EP. 251 — I’m Narcoleptic And Collapsed During Sex

CHRIS [00:00:06] Hello to everybody who feels like Jello, it’s Beautiful Anonymous. One hour. One phone call. No names. No holds barred.

THEME MUSIC [00:00:13] I’d rather go one on one. I think it’ll be more fun and I’ll get to know you and you’ll get to know me. 

CHRIS [00:00:28] Hello everybody, Chris Gethard here, and welcome to another episode of Beautiful Anonymous. First things first, really cool thing happened. If you didn’t see this this past week, the show randomly wound up on the front page of CNN.com. We hit our 250th episode. We actually, that kind of snuck up on us. We weren’t even making a big deal out of it. There was an article saying, talking about the 250th episode. And I just want to thank the journalists who did that. I was actually interviewed as what was supposed to be I was supposed to be smaller part of a bigger article alongside a bunch of different people. And the interviewer actually said, you know, we got a lot of good stuff and want to throw some individual focus on your show in the 250th episode’s a great occassion. And that’s not a small thing. We’ve had a New York Times hit recently and then CNN.com. Those are big. I want to thank that reporter. I want to thank CNN. And most of all, I want to thank you guys, the listeners, because it’s a cool thing to see those who knows how much it helps. I hope that it helps a lot. And if there’s new listeners who found us through that, welcome. You’re welcome here. Absolutely. But the community surrounding this show has always been so strong, so warm, just this kind of like quiet monolith. You’re the ones who keep this thing going and get us there. And I know that in my guts and in my heart. Thank you for it. I also wanted to let you know this Thursday you’re going to find another episode in your feed. I know sometimes people like a heads up on that. I’ve started a new thing called New Jersey is the World. It’s a podcast with some companion shows and a whole patreon element. It’s just me and a couple of buddies got together in the quarantine and we’re making a lot of stuff about New Jersey and our love for it. And it’s pretty funny. And the the first episode comes out on Thursday, and Earwolf was super kind about letting me put the episode in the Beautiful Anonymous feed try to let you guys know about it. I just want to say, first of all, I hope you like it. And second of all, I am aware that Earwolf doesn’t have to do that and allow me to promote stuff outside the network. And it’s it’s super kind. And it’s part of why I’ve always loved being with this company is that they are just very kind about letting me try to have a career and pursue creativity and let you guys know about it. Super cool. So that’s coming Thursday. Don’t be too surprised. It’s not going to be up every Beautiful Anonymous listeners alley, but you might hear it and go, oh, this is actually pretty fun and funny and I want to support my old pal Chris. So that’s that. Now, this week’s episode, it’s about something that we’ve all heard about and that it turns out we don’t actually know all that much about unless you’re personally acquainted with it. This has happened a number of times in the show where somebody goes, have you heard of this? And I go, Yeah. And they go, Well, I bet you actually don’t know much about it, even though you think you do. Our caller has narcolepsy, tells us that there’s many forms of that and what their specific form of that is and what it entails and what it leads to and the way it actually affects one life. We talk, one’s life. We we talk about how we both have been on the same medication and how for me, it was a crazy experience. There’s a lot to it. I hope you enjoy the call.

PHONE ROBOT [00:03:33] Thank you for calling Beautiful Anonymous, a beeping noise will indicate when you are on the show with the host. [BEEP]

CALLER [00:03:40] Hello.

CHRIS [00:03:40] Hello.

CALLER [00:03:40] Hello.

CHRIS [00:03:44] Hi.

CALLER [00:03:44] Gethard! What is good?

CHRIS [00:03:48] Uh, you know, everything’s good in my personal life. How are you?

CALLER [00:03:53] Oh, I’m well, I’m a little not up to date on what’s going on because I have my own neuroses, so I try to stay out of it as much as possible, it does make me a little bit ignorant. But, you know, whatever you can do to stay afloat. Right.

CHRIS [00:04:09] You know, one thing I’m reminding myself is, is because we should be clear we’re this is a call we’re recording on Thursday, January 7th, 2021. There’s another call coming out, people may hear me say the same thing, two calls in this day. So we have to address what’s going on at the Capitol Building. But one thing I’ve realized is you can take a few hours, not check the news, and then when you check the news, you get filled on everything from those past few hours. And that’s something I forget sometimes. So I try to remind myself, because it helps keep you, helps keep the anxiety a little more at bay.

CALLER [00:04:50] Yeah. Yeah, definitely. That’s usually my my my main goal for every day, regardless of what’s going on.

CHRIS [00:04:57] Yeah, I’m with you. I’m with you. If I can get out of bed, I’m feeling like I already accomplished something. Take a shower.

CALLER [00:05:05] Oh you have no idea.

CHRIS [00:05:07] I do have an idea. I do have an idea.

CALLER [00:05:12] Well, you know the reason I say that if we’re going to just dive into things. The reason I say that is I know that you are somewhat familiar sleep disorders because you’re friends with Mike Birbiglia. But what do you know about narcolepsy with cataplexy?

CHRIS [00:05:28] Narcolepsy with cataplexy?

CALLER [00:05:31] Yeah, anything?

CHRIS [00:05:35] Not much. I mean, OK, so. So I know that narcolepsy, I mean, it might be one of those things that you, right, like you hear this about Tourette’s, that people go, “Oh that’s the thing where you curse a lot.” And then people go, “no that’s not what it is.” And then Narcolepsy what you hear is that you fall asleep at random times. And that’s about what I know.

CALLER [00:05:57] Yeah. Yeah. So that is definitely the more Hollywood depiction of of what narcolepsy entails. I think what they’re getting at because, you know, you’ll you’ll reference Rat Race or Deuce Bigalow, the two big ones, I would say, um, I think what they’re getting at is cataplexy specifically and what cataplexy is, now, first and foremost, not everyone with narcolepsy has cataplexy. But if you have cataplexy, you definitely have narcolepsy. So that itself is ultimately a oversimplified boiled down to excessive daytime sleepiness. And sleep itself is not restorative, comes with other a wealth of other sleep disorder symptoms. But that’s that’s the gist of it. So cataplexy is the more interesting thing. It is the loss of muscle tone brought on by great or intense emotion, and it is commonly associated with laughter or orgasm. But I have some people in my support group who are so attuned to their triggers. I know there’s one person who has a cataplexy attack any time they see a big ol crunchy green bug.

CHRIS [00:07:02] Ok, hold on, hold on. I mean, you explained it very clearly, but this is a lot of information I have literally never heard of. So it’s a loss of muscle, like you get less buff because you feel emotions?

CALLER [00:07:19] No I am the strong man champion of the world. That was the other thing we were going to talk about.

CHRIS [00:07:25] Wait is that true?

CALLER [00:07:26] So basically, no, absolutely not. I have no body strength whatsoever. I can barely lift a pencil, but no, so what it is is.

CHRIS [00:07:35] What was that about orgasms, by the way? You got to slow down with the orgasms part because everybody’s out here going what?

