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How Kleptomania Works · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, The Chuck, The Chuck. The
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Speaker 1: Chuck is on Fire. How you doing, Chuck? You've been
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Speaker 1: sitting on that one for a while, just since yesterday.
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Speaker 1: We've actually have not recorded in two weeks. And I
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Speaker 1: have a feeling that Josh has been planning that for
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Speaker 1: two weeks. I just told you. I came up with
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Speaker 1: it yesterday. But I was listening to your sweet voice
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Speaker 1: while I swept the floors in my house. Okay, and
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Speaker 1: you think of dog here, you think of me? I thought,
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Speaker 1: like I thought it was your voice that made me
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Speaker 1: think of you. Chee Um, I thought, Man, I've been
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Speaker 1: opening up the show pretty boring wise lately. Well, I'm
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Speaker 1: glad you're talking about this now then. Yeah, anyway, Chuck,
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Speaker 1: how you doing? Good sir? It has been a long time,
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Speaker 1: hasn't it. Okay? So um, you know it's stealing season, buddy,
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Speaker 1: is it? Yeah? It pretty much kicks off in November
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Speaker 1: and really goes up through the roof on what Black Friday.
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Speaker 1: It's much more difficult to steal during Cyber Monday. But uh, yeah,
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Speaker 1: Christmas comes around. People love to steal. People love to
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Speaker 1: hold people up with guns, knives, threats of physical violence,
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Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Wow, that's this is inspiring. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: it is. UM. And actually it turns out that this
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Speaker 1: stealing season will probably be worse than usual because there
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Speaker 1: was a report released UM called the Global Retail Theft Barometer.
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Speaker 1: It was released UM mid November, a couple of weeks back,
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Speaker 1: the GRTB. Yeah, I'm a fan, I know you are, UM,
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Speaker 1: and it said that this year, UM businesses have lost
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Speaker 1: retail businesses have lost a hundred and fifteen billion dollars
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Speaker 1: worldwide from stealing from theft. What what's America? Do you
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Speaker 1: have that four five billion? Wow? Because in our article
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Speaker 1: it says ten billion. Ten billion is like an average,
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Speaker 1: So that's a huge increase. It is. Actually I'll tell
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Speaker 1: you what. Usually, UM there, I guess there's an increase
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Speaker 1: every year, and usually worldwide, Uh, it increases by about
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Speaker 1: one point five I wonder if that's in direct relation
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Speaker 1: to the cost of goods increasing. I think that that
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Speaker 1: actually does have something to do with it. In this
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Speaker 1: time article. I read, UM this year, uh six percent
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Speaker 1: increase worldwide and in America North America, there's an eight
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Speaker 1: point one percent increase. So people are just stealing left
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Speaker 1: and right. And they the the authors of the study UM,
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Speaker 1: the Center for Retail Research apparently talked to cops, talked
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Speaker 1: to shoplifters, UM and said, you know what's going on?
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Speaker 1: They talked to shoplifters. How so do you know people
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Speaker 1: who've been busted for shopoling? Okay, I thought you meant
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Speaker 1: that had not been caught. They just hang around Macy's
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Speaker 1: and they're like, you look like a shoplifter, you scuzz ball,
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Speaker 1: or I saw what you did and I won't report
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Speaker 1: you if you answer these fine questions exactly and give
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Speaker 1: me a saw buck. Um, what what is that? I
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Speaker 1: think we've gone over this before. I think it's a
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Speaker 1: fiver or okay, so um, no, it's a ten. I
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Speaker 1: bet we get some listener mill and I bet it's
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Speaker 1: either a five or ten. UM, so chuck. Where they
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Speaker 1: found from talking to these people is that there is
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Speaker 1: an increase in UM the perception that companies are making
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Speaker 1: off with all this money during while everybody else is
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Speaker 1: having hard times and so they kind of feel justified
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Speaker 1: in stealing, and they're seeing a much a rise in
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Speaker 1: the middle class stealing people who can afford stuff and
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Speaker 1: just aren't paying. Um, and apparently this this victimless crime.
