Welcome to “Ear Biscuits”, the podcast, where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time, I’m Rhett. And I’m Link. This week at the round table of dim lighting we’re hearing about your near-death experiences. Yes. We’re taking advantage of this line, we got this phone call line. This phone call line. A hotline, Man, I love it. I love people’s voices. 1-888. EARPOD1. I love people’s voices. All you gotta do is call in when we put a prompt on the Twitter machine. Yeah. So, and these are literally- We have a Twitter machine. Near-death experiences. And what I mean by that is like people almost died and nearly died. We asked for ones that were funny or bizarre specifically. And we got, and maybe there’s a serious one or two in there too. I am embarking on a journey. I’m making an investment. I’m learning something new. I am currently being trained to do something to be certified. TaeKwonDo? And nope. And it could lead to a near-death experience. It could lead to a death experience. Parachuting? But it could also lead to like an eyeopening, heart-opening, life-changing. Heart-opening? Yeah. Future-defining experience, relationship defining experience for me and a significant other in my life. You’re really building this up. Yeah. So, I think this is the right episode to let you know. You gonna start playing Magic, The Gathering? No, I’m open to it, but that’s not it. I am learning to scuba dive. Ah. I am becoming scuba certified. I knew that, I was just playing dumb. Yeah. Ever since, and I just wanna tell you, I’ve been waiting to tell you about the process of training. Get you wet? Back when we went on tour, we were in Australia and we were like, “You know what, when you’re coming back from Australia, there’s that place called Fiji.” Yeah. Might as well fly over it. And we went scuba diving that one day. No, snorkeling. No, we didn’t. We went snorkeling. When none of us are certified. And I had just a magical experience under the water, like swimming in the reef in the tidal zone on this island that this boat took us to. And it was just like, so meditative. I thought I was, and I think I talked about it on the podcast. Yeah. As a highlight of that vacation years ago that I was gonna cry in my mask. You can’t do that ’cause you’ll die. No, it was just so awesome. And then that’s when I started to think, “Man, I’d really like to scuba dive.” And then I start talking to Chase, you know Chase is scuba certified? Well, okay. So I’m having some conversations with him. Let me interject. Because when you started talking about scuba diving, you talked about it in a way that there was a, there seemed to be a heavy dose of fear involved. And every time you brought it up, it was like you were stepping across a precipice into like a gauntlet of sorts, so explain that. Because I have a fear of being underwater. That’s the problem. And specifically, holding my breath. I mean, I jump in my pool and I go underwater, hold my breath. I’m swimming around. I’m like very much aware that there’s this timer going off in my body. That’s like if you don’t get to the place where you can breathe air soon you’re gonna die. It’s an immediate feeling for me. Well, it’s an important survival mechanism. But, you know, and I always chalked it up to, I was never a pool boy. I was never, you were a pool boy, you went to the Keith Hills pool. Growing up, did a lot of swimming. I did very little swimming in a pool environment where you like, hold your breath and you get comfortable holding your breath. You were mostly a bathtub swimmer. Yeah. Or like a river swimmer. And you don’t spend a lot of time on, you’re more of wading and treading water. No ocean swimming? Not a lot. I mean, ocean, it’s more like body surfing and stuff like that, you’re on the surface. I didn’t do a bunch of like… Oh, the diving in the ocean. That’s the fun part. Like when I would go to frigging the Keith Hills pool for the pool parties, they would do that thing where everybody would- Cross the pool. Cross the pool and be one guy in there trying to tag you and you and a bunch of other people could just dive in, swim to the very bottom of the pool and come up on the other side and never get tagged. And here I am like flailing around on top. I can swim. But something about being underwater. You’re not a submarine, man. My mom is afraid of swimming, as a kid she dove into a pool and hit her head, and then she never swam again. Well maybe her DNA was altered when that happened. And it got passed to you somehow, that can happen, you know, DNA can be altered by events. Maybe that’s what it is. I didn’t experience any trauma, but the Fiji snorkeling experience was so formative for me that I was like, I wanna do this. I wanna be able to go under that water and not have to come up. It’s a great idea. And plus I think I’m gonna have to overcome this fear. And then I tried to talk Christy into it. She wasn’t going for it, but Lincoln was up for it. I was like, Lincoln, “We’re going, we’re planning this big trip to Hawaii.” I was like, “Dude, we’re gonna scuba dive in Hawaii.” And he was like, “All right. Yeah, I’ll do it with you.” This is also maybe the plot of White Lotus. Did that enter into your… Yeah. The teenage- The father, son. Yeah, they actually did that too. He’s like, “Let’s get scuba certified, man.” Well, I’d made up my mind before then- But that put you over the top. I didn’t put any plans in place. And then when I watched White Lotus, I was like, “I’m gonna put these plans in place. See how this teenager’s life was changed. Like he found his calling in the ocean.” Spoiler. Oh, well it’s a nice storyline, but I wouldn’t call it a spoiler. I mean, you’re the one who’s sensitive to spoilers. I’m just joking. And so I said, “All right, I’m gonna do this.” Started talking to Chase about the process. He made a recommendation to Hollywood Divers, shout out to Hal and the team that I linked up with. You gotta take an online course. Because Lincoln and I were doing it together it took a number of months for us to get through it. You watch a video, you read some stuff, you answer some questions. If you don’t get it right. You gotta answer all the questions again. But there’s like five questions at a time. And it, I mean, it was probably cumulatively over three hours’ worth of stuff. And then at the end, there’s like a 70-question test. I’m like, “Lincoln you’re, dude, you’re used to taking tests. You show up and go to school any day of a week. You’re you like, ‘All right, another test.’ Last test I took was a freaking driving test. When I moved to California, before that when’s the last test I took?” like, test-taking is a skill. So I was like, “Man, I’m gonna be out just because a freaking, I don’t even know how to take tests. Like, I don’t know how to retain information.” Did he beat you on the test? I let him take the 70-question test a little bit ahead of me. And he’s moving fast. I’m like, “How are you moving so fast? You’re gonna get these wrong. You’re gonna fail.” And then he passed with like a 73 and then it showed him all of his answers. And I was like, well, let me scroll over here. Oh, no. Just let me, you know, I don’t want to… I just wanna like see if what I’m thinking is the right answer. Your certification is about to be stripped from you, sir. I’m just saying, well, of course, I didn’t do it. I just thought about it. Okay. All right. Thanks for clarifying. I didn’t go over there and actually verify that his answers agreed with mine, but I bet you that they did if I would’ve checked. What’d you get on the test? A 91. Okay. Well, okay. It helps to, you know what? I’m not even going to say anything. Yeah. It just helps to be knowledgeable. I don’t want you to be stripped of your license. But dude, I mean, they spend very, very, very little time in this course talking about how amazing scuba diving is. Matter of fact, there’s basically no part of the curriculum that says, “Remember how awesome this is.” So by the time I got to the end of it, all I learned was that like, you can die in a million different ways. You can mame your body and be in all types of internal pain. I mean, the one thing that put me at ease was like, all right, I have a fear of holding my breath underwater. But one of the first things you learn in scuba class is never hold your breath. Yeah. You don’t hold your breath. You’re breathing the whole time. Because not just because you have air, but because the further you go down, the more pressure gets on your lungs. And if you hold your breath under pressure, and then you start