CALLER [00:07:44] Yeah, no, it’s commonly associated with laughter and orgasm, it’s more associated with positive emotion. I don’t know if this is exact or theoretical because a lot of sleep medicine is just more or less a hypothesis because the brain is a weird place and we don’t know a whole lot about it. But what they say is that your brain thinks you’re dreaming. So it tries to throw you into the paralysis that you experience when you dream. So you don’t act out your dreams. So you’re fully conscious when these things happen. It’s similar to a seizure, sort of actually, you know, those toys that if you press the button underneath, everything collapses. Like it’s got like a string on it. And when you push it up, it releases the tension. It’s kind of like that. So attacks last anywhere from a couple of seconds to a couple of minutes. You’re fully conscious when they happen, but they do look like you’re falling asleep, especially if you do have full body attacks, not everybody has full body attacks. The whole thing is a spectrum disorder. So everyone’s different. But you can have isolated, isolated attacks. Mine are definitely more in my sometimes I get buckling of the knees if I’m standing. If I happen to be drinking or super sleep deprived, I can have a full body attack. But for the most part, it’s in my arms and my face. So like my jaw will go slack and it’ll start to like like if I was saying the sentence, Hey, Chris Gethard, how’s it going? I’d be like, hey, Chris [mumbles] Get it?

CHRIS [00:09:07] Wow.

CALLER [00:09:08] Yeah, like that, it’s very weird. It feels kind of like nitrous sort of, if you’ve ever had nitrous at the dentist when it comes on. It’s this weird.

CHRIS [00:09:18] I’ve done a whippet or two in my day, yeah.

CALLER [00:09:20] Oh, someone who isn’t me loves nitrous. I think it’s the sexiest feeling in the world. Request it from your dentist if you can y’all.

CHRIS [00:09:33] You think nitrous is a sexy feeling.

CALLER [00:09:36] Yeah, but I may have partied a little bit here and there.

CHRIS [00:09:38] But I wonder also, is it part of you say that this condition that’s associated with sexual climax, I wonder if that feeling is, in your mind, sort of mentally tied into sexiness? This is a very specific word to associate with nitrous oxide, anyway.

CALLER [00:09:55] It it’s a good feeling, it’s a good feeling. Yeah. I also like, you know, I mean, not to be TMI. I mean, but I would not much it was pointed out to me that I was not much of an outward laugher for most of my life and also later in life. And most of my friends did not experience an orgasm. So I’m always like that my brain’s coping mechanism in some way to prevent this from happening. I didn’t have cataplexy attacks until later in life. So I don’t know. You know, I’m not I’m not certain, but I’ve always wondered that. But yeah. So narcolepsy is brought on a lot of interesting things because when you’re sleep deprived, I think everybody’s pulled an all nighter or two. So basically my brain functions at a level of 48 to 72 hours sleep deprivation on the regular. So, you know, that has come with, like, visual hallucinations when it’s real bad, auditory hallucinations at times. Yeah, I don’t know, it’s it’s an interesting thing, I’ve chosen to be as optimistic about it as possible because it’s not going anywhere and the medication for it is just a blanket or a Band-Aid, rather. So, yeah, which interestingly enough, I think I think I think perhaps it was your audio book. You mentioned that you’ve taken Nuvigil before.

CHRIS [00:11:20] Yeah.

CALLER [00:11:21] And you think it’s like more extreme than Adderall and it should be illegal. It does not do it for me. That is my daily.

CHRIS [00:11:28] Oh wow. Ok. We have so much to talk about with that. And let me also say this when I’m doing comedy and when I’m writing a comedic essay in my book and I say Nuvigil should be outlawed, it’s a joke. And Nuvigil and nuvigil at any medication prescribed under the care of a professional who’s keeping their eye on the effects. Absolutely. We’re going to talk about Nuvigil, though. This also. Yeah. You’re laughing and being optimistic, like you said and explaining it to me. I do also want to say. Outside of any jokes that are made, this sounds like a thing that is minimum a real pain in the ass to deal with in life and maximum walking around feeling like you haven’t slept in 72 hours sounds like a nightmare. So I know that. Can I start with a very just an easy, hacky joke. Can I make a hacky joke?

CALLER [00:12:25] Yeah, always.

CHRIS [00:12:27] So if this is sometimes triggered by orgasms, does this mean there might be times where you sexually climax in bed with a partner and then awkwardly have this set in next them and fall asleep?

CALLER [00:12:38] So I have only ever had this happen with one partner and he was already kind of made aware that it was a thing that exists. And there was one time I and I am not the smallest girl, but he was definitely the smallest guy. And I was on top. And at a certain point I realized it was happening and there wasn’t much I could do about it. And I was able to utter out the word catapult and kind of toppled over on top of him.

CHRIS [00:13:10] Wow. Because I was going to say, if there’s if there’s a condition where you orgasm, then immediately fall asleep, it’s crazy to think that 50 percent of the world’s population has that. Men boom. Bud dum dum.

CALLER [00:13:22] Yeah, yeah, I was going to say, yeah, I’m basically I’m basically a married man. Can we get this over with so I can roll over and go to sleep.

CHRIS [00:13:30] Hack joke, hack joke that I’m pretty sure someone else has made before. I think I think I may have stolen that joke. Apologies to whoever I stole that from. I have to say whoever this small whoever this small man is, I hope that he, well, I wonder if there’s almost a sense of pride with him of going, wow, I did such a good job there. 

CALLER [00:13:51] Yeah. I think I think that had been mentioned before where it’s like this is a weird thing that’s not necessarily desirable, but at the same time patting myself on the back here.

CHRIS [00:14:01] There you go.

CALLER [00:14:01] It is an ego booster I suppose.

CHRIS [00:14:03] There you go. Now I’ll stop with the dumb jokes. That one was just sitting on the table for the taking so walking around feeling like you haven’t slept. I know what you mean because I’ve had when when my mental issues were at their worst, an inability to sleep was one of the that’s one of the real markers to me when things are getting bad. So that feeling that you never get any satisfying sleep and that inability to sleep walking around like that all the time would just make me it would make me miserable. I have to imagine there’s days where it’s really hard to go to work or want to do your laundry or go to the supermarket if you feel like you haven’t slept in days.

CALLER [00:14:48] If only you could see the bed I’m sitting on right now filled with laundry.

CHRIS [00:14:52] Yeah, I bet. I bet. Yeah. The spoon theory definitely comes into play pretty heavy here.

CALLER [00:15:00] What’s the spoon theory?

CHRIS [00:15:02] Oh I’m going to, I’m going to bastardize this entirely. But I mean the spoon theory is just with any like autoimmune disorder or even any mental health issue where you can really honestly apply it to anything. But ultimately, it’s like the theory that, like, you should look it up and actually read it if you’ve not if you’re not aware. But it’s that like everybody starts the day with a certain amount of spoons. And like some people, it’s ultimately like executive function. Right. So like for some people making coffee or making coffee, one spoon. But for other people it’s OK filling the pot with water, one spoon, dumping the water into the thing, another spoon. And like you always want to make sure that you have enough spoons to carry out what you do throughout the day. You want to keep one in your pocket as well. Like I said, I’m ruining that entirely, but.

CHRIS [00:15:53] Spoon theory.