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Speaker 1: That's kind of another perception. You're stealing from a giant corporation. Uh,
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Speaker 1: in the United States, we paid an extra four hundred
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Speaker 1: and thirty six bucks a household in consumer goods prices. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's what happens. Yeah, same with credit card fraud, the
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Speaker 1: shrinkage along, right, Yeah, it same with credit card fraud.
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Speaker 1: That's why, I mean, that's not all why, but one
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Speaker 1: reason why the interest rates are so sky high, because
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Speaker 1: people say, I just charge a bunch of stuff and
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Speaker 1: not pay it. Insurance fraud. It's just it's just, you know,
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Speaker 1: that's stupid into that stupid credit card company is gonna
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Speaker 1: take the hit, but they don't, although they should they
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Speaker 1: but they don't. They don't take a hit. They pass
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Speaker 1: it all along. Of course they do. That's how it works.
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Speaker 1: We're all slaves, chuck suckers. Anyway, somewhere in that those
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Speaker 1: those statistics I just um, you know, spewed out. But um,
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Speaker 1: there are a very tiny pop percentage of that population
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Speaker 1: that are kleptomaniacs. I feel like I just gave birth
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Speaker 1: to a watermelon, a square watermelon. Um, yes, Josh, kleptomania
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Speaker 1: is not exactly In fact, it's not at all shoplifting.
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Speaker 1: Shoplifting is the means by which you would perform your kleptomania.
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Speaker 1: That's an excellent definition, Chuck. And I've read this article too,
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Speaker 1: and I know that that was not in there. That
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Speaker 1: was a special just made it up. Although I would
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Speaker 1: say you could steal from anyone and that would be
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Speaker 1: clept to me. It didn't have to be a store. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: but apparently, um, it is generally stores or parties. But yeah,
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Speaker 1: if you're gonna steal from another from an individual, it's
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Speaker 1: usually at a party, I think. Um, but it generally
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Speaker 1: is retailers. Let's what what differentiates kleptomaniacs from shoplifters. Well,
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Speaker 1: there's actually a definition, as outlined by the American Psychiatric
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Speaker 1: Associations Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that says
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Speaker 1: that they outline this criteria, Josh, the individual repeatedly fails
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Speaker 1: to resist the impulse to steal items that are not
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Speaker 1: needed for personal use or monetary value. That's number one. Uh.
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Speaker 1: The individual experiences tension before stealing. Uh, the tension is
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Speaker 1: relieved after stealing, and the theft is not due to anger, revenge, delusions, hallucinations,
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Speaker 1: or impaired judgment. Um, and I think there's yeah, there's
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Speaker 1: one more psychological disorders can't account for the stealing behaviors
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Speaker 1: different other psychological disorders. It's still a little play acting.
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Speaker 1: Oh I love this. Okay, Um, I'm going to be
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Speaker 1: a kleptomaniac. You are going to be a tube of lipstick,
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Speaker 1: all right, Okay, hold on, let me get into character. Man,
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Speaker 1: you're you're a master. Okay, I'm there, Okay, all right.
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Speaker 1: So I'm walking into the store and i'm, you know,
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Speaker 1: looking for some sunglasses that I intend to purchase, and
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Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I feel this horrible tension. My
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Speaker 1: stomach is tight. I'm starting to sweat a little bit
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Speaker 1: because I just spotted Chuck, the tube of lipstick, who
6:46
Speaker 1: is sitting there as an inanimate object. Because if you talk,
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Speaker 1: then that's delusion. It doesn't count kleptomania. So I'm looking
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Speaker 1: at Chuck. I'm feeling this horrible tension. I know that
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Speaker 1: I'm going to steal. I don't want to steal, but
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Speaker 1: I have to because it's the only way to relieve
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Speaker 1: the tension. So I've just grabbed Chuck and put him
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Speaker 1: in my pocket, and I don't even wear lipstick. There's
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Speaker 1: no explanation for this. I make it out of the store,
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Speaker 1: and as I enter into the rest of the mall
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Speaker 1: and start to feel like I'm not about to be caught,
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Speaker 1: that tension goes away, maybe replaced with a little bit
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Speaker 1: of a thrill, a kick right, and then boom, I
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Speaker 1: get hit by this crushing guilt. I've just stolen again.