to ascend, your lungs become a closed system when you’re holding your breath. And then all those little balloons- It’s like a paper bag. All those little balloons, the air inside starts to expand your freaking lungs explode. That’s not good. Your freaking lungs explode. So you have to have a discipline to be constantly breathing. How deep does that become an issue at? I don’t know. They don’t want you knowing the exceptions. And maybe I did know, but I can’t remember that. But not pool depth? Not pool depth. No, not like eight or 10 feet. Okay. Don’t ask me questions that then I’m like, don’t listen to any of my facts that I’m stating about scuba. Well, the one thing I’m a little bit worried about is there’s so many numbers involved and there’s like math and there’s calculations. Oh gosh. Yeah. Because you got all this nitrogen- And your life depends on it. You get this nitrogen that has to off-gas. And so depending on how deep you are, you have to do all these calculations and keep all these records. You’re gonna need a laminated chart. Like they make for the gut check episodes that you take down and dive with. Either that or like a dive computer that does it all for you. That exists? Yeah. Get that. I can rent one of those. But if you have to, but it’s really, okay. I can’t dive past like 60-feet for more than an hour. I’m just throwing out numbers here. But then if you want to go- You’re gonna be 60 feet under the water? How does that make you feel? Well, I’ll tell you how it made me feel when I did the next level of training. But yeah, they’re talking about like, you got all this nitrogen in your body and it has to off-gas and it will accumulate over time. So if you don’t wait 24 hours after a dive, you have to calculate how deep you can go for how long in any subsequent dives in like in the same 24-hour period. Think of all the people who learned this the hard way. Yeah. So you don’t come up too and you don’t get the bends. And then- Is that a TikTok dance? It’s the name of an album. You then move to the next phase, which is you get training in a pool. So we did this at our pool. It was just me, Lincoln, and Matt, and Rey. They were supervising, the two of them were supervising our training. And so we spent like four and a half hours in my pool this past weekend, learning how to dive. With the breathing apparatus, and the tanks, and everything? Yeah, with the full kit and caboodle. Wetsuit? Oh yeah, wetsuit and everything. Wetsuit, hood, boots, gloves, everything that I’m gonna have for the next phase, which is going into the open ocean water certification, which is two days, I’m doing that this coming weekend. Oh gosh. I think I am. Nice knowing you. So this past weekend we get in the pool and they’re like, first of all, it’s like even snorkeling, when you put your face under the water, like everything in your being is telling you don’t breathe. I mean you’re underwater, do not breathe. That’s why you can throw a baby in water. Yeah. It’s instinct that you have to overcome that you have to start breathing underwater. And it’s pretty nerve-wracking. I mean, if you’ve ever snorkeled, there’s like that moment of acclimation. That’s like, “Oh, yes, body, you can do this. Chill out brain, you can do this.” Then you put on the regulator. Yeah. It’s an amazing system that you’re putting this vest on that then it connects to the tank behind you as well as you having a regulator that you breathe the air out of the tank and a backup octopus regulator that you can share with somebody in an emergency or use yourself. Or share with an octopus. They don’t need it. But then there’s also a hose that you hook to the vest because you wear this vest and you put weights in it, depending on how much you weigh, you’ve gotta be able to sink. So you weigh yourself down even more than just the tank and the vest, just ballast. And that’s how you get back up. You fill the vest with more air. Yes. You have this trigger over here. I always wondered about that. Instead of breathing the air in, it is pressurized and it fills up your vest like a PFD and you can fill it up a little bit at a time. And it’s so interesting- And then you can let it a little bit at a time. When it goes into your vest, so you got the pressurized, you know, mixture, whatever is in there. And then when it goes into the vest, it creates a buoyancy that wasn’t a force that was existing when it was pressurized. That’s crazy. Yeah. I didn’t know about this. I always kind of thought that they like dropped weights or something. I knew they didn’t, but I don’t know like how do you get back up? Yeah. The air mixture, which there’s, you know, the air we breathe is mostly nitrogen. Yeah. So that’s why when you’re down at depth, The nitrogen content in your body increases. Do you have to like dial in what the mix is? No, no, no. It’s all predetermined? Yeah. It’s just a tank. You breathe out of it. Okay. You suck it down. So yeah, there’s this thing that we had to learn was getting in the pool. I mean everything. How do you put on fins without killing yourself? How do you put on your goggles, You know, in a way that they- And then they fall back into the water, is that what you did? Did you do that inside the pool? Well, we walk into the pool. We did one of those like long step into the pool, but we didn’t do the like backflip off the side of a dingy into the pool. You’ll do that next time? You’ll do that this weekend? That’s the one thing that I, I don’t know. Oh you’re like, “I don’t wanna do the back clip thing.” But over the course of the four hours, like the first thing to do is all right, you’re gonna start breathing underwater. Let’s go down and sit on the bottom of the pool. And, you know, they say, breath constantly. You gotta like breathe calmly in and out. And then I get down in there and I’m just starting to breathe. I mean, there’s a little bit of, you have to like suck the air out of the tank a little bit. It kind of feels that way. Like, it’s a restricted flow of air. It’s not just like breathing air right here right now. There’s a little resistance. You gotta coax it out. And then your brain is still telling you, this is not a good idea. This is a bad idea. This is a life-ending idea to breathe down here under this water. Don’t do it. And so at a certain point, very early on for me, that sensation started to creep back in, and then he’s like, come up, telling me thumbs up. So I come back up. He could tell? No, he’s like, “How you doing?” I’m like, “I’m doing pretty good. Just taking an adjustment.” He’s like, “You guys are doing great. Now we’re gonna fill up your mask halfway with water.” And I’m gonna teach you how to get all the water outta your mask without coming up for air. Yeah, this is it. Without coming up to the surface. I mean, basically, you have to learn everything that could go wrong or make you uncomfortable or need adjustment that you can fix it without giving in to the urge to try to come up to the surface. ‘Cause again, you’re 30, 60-feet down. You have to get rid of this notion of, well, I gotta go to the surface to take care of this. Right. No, no, no. You gotta take care of it right there. How’s Lincoln doing at this point? Better than me. Okay. I just wanted to make sure. So, he taught us how to clear the mask, but we go underwater, he points at me and he like does a mask sign, like fill up your mask with water. So, you seal the top of the mask. Well, first of all, you let water in the top of the mask. You just kinda like take it off. And then it fills out with water. You can fill it up halfway if you wanted to kind of ease into it. And then you put the mask back on. You’re like, okay, now you seal the top of the mask against your forehead. And you look up towards the surface and you raise the bottom of the mask out. And blow? And blow and then you blow outta your nose. Yeah. Which of course is part of the mask. And then the air from your nose fills up the top of the mask and down, down, down, forcing all the water out and then you can put the mask back on. It’s a freaking magic trick. Did you know this? I didn’t know it, but before you explained it, I would have guessed that that’s what you did. Yeah. But you’ve never done it, when you’ve snorkeled you’ve never done it. No, ’cause I haven’t been- Yeah. ‘Cause, you can come up to the surface and clear, and we also had to learn to clear your snorkel and stuff I didn’t know. But the first time I did that, like my mask is filled up with water. I’m opening my eyes in my pool. I’m like, “I don’t like to open my eyes in my pool.” And