CALLER [00:15:54] So, yeah, it’s just saying that, like, everything that you have to do has a certain amount of spoons. For some people, it may require a little bit more than others. Like some people you don’t think about, you know, the things that you have to do in your day. But like you might not think about physically getting out of bed and getting dressed as something on your checklist for the day. It’s obviously something you’re doing. It’s part of your day, but it’s not anything that we need to put on a list and check off.

CHRIS [00:16:19] Right.

CALLER [00:16:20] Does that make sense?

CHRIS [00:16:21] Yeah, but if you haven’t slept in 72 hours, you might just go, oh, I don’t want to get out from under the blankets this sucks. And that’s a thing that happens with you even if you got eight hours of sleep the night before.

CALLER [00:16:35] Yeah. So in another support group that I’m in because I’m in a lot of online ones, I don’t necessarily participate. But it’s really nice to see things where, like, you know, because sometimes you just feel like a baby. Am I being am I exaggerating what’s going on with me? Can I just buck up and get over this? Like, who’s going to feel a little bit less alien by talking with other people who experience the same thing. So what was I saying, so sorry. Oh, yeah. So like they say like narcolepsy, where a 15 minute nap feels like eight hours of sleep and eight hours of sleep feels like a 15 minute nap. I think it’s that for most people you have like a set say they draw a clock. Right. And so you have hours of wakefulness and then you sleep and you have a period of non REM and you have a period of REM. Whereas if you look at the clock for a person with narcolepsy, even though I’m awake, I’m cycling in and out of REM no matter what. So like, I could be sitting here talking to you face to face even, and my brain might have just turned off. And I feel like there are times when I think I think this is I think certain alien abduction stories could be attributed to something like this. Like you just you lose time sometimes. You know, I spend all day at work and sometimes eight hours feels like eight days. And sometimes I’m clocking out and not remembering the day I had ahead of me or behind me, you know, and then sometimes you exhibit automatic behavior, it’s something that we all do like. I think one of the most common one, I think a lot of people have worked in food. So it’s kind of like if you’re laying in bed at night tossing and turning cause table eight needs this, you don’t, it’s just newer. Your brain thinks it’s like traumatic or something you experience. So it’s bullying you before it’s routine. Automatically if you have early sleepwalking, it’s automatic behavior. You exhibit it more often in narcolepsy. So, for instance, at a previous job, we had to take these permission forms and group the ones that were valid and the ones that were benign, whatever the services were in the interim. So the label for the denied services was opt out. At a certain point I came I came to I didn’t realize that I had like blacked out a bit, but I came to and I had written the word wrap lol. I still have no idea why.

CHRIS [00:19:04] Uh, wow. Now, you listed a whole bunch of ways that this affects you. And it’s totally subjective, you can only speak for yourself, but a lot of people might hear about what’s going on and go, oh, the idea that you have these sort of seizure like episodes, that sounds like the worst part. I’m wondering if that’s the case. Is it the exhaustion? Is that the hallucinations or is it those episodes? What is it that you would say is actually the kind of most impactful way this affects you?

CALLER [00:19:46] Yeah, well, I mean, I guess it depends on the day that you’re asking, but I would say cataplexy is really mostly no big deal, at least in my case. For the most part, it’s never happened in a in a sticky situation. My boyfriend, almost every time we laugh together, I had a cataplexy attack. Nobody else gets me like that, but like, every time we laugh together, I would say that it breaks my heart a little bit in the sense that you know much like every other caller, I’ve always wanted to explore improv or stand up. I don’t think I can because I think my biggest fear personally is anticipating a reaction of laughter.

CHRIS [00:20:25] Right.

CALLER [00:20:26] Like, what am I going to be a disabled comic? No thanks.

CHRIS [00:20:30] Well you could.

CALLER [00:20:30] I don’t want I don’t want. You could but like, I don’t want that to be my shtick. And, like, laughing at your own jokes is one thing, but like laughing and collapsing. Geez.

CHRIS [00:20:41] This begs the question, I wonder if there’s anything the caller said that’s been funny and then there’s other narcoleptic people out there who laugh and collapse, wouldn’t that be a strange full circle thing? I’ll ponder that and so much more, and we’ll be right back.

CALLER [00:20:52] [AD BREAK]

CHRIS [00:21:02] Thanks to our advertisers for helping bring this show to the world. Now let’s get back to the phone call.

CALLER [00:21:08] Laughing at your own jokes is one thing, but like laughing and collapsing. Geez.

CHRIS [00:21:13] Yeah, I tell you what, I will tell you. I mean, first of all, you’re right. It would be a major uphill battle if you’re going to collapse on stage and terrify the audience. But I will tell you this, if you have that creative impulse. I would go so far as to say, if you tell an audience, guys, this is legit, this is not a bit this is not some Andy Kaufman audience manipulation prank. I have a condition where if I laugh too hard, I collapse. That’s why I’m going to be sitting down during this set. I feel like people might go with you. And I’m not saying that all of these qualify as disabilities, but Daniel Kittson from England is legitimately one of the few people I would call a genius in comedy, has a very severe stutter. Danny Sen Sang he has has a stutter. He’s really a great comic who’s based out of New York now. And there’s people with all kinds of things. So I would actually say if you have a-

CALLER [00:22:18] Oh definitely.

CHRIS [00:22:18] And look, I know I’m and I’m always shouting about creativity, but I think it is something that can really heal people who need it. So I do want to tell you, I bet you could get away with it.

CALLER [00:22:31] OK, well, thank you since you said that I might I might dip into it.

CHRIS [00:22:36] Who knows. Just make sure you set up a physical environment where if you fall down, you know, crack your head open.

CALLER [00:22:41] Oh, yeah, yeah, I’m pretty good when I, as long as I have something to grab on to, I know when it’s happening, so. And it’s weird because the moment, like you’re able to think of it and conjure that it’s happening. It kind of goes away. So it’s usually manageable.

CHRIS [00:22:55] I wonder if it would, you know, like you hear about some people who have stutters and then they’re professional actors and their characters don’t have stutters and they stop stuttering. I wonder if you.

CALLER [00:23:05] Scatman John, everybody stutters one way or another, but check out my message to you. As a matter of fact, don’t let nothing hold you back if the Scatman can do it, brother. So can you. Yo I’m the Scatman. [laughs]

CHRIS [00:23:16] I love whatever just happened. Whatever just happened I love it. Oh no don’t pass out. Don’t pass out.

CALLER [00:23:27] Yeah, no, no, no. We’re good. We’re good. Good.

CHRIS [00:23:30] OK. I mean if you’re going to start, if you’re gonna break into Scatman.

CALLER [00:23:35] Honestly, whether I die tomorrow or a thousand years from now, I think one of my biggest joys that I can reflect back on was being able to recite Scatman John lyrics to Chris Gethard.

CHRIS [00:23:49] So happy.

CALLER [00:23:50] I’ll be telling my grandkids about that.

CHRIS [00:23:52] Good. So happy to help you check that off your bucket list. Now.

CALLER [00:23:56] Yeah. Also I just I had a had a, oh, I’m sorry. Go ahead.

CHRIS [00:24:00] No, no, no. You you just had what?

CALLER [00:24:03] I didn’t want to completely derail things and shift directions, but I just had a random spark because I need to tell you this. So I called on a New Year’s episode last year and gave you my resolution. And I just wanted to tell you that I completed that and also explaine something, because you said you will go the rest of your days wondering what I meant by that.