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Speaker 1: Not only have I stolen from something from somebody, I
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Speaker 1: have failed to, yet again, resist this overwhelming urge. So
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Speaker 1: I take the lipstick and I go to my grandmother's house,
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Speaker 1: who's now dead, but in the scenarios, she's actually alive,
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Speaker 1: and I just put it in with the rest of
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Speaker 1: her lipstick, go about my business, feeling generally bad about myself. Toda,
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Speaker 1: can I talk now? Yeah, First of all, it was
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Speaker 1: a little weird being in your pocket. Said that I
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Speaker 1: liked it, But yeah, dude, you just hit on a
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Speaker 1: lot of the major points, uh tension of tension, guilt,
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Speaker 1: A rush, giving away what you stole, stealing something you
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Speaker 1: don't need, or hoarding. Sometimes, yeah, a lot of times
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Speaker 1: people will hoard it. UM. I read a case of
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Speaker 1: a woman in the early twentieth century who was caught shoplifting.
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Speaker 1: Upper middle class. Um. They caught her, went to her
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Speaker 1: house and found all this stuff that she'd stolen, with
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Speaker 1: the price text like, clearly not used. There's not a
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Speaker 1: no one. They don't use the stuff that they steal.
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Speaker 1: I've got a hoarder for you, buddy, let's hear it.
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Speaker 1: This dude in April of this year in Israel was busted.
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Speaker 1: They went to his house and they found motorcycle, helmets,
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Speaker 1: um watches, Louis Vuitton, handbags, hundred and fifty pair of shoes,
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Speaker 1: two hundred pair of sunglasses, olive oil, laundri to church,
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Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff unopened in this guy's house, literally
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Speaker 1: stacked in in every corner of the house, from room
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Speaker 1: to room. And he admitted that he had been shoplifting
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Speaker 1: for a decade, every time he went to a story,
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Speaker 1: shoplifted for a decade. And he clearly lived alone. And
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Speaker 1: now he has a wife and son, and he has
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Speaker 1: a family know to keep their mouth. Well, this is
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Speaker 1: the funny part. And of course this is from an
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Speaker 1: Israeli newspaper. It says his wife and son are suspected
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Speaker 1: of knowing of his activity but doing nothing about it.
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Speaker 1: I don't know if that's a formal charge. But he
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Speaker 1: also was busted with a big um roll of stickers
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Speaker 1: that say like paid for thank you for coming, that
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Speaker 1: kind of thing. Oh yeah, see, that was part of
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Speaker 1: his deal. He would go in there and like put
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Speaker 1: that on his big TV box or whatever. I wonder
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Speaker 1: if that disqualifies him as a kleptomaniac, though I don't
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Speaker 1: think why because he pre planned it. Huh. Because one
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Speaker 1: of the things that Freud and Rich is that how
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Speaker 1: we say his name the author of this article, PhD,
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Speaker 1: isn't it? No? I thought it was Craig Freudlick. No,
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Speaker 1: there's no hell oh, there's not totally invented that. I've
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Speaker 1: been reading it that way for two and a half year.
