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Short Stuff: Smelly Homes · Stuff You Should Know

0:04
Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. This is Josh,
0:06
Speaker 1: there's Chuck, Jerry's here, Dave's here. His heart is at
0:10
Speaker 1: least we carved it out of him like it was
0:12
Speaker 1: the temple of doom. And this is short stuff about
0:16
Speaker 1: one of my deepest fears. Your house smelling. Yeah, I'm worried.
0:23
Speaker 1: It's a general concern of mine that my house smells.
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Speaker 1: And I don't know it, but everyone who comes over
0:28
Speaker 1: knows it. Well. Can I start this off with a
0:31
Speaker 1: very quick little story. Sure, When I lived in l
0:34
Speaker 1: A many years ago, my friends Breton Stacy lived in
0:38
Speaker 1: a house in Pasadena that had a very distinct smell.
0:43
Speaker 1: It was a good smell. It wasn't like a bad smell,
0:44
Speaker 1: but you know all houses have an odor. Uh. Many
0:47
Speaker 1: years later, I went to the house of our mutual
0:50
Speaker 1: friend and e Crra, writer of the hit movie Palm Springs,
0:54
Speaker 1: and his wonderful wife Amanda and their two kids, and
0:57
Speaker 1: their house they lived in near past it Na smelled
1:01
Speaker 1: the same way. And then last year I went to
1:05
Speaker 1: l A and I went and dropped by our mutual
1:07
Speaker 1: friend Ben Harrison's house. Ben and his lovely wife Rachel
1:11
Speaker 1: been of the greatest Generation podcast and their house smelled
1:15
Speaker 1: the same way, and they live in Highland Park, not
1:17
Speaker 1: too far from Pasadena. I don't know if it's a
1:19
Speaker 1: Pasadena thing or that part of the valley, but all
1:22
Speaker 1: of these houses smelled exactly the same, and it was
1:25
Speaker 1: so evocative. When I walked in, I was like, Ben,
1:27
Speaker 1: your house smells like my other two friends houses. It
1:31
Speaker 1: may be an l a thing and maybe part of
1:32
Speaker 1: the products out there. I have no idea what it was,
1:35
Speaker 1: but it was identical and very very strange to witness
1:39
Speaker 1: with my notes. Can you describe the smell? No, not
1:42
Speaker 1: at all. It's a house smell. How do you It's
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Speaker 1: not like it smells like cigarettes or or dog poop
1:47
Speaker 1: or anything. It's it's just it's a it's a house smell.
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Speaker 1: It smells like right on, Yeah, I mean it's a
1:53
Speaker 1: it's a good smell. Like their houses all smelled fine,
1:56
Speaker 1: but it was the same fine smell. So chuck um.
2:00
Speaker 1: I'm little disappointed that story because of two things. One,
2:02
Speaker 1: I thought it was going to be apropos of my fear.
2:05
Speaker 1: Two I thought that it ultimately is going to squash
2:08
Speaker 1: my fear. It didn't do either of those things. Everyone's
2:12
Speaker 1: house has a smell, you just don't know it if
2:14
Speaker 1: you live there. This is just getting worse and worse
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Speaker 1: for me. All Right, let's talk about how smells, because
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Speaker 1: if someone's house smells, it is really possible, and more
2:27
Speaker 1: than that, entirely likely that that person really genuinely has
2:31
Speaker 1: no idea that it smells. Even in some of the
2:33
Speaker 1: worst cases where like it stinks and reeks of like
2:37
Speaker 1: set impet odor, like years and years of pet odor
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Speaker 1: that has just not been cleaned up and is in
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Speaker 1: the ductwork and is on the baseboards and is everywhere,
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Speaker 1: that person genuinely probably doesn't know that their house smells
2:50
Speaker 1: like that. And the reason why is because we become
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Speaker 1: a sensory adapted two things like smells. We've talked a
2:57
Speaker 1: lot about this, remember latent inhibition when we first rain
3:00
Speaker 1: into that one. Sure, I think that was in our
3:02
Speaker 1: schizophreny episode. Maybe, Yeah, It's basically that it's there is
3:07
Speaker 1: a point where your your senses no longer need to
3:11
Speaker 1: tell your brain what they're encountering. Your brains like, okay,
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Speaker 1: got it, I've already determined the house smells like cap
3:17
Speaker 1: heat doesn't matter. Let's be on the lookout for threats
3:20
Speaker 1: or enticing things, and we become desensitizing. Apparently we become desensitized.
