From Bathroom Floods To Thanksgiving ER Tips

TALK TO ME, TEXT IT

A sticky bathroom floor, a suspicious squish underfoot, and suddenly we’re playing detective with a leaky ice maker hiding behind the kitchen wall. That mini-crisis becomes a surprisingly useful reminder about catching small problems fast—spot the clues, shut the valve, call the help, and save the floorboards. From there we pivot to a sold-out sensation at Düsseldorf’s Kunstpalast: a “grumpy guide” who roasts museum visitors as a performance. He keeps it impersonal but sharp, proving that a little friction can make art feel alive. When the barrier between performer and crowd disappears, curiosity spikes, questions sharpen, and the room wakes up.

With the holidays approaching, we shift gears into practical mode with an ER doctor’s top five Thanksgiving injuries and how to avoid them. We break down the sneaky culprits—knife cuts, oven and fryer burns, backyard football mishaps, head injuries from falls, and stomach woes from overeating—and offer clear, simple ways to minimize the risk. Think focus over frenzy in the kitchen, practice new tools before the big day, respect heat and hot oil, stretch before you sprint, clear walkways for kids and older guests, and keep a small home kit ready: bandages, gauze, antibiotic ointment, and indigestion meds. Small steps, big payoff.

We close with food joy: a love letter to corn casserole and those sweet potato “dumplings” wrapped in crescent dough and bathed in cinnamon-sugar syrup—dangerously close to dessert and absolutely worth it. Along the way, you’ll get stories, safety tips, and a nudge to prepare without losing the fun. Subscribe for more smart, cozy chaos; share this episode with the family chef; and tell us: what’s your favorite Thanksgiving tradition or side? Your picks might make our next menu.

Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE

Thanks for listening! 

Liberty Line each week on Sunday, look for topics on my X file @americanistblog and submit your 1-3 audio opinions to [e-mail] and you'll be featured on the podcast. 

Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE

Support the show

Tip Jar for coffee $ - Thanks

Music by Alehandro Vodnik from Pixabay

Blog - AnAmericanist.com
X - @americanistblog

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:15):
Well, hello and good morning.
Happy Wednesday.
We're halfway through the week.
It's going by kind of fast.
Um what do I have going ontoday?
Well, I didn't get to work outyesterday.
I had a conditioning workoutthat I was supposed to do.
Didn't get to work out becausewe had a slight emergency.

(00:36):
I was in the bathroom.
We had a we have a hall bathroomand I was in there and and I
kept stepping on something Ithought did the cat come in here
and puke or whatever?
And it was like clear and I feltsticky.
And I was what am I s what am Istepping on?
Well, I went to go look and Iwas somehow pushing on the
floorboards and there was watercoming up from the floorboards.

(00:57):
And I thought, oh boy, this isnot good.
And I told the gent, I said,This is not good.
You are not gonna be happy.
Get in here and look at this.
And we'd push down on thefloorboards of the seams and
water would come up.
Not a lot, but enough.
And I thought, oh boy.
And immediately he knew what itwas.
It was our refrigerator, becausewe had our bathroom, the hall

(01:19):
bathroom sits behind thekitchen.
You know, you have the bathroom,walk down the hallway a little
bit, and then then the kitchen.
So our refrigerator backs up tothe bathroom wall, and our
refrigerator was leaking.
So we had to pull therefrigerator out, and you should
have seen us trying to pull thatout.
The gent with his bad hip thathe probably is gonna have to get

(01:41):
replaced soon.
And me, I I'm worthless.
I'm not really worthless.
I was trying to help.
But the our the way therefrigerator's tucked in there,
it was hard to it was hard toyou know grasp it and pull it
out.
It was anyway, we got it outenough for me to squeeze back

(02:02):
there and turn off the water.
Or tr well, I tried to turn offthe water, but that handle was
so hard to turn, and so the gentwe had to pull the refrigerator
out more, and he had to get backthere, and his bad hip trying to
bend down there and turn thatwater off was horrible.
But we did it.
We actually called the repairman, he came out, and uh we just

(02:23):
we just temporarily uh it wasthe ice maker water thing, so we
just turned the water off.
Mopped up all the water,whatever, you didn't need to
hear all of that.
We need to get on to why I don'tknow why I explained all that to
you.
I don't know why I tried to tellyou that story.
Um, let's see, we need to moveon.
What do I have?
I have I only have two storiesto talk about today.