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Speaker 1: We're going to call him Dr Freud. Okay, okay. Dr
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Speaker 1: Freud pointed out that um P boll who are kleptomaniacs
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Speaker 1: true kleptomaniacs or I think from what I gather, we
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Speaker 1: don't call him kleptomaniacs. We call him People with kleptomania
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Speaker 1: don't go into a store intending to steal. They don't
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Speaker 1: go to steal, they're just overcome by the impulse when
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Speaker 1: they're in the store. Yeah, that makes sense. The other
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Speaker 1: thing that makes that guy hinky is a candidate for
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Speaker 1: a person with kleptomania, is that he's a man. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: women more often and this is a little hinky too,
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Speaker 1: but women are are more often diagnosed with kleptomania. But
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Speaker 1: that has slanted a little bit because I think it
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Speaker 1: said that women are less likely to admit to it
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Speaker 1: or to report it to like their psychiatrists, that kind
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Speaker 1: of thing. No, men, men who steal go to prison,
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Speaker 1: women who still psychiatric evaluations. Yeah, so that that could
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Speaker 1: definitely slam the population. But traditionally, um people think that
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Speaker 1: kleptomania is a feminine disorder. Have you ever seen an
10:55
Speaker 1: Ice Storm? No? I need to. Really, that's a great movie.
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Speaker 1: He said that shamefully. I do feel kind of ashamed. Actually,
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Speaker 1: the mother and daughter Joan Allen and Christina Ricchi both
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Speaker 1: shoplift in that film at separate times, and I think
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Speaker 1: she lift Heartbreakers that's Sigourney Weaver and um, what's her name,
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Speaker 1: Jennifer Lovett. Yeah, no, I'm talking about The Ice Storm.
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Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't think so. Yeah. In fact,
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Speaker 1: I think Joan Allen actually steals lipstick. There you go.
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Speaker 1: Maybe that was me. Yeah, it is one of my
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Speaker 1: favorite movies. Yes, Josh, early teens and twenties. If we're
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Speaker 1: talking more about the pattern, it's usually when it begins, yeah,
11:34
Speaker 1: but it can run up to Uh. I think they've
11:36
Speaker 1: found kleptomaniacs in their late seventies. Yeah. Didn't we do
11:40
Speaker 1: a story about Japanese elderly that are stealing, Yeah, just
11:44
Speaker 1: so they'll get caught in like have a friend. Yeah,
11:48
Speaker 1: they're so lonely, they're trying to basically make friends with
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Speaker 1: the police by being arrest So that's not clept many,
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Speaker 1: that's just shoping. Uh. And I don't know. I was
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Speaker 1: thinking about when I saw that in the late seventies. Um,
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Speaker 1: I thought of that Sign Fell episode where Jerry's finds
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Speaker 1: out that his parents steal batteries and in turn finds
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Speaker 1: out that almost all elderly people steal battery Yeah. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: for their tip calculators. The Willard I'm ruined. You know
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Speaker 1: another thing, Josh, is uh, you hit on it again
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Speaker 1: with your little play acting. They usually steal stuff they
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Speaker 1: can afford, and stuff like shampoo it listed and sunglasses
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Speaker 1: are big and uh, they like famously went on a
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Speaker 1: writer went on a Horowitz. Excuse me, no, yeah, really
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Speaker 1: that's her name. I had no idea she famously stole
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Speaker 1: several thousand dollars from sex fifth Avenue, five thousand. I think, yeah,
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Speaker 1: she can definitely swing that. Yeah, and I don't know
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Speaker 1: if it ever came out that they did they ever
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Speaker 1: plead kleptomania or anything with her? Did they know quietly
12:56
Speaker 1: tried to you know, pay their fine? And yeah, And
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Speaker 1: that that brings up a pretty good point is a
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Speaker 1: kleptomania defense is really really hard to prove or to
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Speaker 1: successfully get off on it is you know why, Well,
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Speaker 1: your defense lawyer must argue when the argument that there
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Speaker 1: was no reason for you to steal it, no financial gain,
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Speaker 1: no revenge. They gotta prove all those things beyond a
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Speaker 1: reasonable doubt. First of all, Yeah, that's one you want
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Speaker 1: to follow up. Well, I know that the Justice Department
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Speaker 1: doesn't recognize kleptomania is a defense. So if you're for
13:32
Speaker 1: federal charges, don't even try it. Yeah, exactly, And that's
13:35
Speaker 1: that's like the Americans with Disabilities Act, that's in legislation.