then I’m like, “Oh, I forgot to breathe.” And then I take a big deep breath and I’m like, and then like my lungs are filled with air and I breathe out just a little bit. And then I breathe in again. And all of a sudden I’m like having this panic- Why are you making me panic by telling your story? Like you’re in the pool. Because it was freaking scary. ‘Cause I was like, I packed my lungs with air and I just felt like I kept trying to pack more air in there and I started panicking and then it’s like I had to come up and then I was, you know, took a breath at the surface and then I was like, “All right, I gotta get this under control. I gotta calm down.” And I talked to my instructor about it and he gave me some tips about like, make sure you breathe out, empty your lungs. Like breathe out all the way before you start breathing in again. And I just had to start telling myself, “Doesn’t matter what happens with your mask or anything like that. As long as you’re breathing, you can handle everything else and you don’t need to get worked up here, stay calm.” It’s a meditative exercise of discipline to train your brain and your instincts to turn off in certain ways and to stay chill. Because you know, even if you start sucking down a lot of air, it’s just gonna limit the amount of time you’re able to enjoy your dive anyway, ’cause you’re gonna run outta air. Or die from panic. I gotta say, I’m a little worried about you. I got used to that. And then he is like, “Now we’re gonna lose your regulator. You’re gonna lose the thing that is keeping you alive. You’re gonna lose the hose.” And then he taught us how to find it and put it back in our mouths. And like, that was scary ’cause like now I am holding my breath and he’s like, “Don’t hold your breath, you have to be breathing out constantly.” So I’m breathing out assuming that I’m gonna find the regulator to put back in my mouth. Okay. So you’re saying that you can’t hold your breath at any point because even if you’re not moving vertical- You technically can but when you’re learning you need to develop a discipline of constantly breathing. Just so you don’t forget, make it a reflex kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. ‘Cause when you’re panicking and if you have to do an emergency ascent to the surface- You wanna keep it coming out. You have to keep your airway open by breathing out so that your lungs don’t explode. So we did that and like put in a regulator and then it’s like practice losing your regulator and then using your backup regulator. And now it’s like, all right, now let’s practice the symbol for I’m out of air, which is like slitting your own throat symbol. And so then it’s like Lincoln and I had to rescue each other underwater by sharing our air with the other guy- Ew, gross. From the, no you keep it regulator in your mouth, but you’ve got a backup that you haven’t used. The one for the octopus? Yeah. The octopus you put on the other guy and you link up and you do the hand signals like you’re okay And then you ascend. Hold on. Was that white power? No. Okay. Okay. I’m just making sure. The okay symbol is, thumbs up does not mean okay. Thumbs up means go to the surface and I did not learn any racist symbols. I’m just making sure I don’t know this company that you’re dealing with. I’m just looking out for everything. Thank you. Yeah. I made sure that I wasn’t working with a racist scuba company. Good. It is important. That’s I mean, just as important as not dying. And then we had to practice rescuing someone who’s potentially dead at the bottom. Who got to do that? Rey played dead at the bottom of the pool. This is Rey’s favorite part. Rey is a she. You know, think like star wars. Oh, R-E-Y? R-E-Y. Yeah. Mythical Beasts too, turns out. Oh wow. Yeah. She told me that after I saved her life a couple of times. First time I saved her life I got a cramp in my calf and I just let her go. And I went into like fix my cramp mode and then I had to retrieve her from the bottom again. Is there a symbol for cramp? No. There’s just a technique. You grab the end of your fin and pull it towards your knee to stretch it out. Okay. And then I got her up and I was like, “Hey, listen, if you are already dead, I’m at least gonna handle my cramp.” She’s like, “Actually you did the right thing.” You’re supposed to take care of yourself before you- Yeah, it’s like being on a plane. Yep. Before you take care of somebody else. Oxygen to yourself. So it’s all of this learn to just stay cool, honey bunny, no matter what happens, ’cause you’re gonna be underwater and you ain’t gonna not be underwater. And if you’re panicking and sucking down air, it’s like, you have to learn. So by the end of five hours, he was like, “You guys are fast learners. We’re gonna go out to Catalina. We’re gonna spend two days in the open water. You’re gonna get your certification.” And I’m thinking. Sharks. I don’t care about sharks. I’m not afraid of sharks. Okay. I’m just letting you know they’ll be out there. Some people are that. I’m not that. I’m just afraid of suffocating. Okay. So I’m thinking to myself, I’m not ready, I’m not ready, but I kept the equipment in between the last time. Oh, so you’re contemplating not going because of your- The first time I panicked, that I told you about, I definitely had a thought of, I can’t do this. We’ve already booked our trip to go out to Catalina to get certified. We’ve already booked our trips in Hawaii. I’ve really built this up. You can’t you can’t back out now. I can’t do it. And then I’m like, I can’t back out now. It’s like this in and of itself is a test. I can do this. I just need to chill out. And that was like in the first 30 minutes, like the first time I was breathing underwater. So it got better. I can only imagine how hairing your story is going to be when you leave the pool. I know, man. Yeah. I don’t think you, you would not have any trouble with this. And I asked Lincoln last night, I was like, “Dude, were you panicking at any point?” He was like that one time your mask filled up with water, you did shoot to the surface. He was like, “Yeah, but after that I was totally cool.” I was like, “You’re too young to think about dying.” The main issue I would have is the issue that I have while snorkeling is my beard. And people say, “Oh, you put the silicone stuff or whatever.” But like, I’ve tried it and my mask leaks and you know me, I’m not losing the beard. No, just all you’d have to do is shave your mustache. Yeah. You know, me, Amish Rhett. You would have to be Amish. If I make a commitment to the Amish lifestyle, I’ll become a scuba diver, but that might be a conflict. I don’t know if they believe in that technology. Last night, I said, “Lincoln, let’s get back in the pool and practice one more time.” There’s some air left in our tanks. And we got in, I spent probably an hour and a half in the pool last night, losing my regulator, holding my breath underwater, and like, well, breathing out while I try to recover my air supply and just laying at the bottom of a pool. And just trying to put myself in that mental space of if you get worked up, just breath, just calm your breathing. So I feel more comfortable after doing that. And I also know now what it feels like to run out of air, because I practiced until literally the tank was empty, which that’s a scary feeling. So I go up to Lincoln and I’m like, mine ran out before his, and I’m like doing the symbol. And he’s like, we actually did it. I took his and we, but it’s a scary feeling when you’re sucking your air. And it’s getting more difficult then all of a sudden it’s, there’s nothing. Is there any sort of warning? No, you just have a gauge. Well, there’s a gauge. There’s a gauge that you’re constantly monitoring. But I’ve forgotten totally about why I got into this. So I’m trying to get back into that space. And I hope when I go to Catalina that it’s gonna be a beautiful experience. That’s gonna be like, yes, this is why I was doing this. ‘Cause, all I’ve been thinking about is worst-case scenarios. Well, it’s not gonna be Fiji. Just so you understand that. Like, I mean- He said there could be- I’ve seen like beautiful videos for people who have dove around Catalina, but it’s not Fiji, where you’re in an aquarium. Yeah. It’s not gonna be that great. So I’ve just kind of talked about all of the stuff that’s made me really scared, but I’m balancing that with the experiences that I’m gonna have with my son and with nature. So he’s not nervous? Not nervous. No. So he’s a good buddy, I was like, “Lincoln, if I start doing