CHRIS [00:24:24] OK, love this.

CALLER [00:24:26] Oh, yeah, I called to let you know that my New Year’s resolution was to finally replace my broken and several times glued and strung together with dental floss glasses. And I finally did that.

CHRIS [00:24:41] Well, that’s good. Can’t be walking around town with dental floss, holding together your broken glasses.

CALLER [00:24:47] Yeah so I wanted to tell you how you can fix your glasses with dental floss. So you know the little arm where the screw goes in. As long as the dohicky that holds the screw isn’t broken, you can put some floss in there. And I just did it only to set it because I was using hot glue at the time. God people are going to think I’m such an idiot.

CHRIS [00:25:04] No, anyone with glasses has been through some bullshit. Like anybody with glasses is sitting here going, yeah, yeah. I’ve had, I’ve had one of these.

CALLER [00:25:14] Yeah. Yeah. So I finally did it only because I, you know, I somehow finally got an appointment during the beginning of quarantine because I was afraid I would lose my insurance. So I had to get that done. And it has been done and we’re good.

CHRIS [00:25:32] I love that. I tell you I just had some glasses break because having a 20 month old boy in your house who likes, finds it fun to yell the word glasses, then rip them off your face. They wear out.

CALLER [00:25:48] Oh that’s adorable.

CHRIS [00:25:50] I just had one of the arms break off and I went to the drugstore. You go, OK, I’ll buy one of the glasses repairs kit. It actually worked. I’ve had glasses since third grade. I don’t know if one of those kits has actually worked before. The screw went in an fit.

CALLER [00:26:08] That’s awesome. Yeah mine always break in masquerade type ways, like it looks like masquerade glasses now, but that’s because we fall asleep with them and oops.

CHRIS [00:26:20] Absolutely, absolutely. Now, since we have a personal connection on this. We’ve got we’ve got to talk about Nuvigil, have to.

CALLER [00:26:31] Yeah, yes, yes, absolutely. Bring it around.

CHRIS [00:26:35] Now, in case any, I detailed this in a I think it was in Lose Well. I, in 2010, I was on a sitcom. There’s a lot of pressure, there’s a lot of exhaustion, and it was just actually impossible to get the necessary amount of sleep based on the production schedule and it was my first ever big gig and I was so stressed out and my my shrink said, OK, there’s this new drug, relatively new, called Nuvigil, and I’m going to put you on it. And she had said that a lot of it was developed to help people adjust to jet lag, like when you shift time zones.

CALLER [00:27:19] Yep. Mm hmm.

CHRIS [00:27:21] Turns out this drug, if you look it up, a lot of people say it’s the drug that Limitless, starring Bradley Cooper was based on where you can take a pill and become a superhero. It was wild. I would be. I would be. This is not an exaggeration at all. I would be handed a 30 page script. I would read it through twice. I would have it memorized. It was wild. I did not need to sleep any more. I could get by on two to three hours of sleep. I could be fresh for the whole day. A week where we were filming two episodes of this sitcom that was being written as we filmed it. I just popped Nuvigil it made me have to pee more often than usual. And when the pee came out, it came fast. Outside of that, no side effects. If I wanted to sleep, if I did have time to sleep, I could just lay down and go go to sleep and it would allow me to go to sleep. It wasn’t like Adderall where it keeps you all hopped up. It was wild. It was like it turned me, it was like super soldier serum, like Captain America shit man. It was wild, now in your case, I would imagine that because you have a condition that puts you at I guess you could say like a deficit, that it might get you back to the standard with me being someone starting at the standard. Wow, that was that was a crazy experience that Nuvigil.

CALLER [00:28:43] Yeah, yeah, I occasionally I will slip one to my boyfriend and he gets a lot he likes to use it for his music production and mixing things down. He gets a lot done.

CHRIS [00:28:56] I can’t imagine. You take one pill, you’ll stay up for three days, be more organized and productive than you’ve ever been in your life. He probably could do all, he could probably mix a whole album and then organize your whole spice rack afterwards.

CALLER [00:29:12] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No, I was always getting and I mean, don’t get me wrong, I am good at what I do and I’m a little bit of a freak with numbers and spreadsheets. Sometimes I would just put my headphones in and listen to like Beautiful Anonymous or other podcasts and just dial in, but I would always get all this praise and I’m like, you know, yes, I deserve it. But also at the same time, like, I’m literally on the sports enhancement drug of the workplace. So it’s not that I’m special. It’s just, I’m happy. I’m a calculator with emotions, I guess.

CHRIS [00:29:47] Yeah, I don’t know. Yeah. I guess it’s like brain steroids. It’s like it’s so it’s. Yeah it’s, it’s wild. My insurance didn’t cover it.

CALLER [00:29:59] And being productive felt good. Yeah a lot don’t.

CHRIS [00:30:00] Yeah. Yeah. Cause they don’t want the world to know that you can take a pill that turns you into a superhero with no side effects or else things are going to get weird fast.

CALLER [00:30:12] Yeah. I mean side note on that, you know the only time I don’t, I don’t take this, I, I think about it like in a romantic way. I’ll get there. Maybe, but the only drug that really truthfully restores, puts people in restorative sleep and treats cataplexy itself because some people have it really severe. The only drug that treats that is Xyrem, which is GHB. The date rape drug.

CHRIS [00:30:36] GHB.

CALLER [00:30:39] Literally the only reason it’s still allowed on the market ultimately. And it only comes from one company. And there’s all these hoops you have to jump through to get it. But, yeah, that is that is the only drug that that really fully restores sleep. So I think about it, but also, like, it scares me, like having to take stimulants on a regular basis is scary enough. I don’t even like taking Tylenol.

CHRIS [00:31:00] For everything. For everything I’m saying about Nuvigil, you know, outside of like the blustery part that that we’re putting on a show right now, taking a drug like that, even when it has all these positive benefits, definitely concerning in some ways. Where you go and this is again for someone who I don’t think needed it in the way you need it. There’s a part of me going I can’t fall in love with this because this is-

CALLER [00:31:27] Oh yeah, I still can’t. And it’s been years, so.

CHRIS [00:31:29] Yeah, yeah. Wow. GHB. So GHB makes you pass out in a way where you actually get the sleep. You need to feel rested. That’s the only thing that helps.

CALLER [00:31:39] Yeah, but you know what’s really crazy about it. So apparently you have to take the way Xyrem is formulated that they’re working on a one dose formulation of the same drug and it’s sodium oxybate or something. But the way you have to take that drug is you take it in two doses. So you have to drink your first dose and set an alarm and somehow wake up from a drug that is supposed to make you essentially comatose and take the second dose.

CHRIS [00:32:07] Wow. Wow. Who knew?

CALLER [00:32:12] Yeah, it’s weird.

CHRIS [00:32:17] Now, you talked about a situation where you were in the bedroom and you passed out on a man who was smaller than you. Are there any other situations that come to mind where you go, OK, this this is it’s dark to joke about. This is a serious thing. But I do have to admit that this is pretty hilarious.