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Speaker 1: So good luck, and so chuck. Kleptomania, what is it?
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Speaker 1: Is it an actual disease? Should it be covered in
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Speaker 1: the Americans with Disabilities Act? Should the d o J
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Speaker 1: finally open up their eyes and be like, okay, okay,
13:54
Speaker 1: there's such a thing as kleptomania. Well, we don't know
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Speaker 1: for sure. There's uh, some people think it's like tagged
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Speaker 1: onto other psychological disorders, like what like obsessive, compulsive, or
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Speaker 1: personality and mood disorders. Okay, so it may like it
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Speaker 1: could be a symptom or a byproduct of a larger disorder, right, yes, okay,
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Speaker 1: but by and large it's classified as an impulse control
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Speaker 1: disorder like gambling or pyromania, fire starting awesome or uh
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Speaker 1: trick o tillomania. Yes, I've never heard of that. Yeah.
14:30
Speaker 1: Obsessive hair pulling, Yeah, I wonder if that means pulling
14:33
Speaker 1: your own hair. Other people's probably both, I don't know. Huh.
14:38
Speaker 1: That's an excellent question, actually, and it got our producer
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Speaker 1: Jerry giggling, so you know it's good. It's good. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So it's either a symptom of a larger disorder or
14:49
Speaker 1: it's its own impulse control disorder. UM. One of the
14:52
Speaker 1: reasons we don't know is because treatments UM for kleptomania
14:58
Speaker 1: are hit or miss. Yeah, haven't studied a lot. And
15:01
Speaker 1: the other thing is like it hit me like everything
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Speaker 1: else with the brain. It's still sort of a mystery,
15:06
Speaker 1: it is. And one of the reasons why they have
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Speaker 1: had trouble studying cleptomania is finding kleptomaniacs. Like I found
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Speaker 1: a study from two thousand two that was just getting
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Speaker 1: off the ground at Stanford, and UM, these people were
15:20
Speaker 1: looking for twenty four kleptomaniacs for their study. And we're
15:23
Speaker 1: having to go on TV radio everywhere to try to
15:27
Speaker 1: find like true kleptomaniacs. And one of um, this guy
15:30
Speaker 1: who was quoted in a in this article on the study, UM,
15:34
Speaker 1: a guy named will cut Chick, which is a pretty
15:36
Speaker 1: cool name if you ask me. He's a Toronto psychologist.
15:40
Speaker 1: He said, Um, in the four hundred and fifty cases
15:42
Speaker 1: I've assessed, probably only one or two of the people
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Speaker 1: were actual kleptomaniacs. We're talking about a very, very small,
15:50
Speaker 1: fascinating part of the larger population, didn't they I think
15:54
Speaker 1: I saw some in the article. They said, maybe five
15:57
Speaker 1: of psychiatric patients, Yeah, admit to being are our diagnosis kleptomania, right,
16:02
Speaker 1: and and you just you revealed something else too. I
16:05
Speaker 1: think a lot of it is admission. I mean, like,
16:07
Speaker 1: remember when me, the play acting kleptomaniac, left and went
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Speaker 1: to the mall, was crushed by guilt and I wanted
16:14
Speaker 1: to get the object away from me. Do you remember?
16:17
Speaker 1: The desire to keep this secret? I think probably keeps
16:22
Speaker 1: a lot of people from coming forward. Ye. So we
16:25
Speaker 1: have no idea how large or small this population is.
16:27
Speaker 1: But I think from people who examine shoplifters, they find
16:31
Speaker 1: that the actual kleptomaniacs among them are a very small population. Um.