this, Zen, breath in, breathe out symbol with my hands, it means that I’m panicking. Don’t try to get me to do anything else. Just come over and just like smile.” Is that part of the training? No, that’s something I developed. Okay. Maybe they’ll add it to the curriculum. Man. So we’ll get to your near-death experiences, but I’ve gotta talk about Dispatchers From Myrtle Beach. Yeah. Have we talked about Dispatchers from Myrtle beach on this show? Not on this show. I don’t know if we- We talked about it on GMM this week. We’ve announced it. And I mean, I just listened to the trailer, Which is out. For this podcast, which is Charles Neal and Link Neal. That’s Link’s dad. And let me just tell you, I mean, I’m very excited. I know that you’ve already recorded an episode. Yeah. But I mean, when? Well, it comes out this Thursday. When you just, I mean your dad- Or last Thursday, if your watching the video version. Your dad’s voice is iconic. And now we’re monetizing it. He has been so excited. Once I started talking to him about doing a podcast and I’m like, “Dad, this is your podcast. And I’m just like your sidekick. I’m just here to talk to you and catch up every week, every Thursday we’re gonna publish our conversation where we catch up.” But there’s gonna be, we have different segments planned, different things that he’s gonna talk about. So yeah, he’s driving the ship and I’m an interesting passenger on this journey of what is this gonna become something? And I think it really comes down to, is it gonna become something in my dad’s mind and in his life? Is this gonna legitimately be an outlet for him? Like so far, he’s got hundreds and hundreds of emails from people ever since way back when I tweeted his email address, people didn’t believe me. And then he is like elated to be getting, “I got 300 emails.” He’s about to get more. “In one night.” He’s about to get more. Yeah. ratherbshaggin53@aol.com. This his email address. So yeah, every Thursday, wherever you get your podcast, Dispatches From Myrtle Beach. My dad has a podcast where he talks to me. So go over there and subscribe and follow, whatever you can do, even though an episode’s not out if you’re listening to this, but if you’re watching the video, the episode’s up, the first episode’s up. You can go and actually listen to it right now, wherever you get your podcast. The things that we talked about in the first episode, I ended up giving him quite an education. Of course, I learned some things about him too. I don’t want to give anything away. I just want you to go over there. I’m excited about this. I haven’t listened to it, I’m gonna listen to it as a consumer. You know what I’m saying? We’re trying to the episodes at like 30 minutes. So it’s kind of feels a different niche in your listening routine than say Ear Biscuits. So yeah. Thursdays, Dispatchers From Myrtle Beach. Let’s start with hearing a near-death experience. So this is actually a very American story. I almost choked to death on a corner of a hot sauce packet while eating lunch at work. Oh. I ripped it off. That’s not it? And I guess I didn’t throw it away properly. And it somehow made its way into my sandwich. And when I tried to swallow, it got stuck in my esophagus or whatever it is that blocks, stuff that isn’t supposed to be going into your stomach. Well, you, oh no, it blocked your windpipe. And I was all alone. I had my own office and no one was around. I had a walkie-talkie, but couldn’t use it because I couldn’t speak because I was choking and I had no clue what to do. I ended up trying to dig it outta my throat. It didn’t quite work. And I ended up just trying to make myself throw up and that did work. So I did not die. And I lived to tell the tale, but that’s the story of me being American and almost choking to death on something that could have been prevented if I had just not been so hasty while I was eating. Thanks for sharing your story. But there’s a couple of, I just can’t believe this happened. I mean typically the corner of a hot sauce packet is not a chokable size. It depends on how good of a rip you get and how deep it goes, I think. And if it just went into the windpipe, she said esophagus but- Trachea. Trachea. Trachea and the esophagus, right, they meet. It must have been at a spot where, ’cause making yourself throw up is gonna bypass your windpipe if it’s gone deep enough. Well, it’s probably right there at the intersection of the two. And I don’t know, I’m no doctor, but I think that if something is lodged right there at the top of the trachea, it’s more than anything. it’s super unpleasant. But if you were to stop and not cough, you would find that you’re still able to, especially in this case, get oxygen into your lungs. Now I’m not a doctor either. Yeah. But my understanding is- But you’ve taken that scuba test. You do not give someone the Heimlich Maneuver if they’re making noise, because that means that there is some sort of airflow. Well, if they’re like. They’re beating a table, that’s noise just to clarify. If there’s no noise. Right. It’s like, you must be silent, calm down and don’t say a word or make a sound before I do the Heimlich. If they’re coughing and making noise. If there’s still air coming from their lungs in some capacity. Right, then there’s not a complete blockage. And it won’t work. You’ll just break their ribs or whatever. Again, not a doctor. This is not medical advice. In the event of choking, go to Google and figure out what you’re supposed to do or do that right now and then be ready for when it happens. The American part of it, like she said- Hotsauce packet. So Americans are associated with hot sauce packets. I mean, I’m sure they’ve ventured out beyond America, but it, I think that it was like this super convenient little pack of something and this disposable thing, you know, it feels very American. It’s interesting that it was in the sandwich and that’s the foreign object in the sandwich is what made her choke. But any part of the sandwich could have made her choke. But she knew it was the hot sauce. I guess so. The hot sauce packets, I mean, it’s gonna grab on in a way that food is not gonna grab on. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I’m not a doctor. This is disturbing. Let’s go to another one. Hi, Rhett and Link. My name is Jacqueline and my near-death experience was when my boyfriend at the time, who was now my husband left me alone at his apartment complex, while I was there, I heard a really loud chainsaw noise and it was so loud. And I heard girls outside my apartment screaming, bloody murder. And I thought there was a chainsaw man on the loose. I even filmed it. I have a video of myself wondering where the chainsaw was coming from. And I, in the moment, did not think to call the police or do anything rational. But I ran out of the apartment without my shoes on, down three flights of stairs jumped into my car, and drove and parked in the nearest Piggly Wiggly parking lot. When I got back after sobbing, thinking I almost died from a chainsaw attack. I found out it was a man doing donuts on his motorcycle in the parking. And I literally thought I was going to get chainsawed to death. So that was my near-death experience. Man doing donuts. Yeah. I think she was, chainsaw man, man doing donuts. I will say, I think the Piggly Wiggly parking lot is maybe not the safest place to on the planet. I mean, I think there’s… No. Listen, not a sponsor. I hope maybe Piggly Wiggly will sponsor us at some point, but just based on my Piggly Wiggly parking lot experiences, you know what being at home is probably safer. Yeah. I’ve watched a Piggly Wiggly burn to the ground before that one in Wilmington. You were present for that? Yeah. I just walked over to the edge of Nana and Papa’s neighborhood and sat on a berm and just watched it burn. You’re joking. Nah. Don’t you remember when that happened? I remember hearing about it, but I didn’t see it. I remember driving by afterwards. You know, typically when somebody like arsonist, this is the type of thing they do. Yeah. Look at that little teenager sitting on a berm, watching the Piggly Wiggly burn, suspect number one. The Chief of Police’s grandson. Yeah. It all adds up. Wasn’t me. Hold on. Did you burn it down? I didn’t, for the record I did not burn the Piggly Wiggly down. Do you think somebody did? Was it arson? No, it wasn’t arson. As far as I recall. We had a lot of arson in our parts. Hearing a chainsaw immediately thinking of a chainsaw man is, you know, that’s kind of a leap. The screams though. The screams. Yeah. That’s