3:26
Speaker 1: It smells particularly quick. Yeah. I think out of all
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Speaker 1: the senses, smell is the first one that you get
3:32
Speaker 1: used to. Uh. There are experts that say just a
3:36
Speaker 1: few and I think this came from our our old
3:38
Speaker 1: colleagues how stuff works, uh, and they, to their credit,
3:42
Speaker 1: like with do interviews and stuff with experts, and one
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Speaker 1: of the experts said, it just takes a few breaths
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Speaker 1: sometimes even to get used to a smell. Um And
3:50
Speaker 1: you know it takes They say about if you're gone
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Speaker 1: for about a week, you can become desensitized and then
3:59
Speaker 1: when you come back to your house you could re
4:01
Speaker 1: smell that smell. And this horrifies me because when we
4:05
Speaker 1: used to go on long trips, I would come back
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Speaker 1: and be and think it was our house sitter would
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Speaker 1: have this sort of funky musky smell. And now I
4:13
Speaker 1: think it's just our house smell, which it has to be. Man,
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Speaker 1: We've always had at least four pets, always two dogs,
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Speaker 1: and at least two cats, sometimes three dogs, and our
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Speaker 1: house has to smell. It's it just it has to.
4:26
Speaker 1: There's no way around it. Okay, I am going to
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Speaker 1: demonstrate what a friend does. Okay, Chuck, I've been to
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Speaker 1: your house multi times with your dogs there, and I
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Speaker 1: can tell you that your house is not smell in
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Speaker 1: any kind of offensive way or any way that people
4:44
Speaker 1: are talking about how your house smells behind your back.
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Speaker 1: Your house smells fine. Well, I will say this to you,
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Speaker 1: my friend. I know you, and I know you me,
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Speaker 1: and I know that you guys are very clean, like uh,
4:55
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say clean freaks, but or obsessive, but you
4:58
Speaker 1: really are into like having things clean and tidy. I
5:02
Speaker 1: guarantee you your house does not smell in some uh
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Speaker 1: some funky terrible way, I hope. So. I appreciate that
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Speaker 1: it feels like I had to pull your teeth out
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Speaker 1: to get it, but I appreciate it. But I guarantee
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Speaker 1: you it does have a smell. Yeah, I just hope
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Speaker 1: it's it's a good smell, because it's true. Some people's
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Speaker 1: houses just smell good. They smell like a mumu or something. Yeah.
5:24
Speaker 1: I mean we we are pretty good about cleaning, but
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Speaker 1: there's just only so much you can do. Like the
5:29
Speaker 1: front couch in our sunroom is the dog couch and
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Speaker 1: that thing stinks. Yeah, I'm telling you about it. Your
5:36
Speaker 1: house is not it's not your house doesn't smell. You
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Speaker 1: don't have a smelly house. Okay, all right, so so
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Speaker 1: but yes, I I know that fear because I've come
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Speaker 1: home and after like a week and been like, does
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Speaker 1: is this where house smells? Like? This is weird? I
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Speaker 1: don't I don't like this. What can we do about this?
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Speaker 1: You know, well, just stay and stay around for about
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Speaker 1: an hour and then it's like, oh, it doesn't smell.
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Speaker 1: Thank goodness, because I forget. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And other
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Speaker 1: than up two is don't make any friends, don't have
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Speaker 1: anyone over. Then you don't have to worry about it.
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Speaker 1: So the reason you become so desensitized to your house
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Speaker 1: smells because you're not only being like exposed like, um,
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Speaker 1: you know pretty quickly after just a few breaths, you're
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Speaker 1: constantly being exposed to your house smells. So it's impossible
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Speaker 1: for you to smell your own house. But if you
6:23
Speaker 1: are like, Okay, um, there's some things that I want
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Speaker 1: to do. I want to make sure that my house
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Speaker 1: doesn't smell. There's steps you can take, and I think
6:30
Speaker 1: we should take a break and then we'll come back
6:32
Speaker 1: and talk about them after this. If you want to know,
6:43
Speaker 1: then you're in luck. Just so if you're like, guys,
6:55
Speaker 1: I'm not convinced, I'm worried that my house still smells.
6:58
Speaker 1: We're here, actually are in the house. To forks are
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Speaker 1: here to suggest some things you can do. And the
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Speaker 1: first thing is is just look for low hanging fruit,
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Speaker 1: Like do you have towels bunched up in the corner
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Speaker 1: that have mildrew growing on them? If the answers yes,
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Speaker 1: you might want to get rid of those because they
7:13
Speaker 1: might be making your house smell. Yeah. Keep your ducks clean,
7:17
Speaker 1: keep your litter box emptied. Uh. You know if you
7:22
Speaker 1: have mold and mildew, that's gonna make your house smell.
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Speaker 1: So get your sort of filtration system checked. Uh. That
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Speaker 1: kind of thing like that is the lowest of the
7:30
Speaker 1: low hanging fruit. Is clean your litter box more regularly, definitely. UM.
