Behind the Scenes Minis: Blood Pressure and Zippers

Tracy and Holly talk about blood pressure and Diuril man. Holly then shares a story of how early fastener sales worked and how zippers have become specialized. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy V.
Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. We talked about high pretension
this week, Yes, we did. There have been various points

(00:21):
in my life prior to this when I've gone to
the doctor and my blood pressure has been like in
this somewhere in the one thirties range rather than one
twenty where they would like it to be. Uh. But
this time, when I got my physical, it was more
than that. And unlike that first set of guidelines that
was like, if somebody's blood pressure is one sixty over

(00:42):
nine five, they should get another check in a month.
Mine wasn't quite that high. It was above one. Uh,
And it was immediate, like, immediately, go home, take your
blood pressure every day. We're sending you a thing in
the app so that you can send us your blood
pressure every day. That's good, though, it is. It is good.
It's good. It's good. It is Uh. Of all the

(01:06):
things that might happen in a person's life, needing to
be on blood pressure medication is like not by far
the worst thing that could happen, just annoying. It just
it cracked me up a little bit as I was
reading this, and it was like, if somebody's blood pressure
is like one eight over something today, that's an emergency, right,

(01:27):
whereas they used to be just normal, That's that's fine,
that seems right, that's fine. Um, and I it's so complicated,
right because some of the some of the writeups about
it make it seem like that doctors just didn't care,
but it was more like they didn't have a good
way to help, and they were like, well, we could
either put people on heavy doses of barbiturates, which might help,

(01:48):
might not, is definitely going to impact their lives in
a whole lot of ways, or we could just not
Like today there are so many different classes of drugs
for hypertension. There's it's just a jillion different options. And uh,
also we did not get into at all, like if

(02:11):
a person is anxious and their anxiety is causing their
blood pressure to be higher and massage alleviates their anxiety,
Like massage can lower their blood pressure. This is not
medical advice, by the way, but like if there's some
other physiological thing going on, might not make a difference.

(02:31):
And so it was like there was so much stuff
that was being tried, especially in the first half of
the twentieth century, which probably did work for some people,
that like did not work for a lot of people,
And so a lot of doctors were like, I feel
like I'm just gonna hurt somebody if I try to
prescribe this invasive, non like irreversible surgery that may or
may not have any effect on a person's life expectancy

(02:54):
or their quality of life, for their health or any
of that. Yeah, I historically have had very blood pressure,
but I'm a little worried about my next one because
I am getting older put on a little extra weight. Uh.
You know, we'll see what happens. Uh. Yeah, we didn't.
We didn't talk about this in the episode. This was

(03:15):
in my notes at one point, and then I just
couldn't find a good place for it to make sense. Um,
there has long been an observation that there are people
who go to the doctor and their blood pressure is
high at the doctor's office, but it's normal when they're
not at the doctor. Uh. And the the name white
coat syndrome was coined for this, and I think and

(03:37):
the reason that we already had a blood pressure monitor
in our house when my doctor was like, you need
to keep up with us at home. Um, is that
the last time Patrick got a physical. He had not
been to the doctor in a long time because of
the pandemic, and his his blood pressure was high at
the doctor, uh, normal at home. Um, So he had

(03:59):
already picked up on monitor like a year or whatever
ago when his doctor was like, you gotta you gotta
check on this. Yeah, we have had we have a
monitor for a very similar reason. Yeah. I learned to
uh to take a person's blood pressure when I was
in massage school and that was actually the first time
that I heard the term white coat syndrome. Was when

(04:20):
we were learning about about blood pressure and learning to
take each other's blood pressure. And uh. Then, in the
many years that it has been since I went to
massage school, I totally forgot the process of how that works.
And I was like, okay, I remember there was a
part where we were like listening until the sound went away,
like but what how would the process work? And then

(04:40):
I finally got to the part in the research that
spelled it all out, and I was like, oh, yeah,
now I remember. Yeah, I have also had that thing
happened where I have been I have to self again,
I don't think that's probably the case anymore, but where
I've had a self monitor for white coat syndrome because
the take my blood pressure and go, oh that's totally normal,

(05:02):
and I'm like not for me, No, yeah, that's a
bit high for me. So um, yeah, I gotta keep
an eye on it. Yeah, I in case, and he
was wondering did order a die roll Man off of
eBay while Tracy was talking during our episode after we
discussed him, I'll put up pictures when he gets here. Yeah.