scary. And now that we do understand what was happening and it was a donut man, not a chainsaw man. Doing donuts. Were the screams, screams of glee? Yeah. ‘Cause that’s a good way to get a Harnett County woman excited. I don’t know what this was. In a Piggly Wiggly parking lot, there is no way to get a woman more excited, more quickly. “Can you do a donut?” Yeah. Now it does remind me of Lincoln’s gotten into manga and he was reading. I was like, “Let me look at this one that you’re reading?” He was like, “Okay, it’s called Chainsaw Man.” Whoa. And I just started flipping through the book and he’s like, “First of all, you’re flipping backwards.” You gotta start from the back. You gotta start from the back, yeah. And I was like, “Well, spoiler alert.” It’s the most disturbingly, well-illustrated, disturbing scenes I’ve ever seen. Like the creatures, there’s this creature called Santa Claus. That has nothing to do with Santa Claus. That then like is an amalgamation of all of these things that it like starts to control, like baby doll heads, they group into like the legs of a spider creature that is walking around. Oh, it’s like one of those, what do we call the things where you just have eyeballs and hair? Oh, you love this type of stuff. You would really be into it. But the Chainsaw Man- You can have one of those. Is a guy that I don’t know what triggers it. It’s a very famous manga written and illustrated by Tatsuki Fujimoto. So this is in Japanese? So he’s just looking at the pictures or is it translated? I think it’s translated. I was just looking at the pictures. It’s mostly pictures. So then when they translate it, they don’t also flip it? No. The Chainsaw man, it’s like when he turns into Chainsaw Man a chainsaw comes out of his head and out of his hands and it destroys his body as he’s transforming. And it’s very grotesque. Quite a sacrifice. It’s very grotesque. And there’s a video series that’s coming out. Well, I hope so. He’s very excited about it. I was like, “I don’t know if I can watch that with you. It’s gonna be scary, man.” What is it like to be a child and have a dad who is the one that gets scared of scuba diving and manga? It’s scary, man. What is that gonna do for him as grows up? It’s legitimately disturbing. I was like, “Son, doesn’t this disturb you?” I think he’s in the wrong. I was like, “If this doesn’t disturb you…” No, it’s cool, man. It’s cool. It’s troubling to me. It’s troubling to me, but I’ll watch it with him. I’ll give it a shot. Hey guys, my name’s Amber, about four years ago during a nice thunderstorm, I went outside to record the water coming down the road. There was a lightning strike really close, I don’t remember much, but I ran inside and watched the video back to see that it was like right next to me, and slowing it down frame-by-frame is even scarier. And I haven’t been out during thunderstorm since. I still have the video of y’all wanna see it too. And I don’t really know if it’s considered near-death, but it was definitely scary. So, yeah. Thanks, bye-bye. Well, we’re watching the video and I can tell you right now. Yeah. This is near-death. Turn this sound onto Amber’s video. @menjiepoo, M-E-N-J-I-E, poo with two OS. Okay. All this water, guys. It’s awesome. We could freaking tube down… All this water, guys. It’s awesome. We could freaking tube down. Wow. “All this water.” “Water.” I like the way she said that. Obviously, she’s just being funny but… We can freaking tube down this, Amber. Amber was so excited about the ability to tube down that creek, ditch. Wow Good Lord. So see if you can, it lights up like half the screen. Go back to there and kind of do the frame-by-frame thing she was talking about. I don’t know if you can do that with Twitter, but basically oh, like, whoa. I mean it phases out the camera on the… but look, it’s like lighting up the whole- It’s pink. It’s very pink. Wow. That’s crazy. That is crazy. And she screamed at the same time it hit. The tube… “Water.” “All this water.” Amber, we like when you say water. Oh, wow. Thank you, Amber. And then she said, “I left a voicemail and I think I talked too fast.” No, we like it when you talk fast. No. Yeah, that’s good. Keep it short. Keep it sweet. Wow. Yeah man. Glad you’re okay, Amber. I think that I miss thunderstorms. I seem to remember like the baddest, scariest thunderstorms happen when we were at church on like a Wednesday night, there’d be pink lightning. When you got that pink lightning. Only at church? I just have those memories. Yeah. They happen quite a bit. Hi, Rhett and Link. My name is Jacob and I’m from Charlotte, North Carolina. And my near-death experience happened on the second week of my freshman year at college at Western Carolina University up in Cullowhee, near Asheville. A group of friends and I went up to a waterfall one Saturday and I was not being particularly wise as I was walking on some rocks on top of a waterfall. So of course, I slipped and I fell on my stomach down one small waterfall and then another, until I fortunately, landed in a pool deep enough to stop me, about a small cars width from a 50-foot drop to just a pile of rocks. To make matters worse, The pool I landed in was full of leeches and they were all over my legs, all the way up my swimsuit. Oh. And one last thing, I was with a group of friends from a campus ministry I was in at the time, I have a similar deconstruction story to y’alls. And the guy that helped pick the leeches off my legs kept complaining about how weird it was and how uncomfortable it made him. So that was a great Saturday. Yeah. That, getting a little homoerotic there. Little uncomfortable for the… Is that what was happening? I think it was, it was just like, oh. No, I just kind of think pulling leeches off somebody is weird. Spirituality aside, like belief system aside. I think, my understanding was why he would made the connection is if the guy was a little uncomfortable with getting close to his junk or something. Dude, freaking going off of a water. You gotta be freaking careful, man. If you’re like hanging out around a waterfall and if you’re in the water that then starts to eventually falls. It’s just not a good practice. You don’t wanna be in pre-waterfall water, you know? Yeah. It just seems like something to live by. I don’t swim in pre-waterfall water. The most visceral this has ever been for me was when we visited Niagara Falls. And so there’s been plenty of times in my life when I’ve been like in a creek or in a river that had a waterfall and you’re like kind of swimming and you’re like, I’m not gonna go there because it’s a waterfall. Yeah. But one time we were swimming at Yosemite when I was a kid. I remember this very clearly because my dad was like, “There’s a waterfall down there.” And then years later we heard about people who would be swimming in Yosemite and get swept down and go off a giant waterfall and die. Yeah. The year that I was there, we hiked to the top of Yosemite Falls and they were doing a helicopter rescue of someone who had gone over the falls. Yeah. But when we went to Niagara falls, when we visited Niagara falls with our wives. Yeah. And we were on the Canadian side. Right? Which is the better side. Nothing against America, but just, it’s a cooler side. More picturesque, I believe. Of the river. It’s crazy. You can get right down there next to ’em. You can’t really if I remember correctly, you can’t like walk to it or whatever, if you’re just a, you know, a civilian, but obviously you don’t want to go off Niagara Falls. And just the other day I saw a video going around, I think on Twitter. And it was the guy who cuts the grass. What? Above the Falls. And he’s got a rope tied to him. So like the person who’s like mowing the grass. Is he on a riding lawnmower? with a rope attached to him? In my mind he had a push mower because it was a place you didn’t wanna be like on a vehicle that could fall in. It was just like, Okay, I’m kind of mowing the grass here.” Oh wow. “And I’m buckled in.” Here we go. There you go. There he is right there. Dude, using a push mower. And he is got like this giant- Yeah. That makes sense. Harness around him. And a sleeveless shirt. Well, you don’t want to be weighed down. I think he’s just wearing… That’s a mow job I don’t want. Really? Extra challenging though. That’s beautiful though. That’s advanced mowing. People go, yeah. There was the person who drove their car and was like the car with the person in it, was like close to the edge of Niagara Falls, like a few months ago. And they had to do a rescue to get