CALLER [00:32:37] Oh, absolutely. So there was one time and I mean, this also may have been partially marijuana related as well, but there was a time that my laptop went missing in the house and my mom had needed it in the morning to pay a bill or something, and she couldn’t find it. And I was sleepy. And when I’m sleepy, don’t talk to me. So I’m just, you know, just sits under the couch and, she goes, [BEEP] Oh, cool, we got this far and I do that great.

CHRIS [00:33:05] We’ll bleep it.

CALLER [00:33:05] Anyway, moving on. Moving on. Yeah. So she’s like, you know, it’s not there. Where is it. Where is it. And then things got ugly because my friend’s laptop was here, mine was missing. I started I was just like, well obviously you just don’t want to face the fact that it was stolen. I don’t know. The door is dead, bolted. What do you and I’m getting a little crazy here because, I mean, if it’s nowhere, where is it? And so I post on Facebook, like, what can I do about replacing this laptop and blah, blah, blah? And it’s this huge saga. And then eventually, you know, we’re over it. It’s missing. I don’t know where it is. Let’s move on a little bit. I’m going to go fix lunch. I open the refrigerator and immediately shut the door. And I like a toddler who has just been caught doing something bad. My friend goes, What? What. And I don’t want to say and my laptop had been on top of a steak in the refrigerator for at least 12 hours. And I vaguely, you know, because, like, it’s sometimes you can vaguely recall your blackout. If you vaguely recall sleepily walking to the refrigerator because I was both thirsty and hungry. So in my stoned, sleepy brain, thirsty, hungry lettuce, it’s a snack and almost a drink. So cool. So I opened a head of lettuce and was eating it. My friend interrupted what I was doing and so I had set my laptop down on the steak to do this. And then, “what are you doing? Come to bed?” So I just shut the door and went to bed, I guess, and then forgot that any of that ever happened. There was another time where I had fallen asleep on my boyfriend’s bed just in the evening, like a nap. And at a certain point I hear him say, “Are you laughing?” I do often giggle in my sleep. I giggle at whatever I’m dreaming about or hallucinating at that time sometimes because it’s a weird in-between phase. But, “are you laughing?” And I go, “Well, yeah, I’m laughing at that song.” And he goes, “What song.” and I was like, “I was laughing because you were playing that  Eve 6 song, and I don’t know why anyone would listen to that on purpose. He just goes, “I’ve been sitting here in silence for the last hour and a half.” So for some reason I hallucinated that Eve 6 song, not the graduation one but the other one, which I think is more embarrassing than someone.

CHRIS [00:35:36] Wait how does it go?

CALLER [00:35:36] You’re lying to me, right? You’re just trying to bully me into singing it?

CHRIS [00:35:39] I legit don’t know who Eve 6 is.

CALLER [00:35:42] Oh, OK. That’s totally fair. I mean, God bless you. That. God, that. I would swallow my pride, I would choke on the rines but the lack thereof will- you know what I’m talking about?

CHRIS [00:35:57] Yeah I’ve heard that one. OK, got it.

CALLER [00:36:01] Yeah. So why would someone in the 2010s listen to that on purpose? That’s embarrassing. But hallucinating it after not hearing it for a thousand years or even enjoying it by any means is way more embarrassing.

CHRIS [00:36:17] You want to hallucinate like adventures like Wizard of Oz type adventures that you get to go on, you don’t want to hallucinate songs you don’t particularly care for.

CALLER [00:36:27] Yes! Exactly. And then that leads me to believe, like, OK, because that’s the other thing too. So like a lot of my like sleep paralysis or dreams are incredibly mundane and ultimately realistic. So like they bleed into real life. So I’m like, how many other things have I just hallucinated that, you know, like, who knows? There was one time that I didn’t wake up quite enough and I gave my friend a call and I said, “hey, do you think we could go to that coffee spot?” And she wasn’t really we had been out of touch for a while. So she wasn’t abreast like all of my symptoms. And she’s like, “the the bean?” “No, no, no. When that place was closed, the other place we went to” And she’s like, “you know, we’ve never been to another coffee spot. So I don’t know what you’re talking about.” And I’m slowly waking up more in the conversation and I go, “oh, yeah, that’s not real. I’m sorry. Never mind.” And it’s just one of the most frustrating things is like trying to convince other people, A) that this is real and I’m not just making it up or, you know, I probably do look like I’m on some kind of drug when I’m really out of it. And trying to convince people that you’re not on drugs is another thing, but also trying to convince people that it’s not a psychiatric disorder. And I’m arguably stable.

CHRIS [00:37:43] Right. Right.

CALLER [00:37:45] It’s just that lack of sleep can really make you go crazy.

CHRIS [00:37:48] And I haven’t even asked yet is, is this a genetic thing? Are you born with it?

CALLER [00:37:54] So nobody really knows. You know, they’re like that that just goes back into the like they don’t know a whole lot about it. They think that I think that there’s like some kind of gene that you can have that might make you predisposed to it, but you still have to have some sort of autoimmune reaction for that to occur. And like retrospectively, I think I’ve had it my whole life, but it really onset in puberty and it really, really came to a head like in my early 20s, and nobody really believed that I wasn’t just lazy until I almost died on the freeway.

CHRIS [00:38:28] Oh how’s that work? Are you allowed to drive?

CALLER [00:38:32] As long as you don’t tell Geth? Yeah, no, I’m good. I mean, I think I think everything state is different, they don’t have to report that I have it. But I think it functions pretty similarly in certain states to like epilepsy. Episode free. And as long as you’re medicated, you know, and I know my cues. I’m never going to be able to drive cross-country alone. But, you know, I drove across the state, which would be about almost three hours by myself after I took some medication and waited for it to kick in to to visit some family. And, and I felt like I drove cross-country. I felt like a champion, like I was really excited. Solo drive. But yeah, I don’t I don’t drive much more than the forty five minutes alone unmedicated. And also I have a rule in my car during the winter months: heat feet, air face. I know you could say air hair. But why. Heat feet air face. The heat has to be only pointing at your feet otherwise I’m out.

CHRIS [00:39:29] Oh wow.

CALLER [00:39:30] I’m a baby in the car. It makes me real complacent. Like if I’m your passenger and we’re just driving to a restaurant three miles on the road, I might fall asleep.

CHRIS [00:39:38] Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So do you ever wake up and there’s like you walk by the printer and you’re like, why did I print seven copies of a picture of Yoda in a Santa Claus costume? Things like that? Sorry, I just wanted to say a funny specific.

CALLER [00:39:55] Who has a printer? No you’re fine. I mean, I’ve woken up with a lot of, like, candy wrappers. I’m incredibly lactose intolerant, but sleepy me loves to eat handfuls of cheese. And it’s like I sleep eat like nobody’s business. I think it’s like wakefulness and appetite are really close in your brain, so sometimes when I’m tired, I think I’m hungry and sometimes when I’m hungry, I think I’m tired.

CHRIS [00:40:22] Are there people who this goes away for? Like, are there ever people who hit a point in life where they go, oh, it’s not a factor anymore? Or is it you have it. You have it.

CALLER [00:40:31] Yeah. I mean, it’s essentially brain damage. My brain doesn’t produce hypo Kryten or Eareckson. They’re the same things, but they were discovered at similar times named differently. But I mean, there are some people who say like, oh, you know, when I got pregnant, my symptoms basically went away or, you know, and they stayed away until I had my second child, things like that. But yeah, this is just probably for life.

