker 1: or you can send us a plan old fashion email
Speaker 1: at Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com. Be
Speaker 1: sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from
Speaker 1: the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore
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