the person out of the car. They were in the water? Yeah. Yeah. And yeah. I guess if your car is up there don’t get out of your car. I don’t think they were conscious. ‘Cause then you’re in serious trouble. Good gracious. I mean, yeah. Imagine going over a waterfall landing in a pool and then struggling, but then Jacob went over again, landing in a second pool and then he finally got it together. ‘Cause if he’d gone over that third one he would’ve been in a thousand pieces, man. Well, and then yeah, pool full of leeches and a uncomfortable moment with a friend. Man. My bizarre near-death experience happened when I had to get foot surgery on my big toe. They thought it was a bone infection or something like that. So went in for the surgery at an outpatient center, proceeded to apparently go into anaphylactic shock on the table, allergic to some of the medications they gave me for the surgery. I woke up, was told about it and I was the outpatient center’s first code blue ever. So that is my bizarre near-death experience that my big toe tried to kill me. Dang. I mean, that’s scary. ‘Cause this is a group of doctors who are not accustomed necessarily to dealing with- Outpatients. Yeah. You know, code blue. Yeah. It’s like, we’re just gonna take care of your toe. I mean just makes me think. Every time they ask me, “Are you allergic to anything?” It’s just like, I always brush it off. “Of course not, pollen?” When I was little, my mom would say, “He’s allergic to amoxicillin because as a baby, he had a little reaction to it.” But then at a certain point, I just stopped saying that. Well, when was the time you had antibiotics? I don’t know. Many years. ‘Cause I mean, there’s still a big class of antibiotics. Maybe ten years. I mean, it might be worth finding out. But usually what will happen is you’re not gonna die. Like you’ll be in like the first or second day of taking them usually. And then you’ll be like, this happens to Jessie. She’d be like, “Oh I’m reacting to this.” Yeah. And then you just stop and get on another one. I had toe surgery. It’s the only surgery I’ve ever had. When you broke your toe after the basketball game. No, ingrown toenail. Oh, you got that? I had an ingrown toenail in high school and went to the podiatrist and still the one of the toe, I got some messed up toenails in general, but one of ’em on my big toe. Like you can kind of tell that what they do is so that it… One side of, one of my big toes. Oh no. Doesn’t go under the skin. The nail doesn’t meet the skin. You gotta learn how to scuba dive and you gotta take this kind of stuff, man. And so they did something where they like cut it so that it would, and I was fully awake and it was just like numbed or whatever, no code blues for me. But yeah, that’s the one surgery I’ve had, is toe surgery. Big toe surgery. That’s what we’ve got in common. It’s so interesting to wake up from an outpatient surgery and they say, “Oh, you died for a second.” It’s like, “What?” Like, “My toe died for a second? No, you died for a second.” Well, this is kind of crazy, for two reasons. Two things that I’ve been looking into lately, the first is I just happened to see a article yesterday. And it was like a collection of people who woke up during surgery and their stories. God. See, I wonder if we’re gonna get the numbers back on this episode and be like, “No one’s listening to this episode ’cause they’re smarter than I am.” No. I didn’t realize that I didn’t want to hear this. Well, here’s the thing, you don’t like Chainsaw Man, but there’s a market for it. Okay. I’m in the market for it. And I’m speaking right now. Why are you reading about people waking up during surgery? ‘Cause I have a fear of that happening. But then why read about it? To know how bad it’s gonna be, to be prepared. So you’re convinced it’s gonna happen to you. It wasn’t as bad as I… I mean, there was a couple people who were like, “It was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. Nothing has ever come close.” But there was a couple people who were like, “I woke up, everybody saw me, they gave me a little bit more of the juice and I went back to sleep.” I won’t go into any more details about that. But the second thing I’ve been reading about- So you’re telling me it made you feel better reading about those things. I feel the same. The second thing I’ve been reading about, and I find it interesting that we didn’t get any of these and Daniel is it that we didn’t get any at all or that they’re not in these ones that we’re selecting from in terms of people who actually like saw something. Like saw the light? Saw the light. Okay. No one in the Mythical Beast community has seen the light. And I wouldn’t say that I am like going, I haven’t gone hardcore like deep into this, but I’m finding myself reading about and watching documentaries about people’s near-death experiences and actually experiencing like out of body stuff. I mean, I still don’t know what I think about it. I’m in an open place. Is it like, okay, this is just something where there’s like DMT released in your brain when you die and you feel like this is what’s happening? Yeah. But it’s pretty fascinating how… I was actually hoping we would get some of those submissions based on some of the stuff I’ve been reading, ‘Cause they are relatively common and there’s all these scientists, you know, people who had like a completely materialistic, naturalistic view of the world where they’re like, “Consciousness is completely contained in the mind.” Who basically began looking into this and were like, “I can’t in good conscience, continue to believe that that’s the case. Something else must be going on with all these things that are happening to people.” And of course, this is not anything new people have been talking about this forever, but I don’t know. It was a little intriguing. My granddad, so my mom’s dad, you know, he passed away in 1996. Oh, I remember that. I mean, he had two separate open heart surgery procedures, like where they split you open, at least back then, from sternum down your thigh. The scar that he had is just like crazy train tracks. Why do they have to go so deep? I don’t know. It’s like trying to open a book and you really just gotta. You gotta keep ripping it. Yeah, right. You gotta keep ripping. You gotta stretch the spine out. Oh, nasty. I actually don’t know if it was related to the second one of those or something else, but I definitely remember sitting at the kitchen table after, while he was recovering. And he said that when he was under and he, I don’t remember if they said that he coded for any period of time. This is not the type of story that you want to go back to and talk to relatives about when you’re just shooting the breeze. But he described going to a place that was like a ultra dark warehouse, like a real creepy, huge, dark warehouse. So the opposite of going to the light. And he’s telling me this story, and I’m thinking, “Man, my Papa went to hell.” He went to the hell warehouse. Is that like the… I don’t know. He went to an abandoned Sam’s Club. He said he was scared. He said it scared the shit out of him. He start living right? He started living right. Yeah. I don’t know. His jokes were always very colorful. He kept saying, “Fart blossom.” Yeah. But I remember being concerned about his soul after he told me that. But that wasn’t the implication when he was telling it, it was just kind of, matter of fact, like this happened. I was like, “What do you do with this information?” It seemed like not much. Well, based on what I’m seeing, there are things that people have in common. But also it’s not like everyone who is a professed Christian sees a light and everyone who’s not sees a dark warehouse. Yeah. Or feels a little bit of heat. It isn’t like, “Oh no, this is supportive of a Christian worldview.” But it’s supportive of the fact that something happens when you get near the point of death. And I question if consciousness is completely contained physically in the mind, in the brain and that there is no mind beyond that, or any consciousness beyond that. Like, what is the evolutionary advantage of this release in this thing that happens at death? I mean, of course, if you’re essentially a computer and the computer is shutting down, some weird could happen in your mind that then if you come back from, that if you actually reboot some weird shit might be still in there. Maybe it’s just a gift. You know, it’s like the gift of existence is that when you’re transitioning, as some people call it or dying, as other people are calling