7:35
Speaker 1: And then some people step it up and say, okay,
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Speaker 1: I've done all those things. Not only do I want
7:39
Speaker 1: to get rid of bad smells, I want to make
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Speaker 1: my house smell good. Well, there's an entire industry that's
7:45
Speaker 1: dedicated to that. UM. I would recommend something natural like
7:49
Speaker 1: a nice bouquet of dried lavender or a bouquet of
7:53
Speaker 1: dried eucalyptus. Those are two of the greatest smells in nature.
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Speaker 1: Those will certainly help. You can even go step further
8:00
Speaker 1: and put them in your return air duct, which is
8:03
Speaker 1: pretty great because then it gets that sent throughout your house. Yeah,
8:06
Speaker 1: it's a nice I don't want to say hack. Don't
8:08
Speaker 1: say hack. I didn't certainly don't say life hack, but that,
8:14
Speaker 1: but that also demonstrates smells get around your house through
8:17
Speaker 1: your h v A C system just f y I
8:19
Speaker 1: good or bad your house is h VAC system doesn't care.
8:21
Speaker 1: It's going to send them around your house. Yeah. I
8:24
Speaker 1: like a citrus smell. So sometimes I'll do a little
8:27
Speaker 1: lemon squeeze on a on a filter or something, and
8:31
Speaker 1: you know, that's it's a pretty short lived experience. It's
8:34
Speaker 1: not like that filter just smells like lemon for months
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Speaker 1: and months or anything like that. But it's a nice,
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Speaker 1: like citrusy blast throughout the house. Do you when you
8:41
Speaker 1: squeeze the lemon, do you say simple fimple? I do, actually,
8:47
Speaker 1: simple fimple lemon squeezy. That's right, So you can also
8:52
Speaker 1: use one of the most one of the best selling
8:54
Speaker 1: products of the like beginning of the twentieth century, something
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Speaker 1: called Fabrize. And we don't normally do buzz marketing, and
9:02
Speaker 1: we don't mean to do it here, but Fabreeze actually
9:05
Speaker 1: has one of the most interesting stories of all times.
9:07
Speaker 1: It's actually taught in marketing classes in business school, because
9:11
Speaker 1: when Fabreeze first came out, it was a total fullop. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I think and I remember this. When Fabrize first came out,
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Speaker 1: it was marketed as, Hey, if you've been to a
9:22
Speaker 1: smokey bar or something, um, or if your you have
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Speaker 1: a couch like Chuck Bryant does, uh, you can get
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Speaker 1: rid of these these foul odors uh and make your
9:34
Speaker 1: your corduroy coat that was in that bar not smell
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Speaker 1: like cigarettes anymore. And those were sort of the basis
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Speaker 1: of the early commercials, and they didn't work out very
9:43
Speaker 1: well at all. So they they shifted very successfully to
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Speaker 1: a campaign that was more like, Hey, after you've cleaned
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Speaker 1: your house and you're done, just let this product be
9:53
Speaker 1: sort of the final cherry on top, right um. And
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Speaker 1: the reason why it didn't work at first is be
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Speaker 1: because they realized that people become desensitized to their houses smell,
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Speaker 1: and so the people who needed fabreeze to get the
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Speaker 1: smelly noss out of their house were the ones who
10:11
Speaker 1: weren't aware that they actually needed it, which means you're
10:13
Speaker 1: not gonna sell a lot of fabrieze. So they changed
10:16
Speaker 1: it like you said to saying, no, this is the
10:18
Speaker 1: this is the punctuation mark on your cleaning. It's the
10:21
Speaker 1: last part you do. It lets you know the job's done.
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Speaker 1: It's a little kiss of cleanliness. And fabreeze just took
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Speaker 1: off like a rocket from there, that's right, and they have, uh,
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Speaker 1: it's a very big piece of the market because they
10:34
Speaker 1: realized they could expand to all kinds of quote unquote
10:39
Speaker 1: air freshening products that I was looking into it. I
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Speaker 1: found a little thought co Um article on how fabreze works,
10:45
Speaker 1: and basically it's a it's a carbohydrate called beta cyclodextrin,
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Speaker 1: and it's like a donut shape and it actually it
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Speaker 1: attracts odor molecules into the donut and basically wraps around them,
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Speaker 1: which means those the molecules can't come in contact or
11:02
Speaker 1: when they do come in contact with their noses, they
11:05
Speaker 1: can't bind to our our odor receptors. So they're still there,
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Speaker 1: but they literally can't we can't smell them. It's impossible
11:13
Speaker 1: for us to smell them, that's right. Uh. And if
11:16
Speaker 1: you look up stuff like our products like this toxic online,
11:21
Speaker 1: you're gonna find a lot of opinions. UM. One thing
11:24
Speaker 1: we should say is that the US law allows companies
11:27
Speaker 1: to um basically hide things under the label fragrance. Uh.