CHRIS [00:40:55] Right. But it’s not it’s not something that’s it’s not a thing where people turn around and go, oh, it’s a psychological thing that you can therapy your way out of. It’s not anything like that. It’s actual chemicals.

CALLER [00:41:06] No, but every every once in a while I do wake up and I’m like, OK, you know what? I can mind over matter. I got this. And that’s not that’s not how it works. And then I also wonder, like a lot of my anxiety and depression, is that a thing on its own or is that something that is created by this?

CHRIS [00:41:24] Right. There’s a chicken and egg thing there, huh?

CALLER [00:41:27] Yeah.

CHRIS [00:41:28] I get that. Also in a lot of areas of life, I am of the opinion that this mind over matter thing is a very outdated mode of thinking and it very much ties into the like, rah rah, we can conquer anything if you put your mind to it. It’s like no, you can’t. And please don’t. Please don’t make people feel bad when that’s not the case. And please don’t give other people an open avenue towards judgment of saying, oh, you see, you sleep a lot, you’re just lazy. If you focused a little more, you worked a little harder, it wouldn’t be an issue. No, no. For a lot of people in this world, you can’t mind over matter it. Let’s not sit here and try to act all tough as a society. All it does is psychologically put us in a weird place. People are allowed.

CALLER [00:42:28] Oh yeah, definitely. I feel guilty enough about it on my own without any external opinions or thought processes. But hey also Irish Catholic.

CHRIS [00:42:37] Oh yeah. Oh. Why do you feel guilty? Oh Irish Catholic. Oh what if you could sleep. You could sleep ten hours a night and not have any chemicals there and you’d be feeling guilty about something. The amount of times people have heard me-

CALLER [00:42:53] I feel, I apologize to tables when I run into them, you know, like what?

CHRIS [00:43:01] Ooh, do I know that feeling, apologizing to an inanimate object? Yes, that is, we we share very similar type of sad anxiety. Anyway, I’ve broken the momentum. Let’s go get our ads out of the way.

[00:43:16] [AD BREAK]

CHRIS [00:43:21] OK, everybody those our final ads for the day. Let’s finish off the phone call.

CALLER [00:43:28] I apologize to tables when I run into them. You know, like what?

CHRIS [00:43:34] I’ve noticed a couple of times my son is learning the word sorry and this is about to make me sad. It’s a tangent, but there’s times when he’ll do a thing and we say, can you say he’s 20 months old. Sometimes he’ll hit you in the face. He doesn’t understand. But you go, you put him down, you go, Cal, that’s not OK. Can you say sorry? And he sees that I’m actually it hurt me, you know, caught me by surprise and he’ll go, Sorry. And I can see that he’s starting to understand that that’s a thing. And then there’s times where something will happen. And he’ll say sorry and it’s not his fault, and I oh, I know that in myself, I see that in myself and I’ve lived with that myself and I sit there and go it’s not your fault. You don’t have to say sorry. You don’t have to say sorry for things that aren’t your fault. And it. Like you said. We say sorry for bumping into tables, and it’s, uh, what a stressful what a stressful, stressful way to be. And I’m with you on that.

CALLER [00:44:34] Yeah, yeah.

CHRIS [00:44:38] I’m with you on that. Wow. When was the last time you fell asleep? Unexpectedly.

CALLER [00:44:44] Unexpectedly?

CHRIS [00:44:50] Or not even fell asleep, but had had one of your, uh, is episode a word that you don’t like? Is episode?

CALLER [00:44:57] Yeah, that’s fine. No that’s fine. Attack or episode. Yeah I use both. I think one of my favorite ones more recently. Um so you know how in bodysuits the crotch will snap like a baby onesie almost. Right. So I was in bed.

CHRIS [00:45:20] I don’t I’m not known to rock a bodysuit personally, but the baby onesie comparison did make it clear. Yes, yes.

CALLER [00:45:29] OK, yeah. So I was laying in bed like to go to bed at some point and that’s all I was wearing. And so I held like a like you get you get bodysuit wedgies sometimes. So I went to go fix that scenario and the snaps burst. And it made me laugh a little bit because here I am bareassed. Right. And it made me laugh a little bit and it made me feel a little Jello-y. I always refer to it as Jello-y. It made me feel a little Jello-y. But when so I couldn’t immediately fix it because I’m a little a little jelled. And as soon as my boyfriend noticed what was going on, he smacks my ass as hard as he can and goes, “Put your butt away.” And that just made me spiral even harder into cataplexy, completely limp and just like not moving at all, which is so weird when you’re cracking up because in your brain you’re still cracking up, but your body isn’t moving or vibrating at all. It’s the strangest feeling.

CHRIS [00:46:25] Did he do that on purpose? Is he like, oh, it’s at 10 percent I can get it up to 80. Is he like does he mess with you with that?

CALLER [00:46:33] You know, we live with my mom. And I think that at first, for both of them, they both separately became used to it at different times. But I think that they both have become accustomed to it enough that now I think they are egging me on a little bit sometimes as long as it’s not that serious, like I almost spilled all my French fries, because I was laughing at something the dog did and almost said all of them to her. And it was like, quit laughing and quit laughing. God saying quit blank. It doesn’t help.

CHRIS [00:47:09] Yeah, it’s they don’t think about the elephant, right?

CALLER [00:47:12] Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

CHRIS [00:47:14] Wow. That almost sounds like a sitcom premise. He’s a music producer, she’s got cataplexy, and they live with her mom.

CALLER [00:47:27] Yeah, Wednesdays at 9:00.

CHRIS [00:47:29] Only on ABC, NBC or CBS, because that’s where that would appear on one of the big three. On one of the big three. Now.

CALLER [00:47:40] We’re getting that Netflix deal, actually.

CHRIS [00:47:42] Oh, look at that sweet streaming money. Give me that streaming money. Let me know if you need a P.A. because I need money.

CALLER [00:47:51] Oh, yeah. One hundred percent. You’re going to play me actually.

CHRIS [00:47:56] I’m going to play you? So I got to wear the bodysuit with my butt hanging out?

CALLER [00:48:00] Yeah, I think that’ll be a good look.

CHRIS [00:48:02] I’d be into that. It would be an ironic twist of fate if I stared in another TV show and they put me back on Nuvigil to help me handle the pace of it. And you were, that would be like.

CALLER [00:48:15] Method acting.

CHRIS [00:48:16] It would it would backdoor into method acting unintentionally.

CALLER [00:48:22] Yeah cause you’re very serious.

CHRIS [00:48:23] Well, see, this is how I know that it’s good that I don’t drink or really mess around with drugs because I’m sitting here going, oh, that would be nice to get my hands on some Nuvigil again. And that’s a bad sign that I probably should not be should not be given Nuvigil right. When you’re sitting there going, oh, how do I get back on medication.

CALLER [00:48:41] Yeah, I’m sorry for this phone call, but even more so to like Sally and Hallie like. Sorry.

CHRIS [00:48:48] Yes. You’re going to have me fiending for that sweet vig. That sweet vig and I hear it used to be called Provigil. Right. Nuvigil is like a better more compact.