(05:25):
I was also pretty charmed by dire real Man. Like
I obviously, I have a lot of complicated feelings about
like the way pharmaceuticals are marketed and that kind of stuff,
and uh, this kind of shows how how early in
the flourishing of the pharmaceutical industry, like little desktop toys
became part of like the sales process. Um. But when

(05:47):
I saw these diarial Man illustrations and realized that, like
you like, there's little pictures of them, Uh, I was
pretty captivated also. And now I will own one and
it will be in my haunted mansion part of my house. Uh.
It reminds me a little bit of my childhood like

(06:09):
fixation with slim good body. Oh yeah, it's a very
slim good body esque thing. There's part of me that's like,
how could this be a Halloween costume? But it's tricky
to become transparent for Halloween. But yeah, we'll see we're

(06:30):
back to slim good body. Maybe maybe instead of trying
to dress as dire real Man, dire real Man will
get a tiny Halloween costume of his own. Maybe there
you go. That sounds good. Plans at our house. Yeah,
we'll see. We'll see how my blood pressure journey goes. Um,

(06:52):
I don't. I don't know that I'll offer any updates
on that on future episodes of the podcast. I will
just say so prevalent, like so many people have high
blood pressure, and it's so clearly associated with so many
other negative effects, uh like other heart diseases, other so
like I don't know. I think I can't as I

(07:13):
can't say, have your blood pressure checked, especially if you're
getting older and have an extensive family history of hypertension
like I do, well, right, Like I mean, I'll just
make the wider p s a of like I know
it sucks to go to the doctor, Yeah, but go
to the doctor if you have I know that's not
also available readily for everybody if you have the means. Uh,

(07:38):
it's really good to get your baseline numbers before you
get sick, so that yeah, a doctor can go, hey,
this number looks weird, but maybe you're just like that
and this that way you will know no I'm not
just like that. Yeah yeah, yeah, vitally improved. Very important.
Go to the doctor when you feel fine to get
your anti make say, uh, we have to because if

(08:01):
we don't, our insurance costs more. That is correct UM
at our work. So that is a motivating factor for sure. Uh.
But you know, also it's good to check in on
how your body's doing. I love my doctor. Uh. I
love the physicians assistant that I saw at the doctor

(08:22):
last year because my doctor was not available in time
for me to make that insurance deadline. UM. And it's
super helpful to have a doctor that like you like
and you trust and you feel like listens to you.
And I know that is not what everybody gets and
that there are like clear disparities about UM access and

(08:46):
just whether the doctor believes you that fall along like
racial lines and people with chronic illnesses and disabled people
like I'm aware that all of that factors into it.
Um well also of feeling like getting your blood pressure
checked out's a good idea, Tracy. We talked about zippers

(09:14):
this week. I love a zipper. Yeah. When I was
a kid, I was fascinated with them. I would like
watch I would watch the teeth come together and come apart. Hypnotic. Yeah, yeah,
I love them as a design feature. Obviously, I don't
agree with that statement we read at the opening of
the episode that they're not necessary there I must um,

(09:35):
I love them. I UM. I totally recognize how a
zipper is a lot easier and more convenient than like
a button fly in your jeans or shoes or little
boots that have a zipper on them can be a
lot easier to deal with than like unlacing and relacing
um simultaneously. As as someone who has had some involvement

(09:57):
in helping a disabled person dress, there are even easier
options than that. So it's like, I also, I can
see the argument about there rarely being necessary, but they
are all over my own clothes. Do you remember when
Levi's reintroduced the button fly as like a cool retro