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Speaker 1: There's like four thousand different chemicals that can be included
11:37
Speaker 1: as in a product as fragrance. Uh. Some are safe,
11:41
Speaker 1: some are are great. Uh, some are very much carcinogenic. Uh.
11:45
Speaker 1: The Environmental Working Group, which we talked about before, did
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Speaker 1: a very famous study uh and I think two thousand
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Speaker 1: nine where they found that Fabriz had eighty seven more
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Speaker 1: chemicals in their product than they listed, some of which
12:01
Speaker 1: were highly toxic. I think they have changed things since then,
12:05
Speaker 1: but this was a big shocking report. Uh in the
12:08
Speaker 1: in the mid I guess, yeah, mid Odds, is that right? Yeah? Yeah,
12:14
Speaker 1: I think I think things have changed since then. But
12:17
Speaker 1: in order to not get served divorce papers, you know
12:19
Speaker 1: what I have to talk about for a second. Yes,
12:23
Speaker 1: my wife's company, Uh, Mama Bath and Body because Emily
12:27
Speaker 1: makes room spray and she makes soy candles and I
12:31
Speaker 1: told her about this and I was like, well, what's
12:33
Speaker 1: in your room spray? Name all the ingredients. She said, water, alcohol,
12:36
Speaker 1: and essential oils. That's it. That's when her gets in
12:38
Speaker 1: her room spray and in her soil. Candles are soy wax,
12:44
Speaker 1: essential oils. And then here's the key, um, well two keys.
12:48
Speaker 1: Soy wax is a key because most candles that you
12:50
Speaker 1: get in the store paraffin wax, which is a petroleum
12:53
Speaker 1: byproduct gross gross gross uh and cotton wicks, so the
12:57
Speaker 1: wicks are made out of cotton and most of the
13:00
Speaker 1: wicks and paraffin candles are not, so they're actually the
13:04
Speaker 1: smoke that is coming up, that black smoke from a
13:06
Speaker 1: candle is no good to be in your house. So
13:10
Speaker 1: you know, if you're interested in you go to love
13:12
Speaker 1: your Mama dot com to check out her room sprace.
13:15
Speaker 1: See I told you guys, we don't do buzz marketing.
13:18
Speaker 1: I have to, man, this is her passion and like
13:21
Speaker 1: stuff like when I mentioned mass marketed uh smell good
13:24
Speaker 1: products in your home, she just, uh, that's a big
13:28
Speaker 1: as you know, trigger for our house and our family
13:31
Speaker 1: these fragrances that people think, oh, it just makes your
13:33
Speaker 1: house smell great, and uh, to us, it makes a
13:36
Speaker 1: sneeze and allergies and stuff like that. Yeah, or like
13:40
Speaker 1: the clip on air fresheners that like give you a
13:43
Speaker 1: migraine even though you've never had a migraine before in
13:45
Speaker 1: your life. That kind of you put on a cars
13:47
Speaker 1: air event. Yeah. Part of the study from the Environmental
13:50
Speaker 1: Working Group studied a bunch of stuff like that. Uh,
13:53
Speaker 1: And they did tackle for breeze a little bit, but
13:56
Speaker 1: the real offenders were some of those nasty like gelatin
14:01
Speaker 1: toilet you know, things you'll drop in a toilet or
14:03
Speaker 1: plug into a wall. Yeah. I don't know if they've
14:07
Speaker 1: cleaned up their act or not, honestly, but we don't
14:09
Speaker 1: use that stuff either. I mean you could spell them.
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Speaker 1: They smell like chemicals. It doesn't smell like an actual smell.
14:15
Speaker 1: Like they have to make up new names for these things.
14:17
Speaker 1: They're not, like we're not legally allowed to call the citrus. Yeah,
14:22
Speaker 1: I know it's a problem. I really think that when
14:24
Speaker 1: historians look back, or even average people look back at
14:27
Speaker 1: hundred hundred and fifty years, this is going to be
14:29
Speaker 1: one of those periods where like, Wow, the federal government
14:32
Speaker 1: really did not protect uh the American people and in
14:36
Speaker 1: fact sold them out pretty hard every which way. It's
14:39
Speaker 1: a shameful time to be alive. Agreed, and I get
14:42
Speaker 1: to be married another day. Good job Chuck uh, and
14:45
Speaker 1: good job Emily. With love your Mama dot com. Since
14:51
Speaker 1: I said that, everybody that means short stuff is out.
14:57
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