it, giving up the ghost, or however you wanna say it, that there’s a little bit of a release of something that gives you a positive experience, ushers you out. But this is the thing that’s so interesting. And we could do a whole episode on this. Maybe we’ll do a flatliners episode where we do it to ourselves. Maybe so you don’t fight it as much, you know. But see, here’s what I’m saying. So I don’t want you to dismiss it if you’re listening. The thing that is they’re no longer conscious their brain stops functioning. This one woman was dead for 30 minutes. Okay. Drowned and got like a kayaking accident. Okay. Not scuba. Pinned underwater. She went over a waterfall in a kayak because somebody was in the way, this is like episode one of one of those Netflix series. She goes under the water. She’s under the water. They, basically, after 15 minutes, it turns into a recovery operation, not a rescue operation because she’s been underwater for 15 minutes. They eventually see her life jacket. And a guy like is going to get it to be like, “I think her husband would want this.” And she’s attached to it. Whoops. Pull her out. She’s blue. Her eyes are fixed, open. She’s dead. I don’t remember exactly how they got her to… I think they put her on top of a kayak. She was in Chile, I think. Not a big bowl of chili, the country, Chile. And they go up the path and there’s an ambulance there. Like some serendipitous stuff happens. Anyway, she has all this stuff that happens where she basically saw all this stuff happen as she was like out of her body, watching it happen. She was a person of science. She was a doctor. She didn’t believe any of this stuff. She didn’t have any supernatural paranormal disposition. Or enough kayak training. But she spent time with people who were very welcoming and like, it felt awesome and warm and everything. And they told her you have to go back. But they also told her basically that her son was going to die. What? And so she had this feeling, or it had been communicated to her that her son was gonna die and that he wouldn’t make it past his 18th birthday. And it was on his 18th birthday, he was in a skiing competition. And she goes to him the night before. And she’s like, “I’ve never told you this, ’cause I didn’t wanna freak you out. But I don’t believe you’re gonna, I think you’re gonna die.” And he lives through the skiing competition. Then what? Two years later he dies. Oh, so they were off by two years. I don’t know if they told her specifically that it wouldn’t be until 18, but that’s what. Anyway, so her whole worldview has changed and she’s just one of like thousands of people who’ve had weird shit like this happen to ’em. Again, I don’t know. I don’t know. I hate this episode. Why are we doing this? But it’s so interesting that you don’t like it. All right. So I got a near-death experience. That’s pretty comical. Good. And terrifying at the same time. Good. Oh no. So me and my friends, we were hiking up Raven Cliff Falls, it’s down here in Georgia. You guys from North Carolina might have heard of it before. Nope. Heard of Georgia. So we’re hiking up the waterfall and we’ve made it up the waterfall, we already stopped. So we’re on the hike down and I slip. I slip way up high on this little mountain-side. And I don’t know how, somebody up there might have been looking out for me, not sure, but I was able to grab a hold of a tree and kinda maneuver my way back up. And I get two people come rushing out at me and they’re like, “Are you okay? Like what’s going on?” My friend’s laughing, panicking. I’m like, “Yeah, I’m fine.” I don’t realize how bad it was until later. And I’m brushing myself off. I continue walking and we get down the cliff and my friend that was with me, she points up at the tree and goes, that’s what saved your life. I look up at that tree. It’s about a 200, 300-foot fall from where that tree is. So if that tree wasn’t there. I probably would’ve not be leaving this voicemail right now. But yeah. So I became a tree hugger that day. And I don’t regret it. Love your show. Keep on keeping on and being your Mythical best. Hey, that was good delivery man. And especially that tree hugger part. That’s tough, man. If you’re gonna have a near-death experience, it’s better to not realize it until after the fact. Yeah. That’s the way I wanna do it. Well, it might happen to you, man. You’re stepping into the gates of hell. No, it’s just the ocean. Poseidon. I’m gonna ease into it. It’s two days of being guided into more comfort. It’s gonna be fine, Link. Thanks. That reminds me, another thing that happened on that show is that there’s a series of people. What’s the name of the show? I don’t know. So you don’t even know what it’s called. “Surviving Death”. Okay. That’s the name of it. But the other thing that they talked about, I’m only like two episodes in, it’s not even new. It’s been out for a while. People falling great distances and having these like blissful experiences. While falling? It’s kind of hard to understand exactly. I think they fell great distances and nearly died. Like there was an impact at some point. But they look at that experience as the best moment of their life because of what they experienced in some sort of transition. So, but I mean that can’t happen to you in the water necessarily, but I’m sure something cool could happen to you. You could have a moment that you could do a whole episode on. Hi, Rhett, Link, and my fellow podcasters. My name’s Maddie and living in the south with absolutely nothing to do. I’ve almost died a few times, but the funniest was definitely when my brother was given a go-kart for his eighth birthday and little three-year-old me, he decided that we were gonna go on a little trip off the field and to his benefit of the doubt he told me to hold on and I did not. And he took a very sharp left turn. And according to my dad and him, he turned left and I did not. And I was ejected from the kart and I just started barrel rolling down the field, a little three-year-old. And apparently, my dad was sprinting towards me ’cause I was just laying there lifeless, alleged, that’s what they thought. But I’m fine. So yeah. Thanks, guys. Go-kart. You bought a go-kart for your children. Yeah, let’s see. I mean it was six years ago. I don’t have it anymore. I sold it ’cause Lincoln was afraid to drive it. It was a two-seater go-kart that my neighbor sold me because his kids had gotten older and it had a roll cage on it and they wore helmets but Lincoln had had a bad experience riding the golf cart at my nanny’s house and he was riding it with Lewis and Lewis fell asleep in the golf cart. In the gator? In the golf cart. Okay. And then Lincoln hit the bird bath, the cement bird bath, and then ran over it and got stuck on it. Oh, so Lincoln was driving and his driving instructor fell asleep. Yeah. Yeah. So he was scared to drive the go-kart that I bought. Kill any birds? Nope. No birds were bathing at the time. That bird bath stayed teetered over for quite a while. Yeah. And then Lando was not, his legs weren’t long enough to drive it. So I got rid of it. But when I was a kid, Jimmy got me and Emmy a go-kart. Had no roll cage, no helmets, you know, two-seater. And we would zoom around the house and she would be driving and she would turn so sharply that the whole thing rolled. Like it didn’t roll all the way over, it like teetered all the way up and dumped us out and then kind of landed on top of us. And it was like, you get out from underneath it. And you’re like, it’s kinda like when you fall, you’re like, “Did anybody see me fall?” “We’re still good.” “We’re still good.” Turn that thing back over. Did you have any? Do you remember ever riding that go-kart? I don’t think I drove that go-kart. At my house. Because my cousins had three-wheelers. Those are dangerous. The first ATVs were three-wheelers. Yeah. And they had a little one and they had a big one. And I remember going down there to South Georgia, going to their house. And of course, they like just had this, just woods and fields and stuff behind their house. And of course, no helmet, no shoes. I just had on a pair of shorts and I’m six. No instructions. Living free, man. They just put you on the thing. And then they’re just like, “This is how you go.” They didn’t even tell me how to stop. And my parents are just like inside just drinking Cokes with my aunt and uncle. Yeah. It was just such a different time. And then my other cousins, they had a four Wheeler. That’s safer. Well. Doesn’t roll as easily. You can do two wheels on the front too. Same