16:36
Speaker 1: You know who has studied it, the University of Minnesota
16:40
Speaker 1: School of Medicine. Yeah, specifically psychiatrist John Grant, and he
16:44
Speaker 1: studied the brain and there are a few little deposits,
16:48
Speaker 1: a few theories here. One is that a a defect
16:51
Speaker 1: in a molecule that transports serotonin might be messed up. Yeah. Well,
16:55
Speaker 1: not the defect was messed up. That would if the
16:59
Speaker 1: defect this messed up in your potentially head trauma could
17:03
Speaker 1: cause something like this, It could damage the circuits in
17:05
Speaker 1: the frontal lobes. Right, that could maybe happen and decrease
17:09
Speaker 1: in the fine structure of white matter in the frontal lobe.
17:12
Speaker 1: But it's all in the frontal lobe, right, and the
17:14
Speaker 1: olympic system, which, as of course we know is the
17:18
Speaker 1: brain's reward center. Um. So that's in the frontal lobe, right,
17:22
Speaker 1: which also controls um impulse or the frontal lobe controls
17:26
Speaker 1: impulse mood. Yeah, so clearly it's it could be its
17:30
Speaker 1: own disorder in the frontal lobe. Pasons going on up there. Um.
17:34
Speaker 1: So did we say that treatments don't work all that well? Like? Um,
17:39
Speaker 1: Sometimes U S SR Rise work, but not all the time.
17:44
Speaker 1: Cognitive therapy work. Sometimes you want to talk about some
17:47
Speaker 1: of the cognitive therapy. Yeah, cognitive theory cracks me up
17:51
Speaker 1: a little bit. It's like snapping a rubber band on
17:53
Speaker 1: your wrist when you have like an impure thought. Um.
17:56
Speaker 1: Covert sensitization, Josh, is when a patient wants to steal
18:01
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden You're you're trained to
18:03
Speaker 1: imagine the consequences, which, to me, that's like I thought
18:07
Speaker 1: that's what you're just supposed to teach people. It's like,
18:09
Speaker 1: um no, it's like like you're get in trouble, bring
18:12
Speaker 1: a cat in the face, like every time it does
18:14
Speaker 1: something you don't want with a little water bottle. Uh.
18:18
Speaker 1: Aversion therapy that is, if you feel the urge to steal,
18:21
Speaker 1: you will be told to do something like holding your
18:23
Speaker 1: breath until it's literally painful. Oh, I'm sorry. That's the
18:27
Speaker 1: one that's like you are that covert sensitization that is
18:33
Speaker 1: kind of what we as humans should be walking around
18:35
Speaker 1: doing at all times, right, thinking about the consequences of
18:38
Speaker 1: your actions. Uh. And then the last one that uses
18:41
Speaker 1: systematic desensitization, which is relaxation therapy and substituting relaxing feelings
18:48
Speaker 1: instead of the urge to steal. All of those are
18:51
Speaker 1: probably the most difficult thing kleptomaniac will ever attempt to.
18:56
Speaker 1: I found another little study though, let's hear it check.
18:58
Speaker 1: In April of this year, they started a test where
19:01
Speaker 1: they gave kleptomaniacs or cleptomania, what do we call them again,
19:06
Speaker 1: those with kleptomania, people with cleptomania. I guess no one
19:09
Speaker 1: wants to be called a maniac in any way. Uh.
19:12
Speaker 1: They they studied they got twenty five habitual thieves men
19:17
Speaker 1: and women between seventeen seventy five, and they gave them
19:21
Speaker 1: the drug nal trek Zone, which is what they give
19:25
Speaker 1: alcoholics and drug addicts to curb their their bad behavior.
19:28
Speaker 1: Is that the stuff that makes your hangover really really bad?