CALLER [00:48:59] Those are different.  Yeah. Those are two separate ones. Yeah.

CHRIS [00:49:03] And Nuvigil kind of developed and from what I hear boxed out Provigil because it’s Nuvigil now. You at the top of the call even said to me, so what do you know about narcolepsy, because you’re, you’re indicating there. Well, there’s a lot of misconceptions about this thing and a lot of people make assumptions. What are those things that you run into? What are some of the things people have said to you or assumed about you?

CALLER [00:49:32] Well, I mean, first and foremost, what you said, people think it’s falling asleep randomly and then I’m I think I’m a little I overexplained that I have this especially like in workplaces or new friendships or any kind of new relationship you would have interpersonally, because you will probably never notice. You know what I mean, for the most part. But I want to overexplain so that if you do, you don’t dive into those immediate misconceptions. So I think a lot of people think I’m making it up to, you know, invisible illnesses or, you know, I don’t know, like I think that people don’t understand the. I don’t know. Like the level of like. I’m not it’s not just a cop out, you know, like when I say that I’m tired or whatever, I’m like I’ll start to do things like if because I get spinny eyes, I like to say, spinny eyes. And that’s kind of like the point of no return. Like I need to take a nap now somewhere or I just start doing automatic behaviors. In in a lot of places, like whether you’re in public or at work, like it’s not kosher to to go take a nap and you can’t do that. So you have to just fight through it. And so at that at that point, you do look off, you do look like, you know. We’ve all seen those terrible voyeuristic videos of people who are drug users and have a problem and are nodding out on the job or whatever. It’s like that. And so, you know, I don’t want people to think that, like I’m a drug user. And then I guess I am forgetful and I don’t want people to think that it’s something that completely consumes me and makes me an inept person. It’s a challenge. It’s a hurdle. But I know what my shortcomings are and I try to make up for them as much as possible.

CHRIS [00:51:48] I’m going to ask you a question that might be dumb. Have you ever been somewhere and been around someone else and realized oh, holy shit, you’ve also got cataplexy, I’m watching you have a thing, I’m watching you have an episode right now. Do you have the thing I have? Have you ever had that experience?

CALLER [00:52:10] I haven’t had that. But I always wonder, like you’ve seen videos of, like, people fainting on roller coasters and stuff. And I know, like, a weird burst of adrenaline can maybe do that to you. But I always wonder, like, is it that, like, you’re having such an intense emotion that you’re scared or thrilled and you’re and you’re having that moment of seemingly fainting? But, yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever run into it personally, I’ve definitely met people who are like, oh yeah, narcolepsy I know that, you know, Uncle John has it or something like and that’s that’s always cool because, I mean, it is a rare disorder, but it’s not it’s not as unique as you think. Like, there are a lot of people who do fall into that. And the way to test for it is not exact, like I could go take the test tomorrow and it could come up saying, no, you don’t have it like it is. It is a sleep study. You do an overnight thing and then they wake you up in the morning and you have to do what’s called a multiple sleep latency test. So you have to stay up for two hours and then you take a 15 minute nap and then you have to stay up for two hours and then you take a 15 minute nap and you have to do this whole process five times. So you’re almost at the sleep study place for almost twenty four hours. It’s a pain in the ass. It sucks. They yell at you because you come up with covert ways to sleep so people maybe in the study and in real life you come up with covert ways to nodd off a little bit so that people don’t know you are. So I had I had like the nurses and the techs coming down all the time, like, we know you’re sleeping. You have to stop. You need to stay awake for these two hours. Yeah.

CHRIS [00:53:45] You must have hated those nurses by the end.

CALLER [00:53:48] Oh, it’s the fucking worst because, like it it absolutely like I always say, personality wise, like I don’t intend to be a brat by any means, but I am a toddler who forever has just come from or needs to go down for a nap, I’m a little son of a bitch. And I don’t mean to be.

CHRIS [00:54:07] As the father of a current toddler. I can say that if you always behave like a toddler who needs that that’s a living waking nightmare for you and everyone else who encounters it.

CALLER [00:54:18]  Oh God. Well, well, into my twenties. If you tried to disrupt my sleep in the morning well into my 20s, I would be like I’ll be out to the car in a minute, just five minutes. And they’ll be like what, you graduated high school like ten years ago. What are you talking about? So anything to shut you up and not try to disrupt me and wake me up.

CHRIS [00:54:40] Oh, that makes me realize I also have an asked. How old were you when you realized this was the scenario?

CALLER [00:54:49] That’s a weird question, because I don’t I don’t at this point. I don’t know, because it feels like I don’t remember a time that things weren’t like this. I do remember the first time I ever fell asleep in class was the first day of seventh grade. And then it came on like I was sleeping every day until third hour. And I don’t know how I got through high school, but after high school, I would say in my twenties I definitely started being able to say, like, OK, this isn’t this isn’t my fault. Like, you know, I ended up dropping out of college because I wasn’t doing well and having to withdraw from a lot of classes just to save face because and this was part of the issue. And I just was spiraling into anxiety about it. Like, I have no control over this. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. And then I think the pivotal moment and saying, OK, there’s there’s something up here. It’s not just me. I need to do something was as I mentioned before, I you know, I got into a car accident on the freeway. I was on my way to a ukulele festival and I blacked out during rush hour, going about 90. I came to careening towards the median on the left hand side. And I tried my best to not hit it, couldn’t do that, hit it, and was like, OK, I’ll just recover, I’ll pull off. Maybe it’s not that bad. I couldn’t recover. My ankles had snapped. So I fishtailed violently across about three, four lanes of traffic, hit nobody and then wedged myself under the guardrail. I didn’t know that I was hit with the airbag. Actually, when I was in the ambulance, I remember going, oh, God, I can’t see. I can’t see. Oh my God. Is this going to be life forever? I don’t know. What am I going to do? And then I go, Wait, dummy, you wear glasses and they’re not on your face. I got hit so hard I didn’t realize that they weren’t on my face anymore.

CHRIS [00:56:34] That is terrifying. And we’ve been sitting here like acknowledging it as serious, but certainly joking along the way. And then you hear a story like that, you go, oh, that’s that’s terrifying. So after that, you went and had studies done and said, this is this I shouldn’t be feeling like a pile of jello with googly eyes.

CALLER [00:56:56] Yeah. And then also, I mean, realistically, that car accident should have fucked me up way worse than it did. I broke a metacarpal in my non dominant hand. So and if I that shows anything that I was not conscious because usually the people who are like drunk drivers, for instance, they walk out of their car because they did not see that coming.

CHRIS [00:57:18] How old were you when you got diagnosed?

CALLER [00:57:22] It hasn’t been that many years, to be honest, so about twenty twenty three, maybe twenty three.

CHRIS [00:57:28] And how old are you now?

CALLER [00:57:30] I’ll be thirty in a couple weeks.

CHRIS [00:57:33] Wow, the big 3 0. I loved my 30s. It’s a big misconception that your 30s are something to worry about. My 30s were so much better than my 20s.

CALLER [00:57:43] Oh yeah 30’s the new 18.