deal though. No helmets, I mean, boy got away with so much, a lot of people weren’t so lucky. Yeah. Those are accidents waiting to happen. Let’s pick one more. Wrap it up. Hi, Rhett and Link. Hey, my name is Memjay, at the beginning of 2021, I did something really stupid and nearly died when I had an accidental drug overdose. I stopped breathing. I couldn’t move, but my thoughts were still really clear. Oh gosh. And in my mind, I saw my mom’s face and I thought about how terrible this was gonna be for her. I saw my dog and I thought about how much I loved her. Oh. And the last thing I saw was Rhett and Link. Hey. Sitting behind the desk, I’d been watching lots of GMM at the time and it made sense. But I had this moment in my mind where I just laughed at the absurdity, that my last thought in this life was going to be about two guys who do goofy things on the internet, smiling gently at me. And it made me feel better as everything went black, but I didn’t die. I got to live. And the next day when I was trying to decide what it all meant, I thought, “Well, I am going to need a therapist, a program, and a third-degree membership in the Mythical Society.” And you comforted me when I thought I was dying. And it seemed the least I could do. Wow. So that’s what I did. And it’s going really well. And it feels good to be able to tell you and to thank you for your contribution to my life and millions of others. So thank you and love you like a friend, fellas. Take care. I am so glad you’re alive. Wow. I’m so glad that we could be there for that moment. I don’t remember it. I’ve established, I don’t know how this all works. I’m open to the fact that we may have somehow been transferred to your brain for a moment and just smiled at you peacefully. I don’t know how it works, but glad you’re okay. I mean, I’m honored. I’m honored to be the last, I mean, we could have been the last thing that somebody thought of. But she thought it was, she got a laugh out. Gotta laugh out of it. Going and going out with a laugh. That’s good. And then coming back with a Third Degree Mythical Society membership. Yeah. What a great advert? Can we just use that as a commercial? Yeah. We say we save lives. We appear to dying people, bring them back so that they can join the Mythical Society. That is wild, man. I mean, don’t you feel honored? I feel so honored. It’s like her life is flashing before her eyes. We got in there with the mom and the dog. The final slide of her life flash is us. Oh man. Man, that’s wild. That is wild. So I mean, it feels like you got a little bit shaken up on this episode. I mean, I’ll never watch that Netflix series. That’s just not my type of thing. And I’m not gonna ever find myself reading accounts of people waking up during surgery. I’m sorry. Those feel like different things though, right. Because if I told you the near-death experience thing, of course, the waking up during surgery is just like a horrific thing. I get it. But the near-death experience. There’s a fascinating aspect to it. For me, it’s just I’ve lived a life of just dismissing all. And I still mostly dismiss all of it, right. I’m like, of course, you’ve got this perception, this perception network, all your senses, and everything. You’ve got this brain. Of course, I would be surprised if there were not stories like this, as people approach death. As the system is shutting down, of course, you’re gonna see some weird stuff. But if I could tell you that… Like if I had one of these experiences and I was telling it to you, or I’m just fascinated by it. It would carry some weight. It is a Netflix show. It’s just a show. I don’t know these people. It’s obviously produced. It’s obviously curated in a way from a certain disposition. The whole point of the people behind this thing is to get you to believe it. You gotta know that there’s some propaganda involved. And so you gotta know when you’re being subjected to that, but don’t you just want to know? Aren’t you just fascinated by it? I get that. The what happens afterward, but like when she’s talking about the nightmarish parts of like being conscious but being unable to move, I’m not trying to go back to the surgery part of it, but yeah, it’s just like thinking of the ways that you die. I’m fascinated by the afterlife part of it. But the actual death- Especially the getting there is the problem. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s about the journey, man. It’s not the destination. It’s the journey. I mean, am I gonna appear to myself smiling, well, along with you? Well, no, it’ll probably just be me. Okay. It must be me sitting next to you. I’ll be in your periphery. You’ll have to turn to see me. Right. You’ll be on my right as usual. Your seat at the desk. This is fun. I mean, the thing that I do like, I like hearing people tell their stories. It makes it believable. I mean, of course, I don’t believe anything anybody said today, but I almost do. It’s all made up. Listening to their voice. 1-888. EARPODD1. I have a wreck. Wreck it up. It is a TikTok account. Oh, I’m always looking for more TikToks. Well, I recently shared one of the TikToks from this particular account with a group thread that we’re on. Oh, you’re talking about the guy. Talking about. With beard @VCR_PARTY. Yeah, yeah, yeah. @VCR_PARTY. I found my love language and it is watching old footage. It’s turns out that this is the, okay, I mean- Not a lot of followers. I mean, it’s not even a verified account, but it says official TikTok of Found Footage Festival. Yeah, yeah. Found Footage Festival been going for many years. I knew about that. So I mean, guess it is the official, well, y’all need to get verified. Come on now. So I don’t know how the rights to this stuff work, but I mean, the thing that is the most entertaining to me thus far, and I haven’t dug deep. And the thing that I sent the group is that dude’s like, there’s these dating profiles where people from the eighties would go on and they would like talk about themselves. And apparently, it would go out on a videotape for women in the area to watch and figure out if they would wanna date these guys. And there’s just this one guy and he is the best. It’s like, they don’t make people like that anymore. Like, you know what I’m saying? I was like, looking, not just his hair and the way he was dressed, but like the way he talked and the way he moved his face and stuff. Yeah. He had a Mariannette quality to him. Just go to the account and just start watching. You’re either gonna love it or hate it. You know what I’m saying? Either this is what you like, or this is like, why does anyone like this? It’s a lot better than reading about all the other stuff Rhett’s been reading about. Find out what kind of person you are, @VCR_PARTY on TikTok. Love it. All right. #Earbiscuits. I think I just choked for a second. A little hot sauce packet. I choked on my thoughts. For me, the lyrics to the song, “Sledgehammer” went totally over my head. I watched that video a million times ’cause it was like a fun music video. And I was a little kid, I don’t know, six years old, seven years old when it came out, I watched it constantly, but open up your fruit cage and let me in, wow, I had no idea. Hi my name’s Rachel. I’m a big fan. So song lyrics that went over my head as a kid, my parents were musicians. So we always had music playing in the house. And I remember a couple of specific songs. The song “Hair of the Dog” by Nazareth features a lyric, now you’re messin’ with a son of a, blank. And when I was apparently a small child and my sister too, my sister and I would run around singing it in our squeaky little voices. And dad loved to tell that story. Another time, we were listening to, gosh, I forget the name of the song, but it’s by Steely Dan and the lyric is, the Cuervo Gold, the fine Colombian, makes tonight… I can’t remember, but I asked my dad what Colombian meant and it was a reference to drugs, but he told me, “It’s coffee, baby”. And he loved to tell that story too. Anyway, I’m a big fan of you guys. Thank you so much for doing what you do. Bye. Hey, Rhett, and Link. My girlfriend, sulcata desert tortoise, and I are tanning out in the grass and we just wanted to say 1-888-EARPOD1. To watch more “Ear Biscuits”, click on the playlist on the right. To watch the previous episode of “Ear Biscuits”, click on the playlist to the left. And don’t forget to click on the circular icon to subscribe. If you prefer to listen to this podcast, it’s available on all your favorite podcast platforms. Thanks for being your Mythical best.