19:31
Speaker 1: I think so it's supposed to quell those impulses, and
19:34
Speaker 1: it kind of worked. Um. After eight weeks they found
19:38
Speaker 1: that two thirds of the people who had not give
19:41
Speaker 1: them the placebo had no urge to steal, and only
19:44
Speaker 1: like eight percent had placebo did so. They also ate
19:47
Speaker 1: their vegetables and went to bed when they were told
19:49
Speaker 1: to be good drug we could use that, chuck. Is
19:54
Speaker 1: that it almost we're going to travel back to the
19:57
Speaker 1: beginning now or this should have been at the beg
20:00
Speaker 1: name kleptomania was um. I think it first appears in
20:04
Speaker 1: literature in three seven CE. Okay, Uh St Augustine admitted
20:10
Speaker 1: to Uh, lusting to thieve by St. Augustine was something
20:15
Speaker 1: mounts he really was if he existed at all um
20:19
Speaker 1: and then it ends up in the medical literature. In
20:22
Speaker 1: eighteen sixteen, a Swiss physician by the name of Matthey
20:25
Speaker 1: wrote of a unique madness characterized by the tendency to
20:29
Speaker 1: steal without motive and without necessity. Do you have an
20:32
Speaker 1: eighteen sixteen And then Freud came in and said that
20:35
Speaker 1: has something to do with penis envy, no kidding, And
20:39
Speaker 1: now it's a forty five well not just a kleptomania,
20:41
Speaker 1: but shoplifting is a forty five billion dollar in this country,
20:45
Speaker 1: took off from eighteen sixteen to two thousand nine. It's
20:48
Speaker 1: good stuff, all right, Well that's kleptomania. If you want
20:51
Speaker 1: to know anymore, you can read the article by our
20:54
Speaker 1: own Dr Freud um by typing in kleptomania. Remember it
20:59
Speaker 1: because with the cake uh and the handy search bar
21:02
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. And since I just
21:04
Speaker 1: said that, of course, dear friends, this means listener. Mayo, Josh,
21:12
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna call this hippie Rob followed up, you're
21:17
Speaker 1: old buddy, hippie. Should you say something about hippie Rob? Well,
21:19
Speaker 1: let's wait till after h Hi Josh and Chuck. I
21:23
Speaker 1: like him when they stripped that way. I don't normally
21:25
Speaker 1: right into TV shows or radio shows, etcetera. But I've
21:29
Speaker 1: heard Josh talk about Hippie Rob and at the end
21:31
Speaker 1: of the Hangover podcast, he mentioned that he wanted to
21:33
Speaker 1: hear from people who knew of his whereabouts. I do,
21:36
Speaker 1: in fact know at Hippie Rob and wanted to offer
21:38
Speaker 1: my knowledge of this person to determine if it was
21:41
Speaker 1: the same hippie Rob. And I've seen this email and
21:43
Speaker 1: I know that it's a real Hippi Rob because he
21:45
Speaker 1: capitalized the h and the robber. The hippie Rob I
21:49
Speaker 1: know is originally from vinyl Haven, Maine, a medium side
21:54
Speaker 1: a medium sized island off the coast of down East
21:57
Speaker 1: Main and say things weird there. Dummy his full name,
22:02
Speaker 1: I didn't say his full name here, but it's Robert
22:04
Speaker 1: Blank and uh. He has thick, blonde dreadlocks. He's sure
22:09
Speaker 1: tell tale sign of a hippie. Sure he was about
22:11
Speaker 1: five ten and never talked about his age, but I
22:13
Speaker 1: would put him in the upper thirties and possibly lower
22:16
Speaker 1: forties in nine. He loves coffee, hates alcohol, and he
22:21
Speaker 1: mentioned one of his other habits that he loves, which
22:23
Speaker 1: we're not going to mention on the air. But his
22:25
Speaker 1: name is Hippie Rob. So fill in the blanks. Uh.
22:29
Speaker 1: He squatted at my apartment in Portland, Maine the summer
22:31
Speaker 1: of nine. So close. At the time, he was living
22:35
Speaker 1: off the Social Security from a quote permanent work related accident.