CHRIS [00:57:44] The 20s are the most overrated decade of life. This idea. Oh you’re going to have so much fun in your 20s. It’s like no. Here’s what happens to modern people. Your 20s are riddled with insecurity about who you are and anxiety about the lack of a clear path towards financial security. That’s what your 20s are. And then your 30s, you go either have more an idea of it or more likely what happened to me. You just go, well, I guess this is who I am and maybe I should just enjoy it. And then you have a good 30s. But then again, I’m also an emotionally stunted human with severe mental troubles historically. So maybe my 20s were just a wash. OK, OK, I hope your 30s are as good as mine.

CALLER [00:58:32] We’re kindred spirits. Yeah. And if I know we’re probably near the end here at this point, but if I can, you know, get sentimental like everyone does on the end real quick. I had watched the Chris Gethard show when it was on Fusion. I don’t even remember how I heard of it. I think it was maybe a band that I had liked and I saw on YouTube. And then we dove into watching it actively. And I never caught on the talk about it having been a public access show. So a couple of years ago at this point, I guess like the loneliest and most awful period of my life, I remembered that that was the thing. And I and I just drove in and watched every episode in succession that was my everyday day for minute. I didn’t have any friends. I didn’t have anything going on. And and you and the crew became my friends in a way. And yeah. I don’t know. I’m not I’m not trying to get too too stuffy here, but.

CHRIS [00:59:25] It means a lot.

CALLER [00:59:26]  You. You it. Yeah. You and your work mean so much to me. I love everything that you do. I love you. I love your wife. When you guys announced that you were having a baby I was so excited like you guys were my my you know, my family. Yeah.

CHRIS [00:59:41] That means the world and you know, people will still tell me stuff like that and it. It means the world. In certain ways, it’s meant a lot lately, because especially with the old Gethard show like. When we started that, it was 11 years ago, that’s when I started it at UCB, and I feel like an entirely different human being and I also feel like I’m a little older now and like my jokes now are about what it’s like to have a kid. And I’m a little less inventive and a little less cool. And sometimes it feels so far away to me that I was was that guy so just to be a little self-indulgent, I’ll tell you, thank you, because people tell me stuff like that and I go, OK, those videos are all sitting up on the Internet and it seems like they still help people and it feels so far away to me at this point in my life.

CALLER [01:00:37] Yeah.

CHRIS [01:00:37] It means a lot to hear.

CALLER [01:00:39] I get that. But I mean, you said something about not being as cool or something I think is what you said, I’m sorry. My memory is my brain is scrambled eggs, but I don’t agree. You’re my dude, Geth.

CHRIS [01:00:53] Well, I keep I’m getting optimistic. I’m like nah I still got a little juice left in the tank. I’m going to come back with something good. I am. Had to lick my wounds for-

CALLER [01:01:01] When are we getting the gator stuff though?

CHRIS [01:01:05] Bro. Maybe I shouldn’t. I don’t know if I’m allowed to announce this, but maybe, just maybe your guy sold a new special that’s a little bit weird and might involve some alligators, that should be out sometime before the summer 2021. Who knows.

CALLER [01:01:22] Hot damn. You just made my day.

CHRIS [01:01:25] Well, you made my day because it really is a you know, so I just feel now like I just like sit and try to figure out lawn care and hang out with my kid and then people go, oh, you mean you made some shit that helped people, man. It’s a good feeling. Good feeling.

CALLER [01:01:40] Lawn and order. Yeah.

CHRIS [01:01:43] Well, you’re very nice. We got to we got two minutes left. What should we do with them.

CALLER [01:01:49] Two minutes. Who knows. Oh yeah. I don’t know. I’m at a loss. I feel like, you know, it’s one of those things where I had so many things to say to you every other time that I’ve called and now I feel, you know, I’m just glad I was able to mostly occupy the hour. I thought I was going to sit here like oh, my God Geth, I love you. And I have nothing to say.

CHRIS [01:02:13] No. I mean, those those are those stroke the ego as well that you did great. We had a long talk about narcolepsy, about cataplexy. So and you were saying before. So it’s sounds like-

CALLER [01:02:25] Be nice to sleepy people. That’s my sentiment.

CHRIS [01:02:28] Be nice to the sleepy. You never know. Maybe they haven’t had their coffee or maybe the chemical compositions in their brain are a little askew. You never know. Stop judging the sleepy stop judging the sleepy. But you were saying before so all cataplexy is narcolepsy. But there’s other forms of narcolepsy that aren’t cataplexy. Is that what I’m hearing?

CALLER [01:02:49] That confounds doctors even more than than just the [unclear] without they’re very confused by it.

CHRIS [01:02:57] OK, OK. Well, I have to thank you for this call. I have to thank you for the information. There was stuff in there that’s really scary and serious, but also you’re quite charming and funny.

CALLER [01:03:08] Stop.

CHRIS [01:03:08] And that’s the thing that’s that’s, uh, that’s always the best combo. So I thank you for it.

CALLER [01:03:15] Your charming and fun.

CHRIS [01:03:17] Well, now it’s getting weirdly flirty, so let’s everybody chill out.

CALLER [01:03:22] No, no, not at all. You’re like you’re like family to me.

CHRIS [01:03:25] If if anybody listening that in the Facebook comments, there’s going to be a poll and people are going to go, was that section with thirty three seconds left, kind of flirty and everybody’s going to vote yes, but no, it’s not. I’m kidding I’m kidding. I know. I know.

CALLER [01:03:40] OK, my final this is my final thing I want to say first and foremost, give Hallie and that great white baby a kiss from me and the conspiracy starts with you Geth.

CHRIS [01:03:51] There you go. Old Gethard Show reference. And just to have your back when you said great white baby, I talked about it on Conan. Someone in a restaurant once shouted at me a an older Hispanic woman in Jackson Heights shouted across restaurant, “that’s a great white baby.” So just so everybody knows at the tail end they’re not they’re going to go with the was the cataplexy girl also a white supremacist? No, no, no, it’s a reference.

CALLER [01:04:19] I’m also Hispanic as well.

CHRIS [01:04:21] There you go. I’m glad we cleared that up. Can you imagine if at the end of the call you’re, like, tell your beautiful white son and people are like, whoa, wait, what?

CALLER [01:04:32] Oh, no. Yeah, no, definitely. Just a call back.

CHRIS [01:04:36] Yes. Call back to the Conan appearance. Thank you so much. What a great talk.

CALLER [01:04:41] Yeah. Be well.

CHRIS [01:04:42] You too. Caller, thank you so much for your kind words there at the end, they really did, they choked me up a little bit. Thank you so much. It means a lot for a guy who’s clearly having a midlife crisis and is unsure of who he is anymore. It means a lot to hear that the old me did some good. So thank you. Thank you for the honesty and the information as well. Thank you to Anita Flores. Thank you to Jared O’Connell. Thank you to Shellshag for the music Chrisgeth.com for more on me and what I’m up to. Hey, wherever you’re listening, find your way to subscribe to favorite, all that stuff. It really helps whether you’re an Apple podcast, Spotify, Pandora, Sirius XM, all those things. And hey, if you want our whole back catalog without ads, go to Stitcherpremium.com/stories for info on how to sign up for that. Thanks, everybody.