(10:19):
thing and I just remember being like why, But I
know people that love them. So, you know, here's a
fun thing that often comes up when you'll read some
of those, like even not so quick stories of the
invention of the zipper. There's a weird, completely fabricated, as

(10:39):
near as I can tell, version of the story of
why Judson Whitcomb was like I would like to put
zippers in my boots. There are people that have made
the logic jump of like he was so fat he
couldn't tie his shoes, and it's like, one, what too,
what's wrong with you? Three? There's no evidence that there
was any like that other than he just was looking

(11:02):
for faster, easier ways to close. Yeah, and I don't
know why someone I could never trace where that rumor
version started. And it's so weird to me. Um So
if you see that anywhere he was a big man.

(11:22):
He was quite I think he was quite tall. But like,
it's a weird logic jump on a variety of levels.
I don't know what that is. Um it even comes
up the main book that I read, which is that
when I quoted from the beginning, UM is kind of
like similarly, like why did people make that presumption? What
is going on. It's a little bit strange. I would

(11:46):
like to give a shout out to the adorable words
pintils and sockets. Yeah, I feel like that should be
a punk band. Someone get on it. What I did
not talk about in all of this, as various types
of fascinating as were being put to market and refined
because they all had problems, was what happened with their

(12:06):
sales teams because it gets into be like a whole
other story on its own, but apparently, you know, this
was a new technology, so salesman because initially, like a
lot of what they were doing was really like getting
very very motivated salesman and sales reps to go not

(12:31):
just to individual purchasers like individual consumers, but also to
like dress shops, to companies blah blah blah, and really
like just sell these things like they were going to
change the world, even the ones that were popping open
when people were actually just you know, torking their body
in a way that was totally no and how because

(12:52):
they were constantly rolling out revisions, there were instances there
was one particular salesman that worked for Earle and uh
Whitcomb Judson who was apparently really really good at his job.
But that meant that when a subsequent fastener came out
that fixed problems from the earlier one, people were like,

(13:14):
I bought a gross of those things from you, get
out of my store like that, I'm not having it,
which I think is interesting, and that's I think part
of why as they went on they were happy to
get like sort of those bigger Okay, great, we'll sell
those to the manufacturers of tobacco pouches because that's a

(13:36):
little bit easier. But I thought that was very funny,
the idea that you did such a good job that
it bait you on the butt later in in when
you come back with more product to sell. Yeah. Yeah,
the zipper morality panic cracked me up as well. Yeah,
it reminded me in a in a weird way, although
it was not the same thing at all of that

(13:56):
straw hat riot episode we talked about. Even though it
was not at all the same argument, something about it
reminded me of that it will make it too easy
to take pants and skirts off. Everyone is going to
be walking around half naked in lascivious situations. This is unacceptable.
Let's go back to buttons. That's a very strange logic

(14:19):
train to me, but you know I love it. We
talked early on about how how common zippers are in

(14:42):
everything that we don't always think about. Yeah, I won't
buy a purse or bag of any kind if it
doesn't have a zipper. I'm very This is part of
why when people are like, do you love this dress?
It has pockets and like great stuff is gonna fall out.
I don't care about pockets. I need zipper closure on
all things. Yeah, I so long ago had a tote

(15:04):
bag I would carry that was just open at the
top and I always felt not secure about it. Um.
I hike a lot and a lot of the things
like if I if I need to have the house
key with me, the house key is going in a
pocket that has a zipper in it, like a zipper
closing at the top. This was not like a metal

(15:25):
teethed zipper. Um. But I bought a new clear plastic
bag to take through airport security before we went to
Italy that had just a you know, a plastic kind
of zipper. Uh, and it broke on the first use,
like literally the first use. I took it out of

(15:46):
the of the bag when we got to like the
very first hotel and it was just gaping open and
was beyond my ability to repair. And I was like,
come on now, the thing was brand new. That stinks. Yeah,
I I want everything to close with the zipper. We
didn't also talk about how much zippers have changed and

(16:07):
spun off into other varieties in the years. You know
that they're separating zippers. There are you know, different kind
of coil zippers. There zippers made just for sleeping bags.
There's it's obviously like there's a zipper for every need
at this point, including have you ever seen this is
going a little bit down a rabbit hole. We have many,

(16:30):
many friends and to some degree we are involved in this,
but not on a on a heavy dedicated kind of way.
Who do like one six scale action figures and collectibles right,
so like they'll do completely accurate like World War two
uniform uh dudes, Like it's like if you're g I.