22:39
Speaker 1: I think we've all known a hippie Rob, but something
22:42
Speaker 1: told me that his permanent disability was not physically related.
22:44
Speaker 1: I would see him every few summers in Maine and
22:46
Speaker 1: he would shoot the breeze. We would shoot the breeze
22:48
Speaker 1: while drinking coffee and doing other things. He was a
22:52
Speaker 1: terrible mooch. I know that he loved to travel the
22:54
Speaker 1: warm places in the winter, with his favorite being Hawaii.
22:57
Speaker 1: And uh, if you read this on the air, could
22:59
Speaker 1: you have a shout out to my girlfriend Kristen, who
23:02
Speaker 1: was an amazing sport about me listening to the podcast
23:05
Speaker 1: Galen from Portland, Maine. So, Josh, is it can't be Rob?
23:09
Speaker 1: Know there's a couple of things missing here. Is so close?
23:12
Speaker 1: I mean the age one thing is this. No one
23:15
Speaker 1: knows the origin of the real hippie Rock. No one
23:17
Speaker 1: knows where Hippie Robs from. He does um, he uh.
23:22
Speaker 1: And he's blonde, although you would say more like strawberry
23:25
Speaker 1: blonde ish, not true blonde. Um has beard, kind of
23:30
Speaker 1: a little guy. Uh. In he would have been late
23:34
Speaker 1: thirties or so. World class. Yeah, well you used to like,
23:38
Speaker 1: you know, we'd buy beer, and we'd buy Sierra Nevada
23:40
Speaker 1: beer and Rob didn't have any money for a while,
23:43
Speaker 1: and then he get paid and um, he would be
23:45
Speaker 1: his turn to buy the beer and he'd buy like
23:47
Speaker 1: a twelve pack of Milwaukee beast ice and would be
23:49
Speaker 1: like this, this is not the same Rob. Um. There's
23:54
Speaker 1: a dog missing. And this is a very key point.
23:57
Speaker 1: The dogs Sudonna. I'll have to tell you about him
23:59
Speaker 1: some time. He's a wolf Dogsdona. Hippie Rob owned yes, no,
24:04
Speaker 1: they they were best friends. There was no best friends. Um.
24:09
Speaker 1: And then the real giveaway was that hippie Rob loved
24:14
Speaker 1: alcohol right that he would never even now he could
24:18
Speaker 1: have given up booze. No one would have. No one
24:21
Speaker 1: would say, hippy Rob hayes alcohol. He just doesn't drink
24:24
Speaker 1: it anymore and he probably still has. Hippy Rob loves alcohol.
24:27
Speaker 1: So that was the one that listed tale tale giveaway.
24:30
Speaker 1: So not hippie Rob unfortunately. Yeah, and uh, I guess
24:34
Speaker 1: if you know where Hippie Rob is. I've revealed some
24:37
Speaker 1: more clues here, send us an email. We still want
24:39
Speaker 1: to know. We're looking for him. And uh is it
24:42
Speaker 1: Kristen or Kirsten Chuck Uh? In the email Galen's girlfriend
24:48
Speaker 1: Kristen Kristen special thanks to you for letting Galen listen
24:51
Speaker 1: to us. We appreciate that. If you have any cool
24:54
Speaker 1: stories about your significant other letting you do something um
24:58
Speaker 1: that you want to do, uh, put it in an email. Also,
25:02
Speaker 1: if you know where Hippie Rob is, we want to
25:03
Speaker 1: hear that too. You can email Chuck and me at
25:07
Speaker 1: all times at stuff podcast at how stuff works dot
25:11
Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
25:18
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works dot com. Want more how
25:21
Speaker 1: stuff works, check out our blogs on the house stuff
25:24
Speaker 1: works dot Com home page. M HM brought to you
25:28
Speaker 1: by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are
25:32
Speaker 1: you