(16:55):
Joe were elevated to like an extreme level of um
craftmanship and detail for some of them. They make the
teeny tiniest functioning zippers and it's amazing. Wow. I'm forever
awed by the things that people will make in miniature
to make various hobby things work and look correct. Yeah,

(17:16):
because I remember as a kid, I think we've talked
about how like my early sewing was largely about making
sure that Barbie had one of the kind originals at
all times. Yeah. Yeah, And like I was stuck with
zippers available at the fabric store or whatever was in
my mom's stash, and those are not to scale. So

(17:37):
Barbie always looked like she had a wild, chunky closure
on her back and it made me absolutely beatty to
deal with. It never looked right. It made me so
now that I know that they make these ten ti
a perfect ones that you can buy amazing. My mom
taught me to sew, but when we stopped with those lessons,

(17:58):
um I had not progressed to putting in a zipper yet.
That probably would have been the next major skill she
had taught me, was how to put in a zipper.
But the way not just my mom, my mom and
the other moms who were teaching their other daughters too.
So because that this was the nineteen eighties, things were

(18:19):
being very gendered. Everybody talked about putting in zippers as
though it was like the hardest, most fiddliest, terrible thing
in the world. And so the first time I had
to do it because I was making something as an
adult that had a zipper in it, and I was like,
I don't know. Then my mama never taught me um,
And then I was like, that was not I expected

(18:43):
this to be horrific and it was not. No. I
get kind of perturbed by the perpetuation of the myth
that a zipper is like a nightmare part of assembling
a garment, because they're really not that hard. Also, I
will tell you this, this is truly the biggest benefit
of the digital age is that you can literally be like,
I know, someone's got a great tutorial on youtubeer TikTok

(19:08):
to show me how to put in a zipper lickety
split in the easiest way possible, and they do. And
it will often because you're seeing someone do it in
real time as they work through it, it often solidifies
some of the stuff that seems a little difficult to
grasp when you're just standing there holding your fabric and
your zipper. I am a big encourager of people to

(19:30):
always go try to watch stitching tutorials online because you
can learn anything zippers. You have every option for zippers.
You're easy overlap zipper a basic like flush, abutted edges, zippers.
Of it's none. If it's that hard, Listen, you have
met people who can make clothes who are probably not

(19:51):
as smart as you. So that's a good indicator. You
can do it. You can do it. Um do you
know it's not It's not as elusive a skill as
people would like to make it out to be. I
don't know why. To me, it feels a little gate
keep e like you know when you get to zippers,
it's gonna be hard, And I'm like, what, No, encourage

(20:13):
that person because they're gonna make cool stuff. Don't you
want more cool stuff in the world? I do. Um. Yes,
Should anybody out there be scared of zippers, please let
my words bolster you and realize people are putting those
things in garments all day, every day, all around the world.
Zippers not a monster, not a boogeyman of sewing. Fine. Uh,

(20:43):
if you are about to go into your weekend and
maybe do some sewing, if you're me, uh, put some
zippers in good time to test that out. Hopefully you'll
have some time off this weekend and you'll get to
do whatever it is that strikes your fancy. I can't
imagine a lot of people are like, Yeah, I'm gonna
use that time to put zippers in clothes. But if
you do, I hope that goes well. Uh, if you
have to work, or if you have some other responsibilities

(21:05):
that are kind of taking up your time and it's
not really yours to claim, I hope that those things
go well, easily, low stress, and that everybody is cool
to each other. We will be right back here tomorrow
with a classic, and then on Monday you'll give more
brand new stuff. Stuff you missed in History Class is

(21:26):
a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from
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