(02:43):
I didn't have enough time.
I slept in a little late, so andI was having problems trying to
find topics, but here we go.
And these are light and easy.
So the let's start with this guyfor the New York Post.
He gives these tour guides in anart museum, and he and he um
treats the visitors like crap,and the visitors love it.

(03:07):
Alright, there's an art toguiding museum tours, and this
guide is one very haughtyartist, a staffer at Dusendor
Dusseldorf's Kunstpalast ArtMuseum.
I'm sorry, I probably butcheredthat name, puts on a
twice-monthly grumpy guide tourin which the surly instructor

(03:28):
deliberately insults andbelittles his guests to their
bemusement.
Apparently, they love it.
Actually, the tour is only$8,which is pretty dang good.
Joseph Langalink's highlyunpleasant tours cost around$8,
and they've reportedly sold outevery session since they
launched in May with bookingsinto 2026.

(03:50):
It's a 70-minute long walkingtour.
Um, Langalick is not his realname, it's the alter ego of
performance artist Carl Brandy.
Wags his finger in guest faces,admonishes them for being on
their phones or taking a seat,and mocks their ignorance while
going through the museum.
Now he says he doesn't pick onany individual, it's to the

(04:14):
group, which probably makes itmore fun.
I never insult visitors directlybased on their personality or
their appearance, but I insultthem as a group, and that
probably does make it more fun.
My contempt is directed at an inat an inferred ignorance that
may not even exist, but I try tomake them feel as ignorant as

(04:35):
possible.
This does sound fun.
I mean I would probably sign upfor this and go.
Uh Brandy credited theattraction's popularity to the
emotional ride of hisoff-putting presentation.
Oh, we all know comedy orcabaret formats where the
performer's bad mood oraggressive attitude is key to
the show.

(04:56):
It's just not something we'reused to seeing in museums, he
explained.
And unlike in a comedy show,there's no barrier between the
character and the audience here.
That's true.
That wouldn't make it fun.
I think it would make ithilarious.
The article goes on if you'dlike to go over there and read
that.
I think that's really fun.
I like it.
Alright, next up, this ERdoctor.

(05:18):
He says he's an ER doctor.
These are the top five injuriesand illnesses we see on
Thanksgiving.
I bet you can guess what theyare.
I did immediately guess whatthey are.
These are like no-duh things.
Cuts and lacerations.
Grandpa cutting up the turkey.
We see a lot of lacerations,particularly on the hands and

(05:39):
fingers.
People cut themselves all thetime on Thanksgiving because
they're using new tools likeshredders, mandolins, or
especially sharp knives.
Plus, cooks are often distractedbecause they're busy talking
with family and friends.
Maybe they've had a few glassesof alcohol.
Yeah, probably.
So I recommend staying focusedon the task at hand, carefully

(06:02):
reading the instructions of thenew cooking devices and
practicing them before the bigday.
The next one up, burns, ofcourse.
You know, Aunt Ida getting thepie out of the oven.
We also see quite a few patientswith burns on Thanksgiving.
Burns are often found on theface, hands, forearms, and even

(06:23):
feet due to dropped food andsauces.
The infamous turkey fryer, yes,is a common cause of
Thanksgiving Day burns.
They get really, really hot andcan overflow if they're not used
correctly.
Absolutely.
You know, too, ladies, if you'rewearing a heat-friendly wig,
stay away from opening that ovendoor.

(06:44):
That's all I have to say aboutthat.
Um let's see, moving on,orthopedic injuries.
Oh, so this is probably likeplaying football outside.
The next category is trauma tobones, joints, muscles, tendons,
and ligaments.
Forget football on TV.
The real action is the game inthe backyard or the horse play
in the living room.

(07:05):
Unfortunately, families uh funcan lead to major pain.
There are a few ways to preventholiday sprains, fractures, and
concussions.
First, you should stretch beforethe family football game.
Don't warm up with a bottle ofwine.
That's great.
And the next one, head injuries.
Okay.
Uh head trauma from falls isalso common around the holidays.

(07:27):
And oh, probably putting uplights and stuff.
It's important to consider yourenvironment for family members
who are greater risk of falls.
Oh, and then the weather too, ifpeople are icy or something.
Yeah, I didn't think about that.
If the ice.
All right, so let's see.
Stomach woes.
Of course, you're gonna havestomach woes after all that
eating.

(07:48):
So there you go.
Those are the top things.
Supplies to stock to here we go.
Supplies to stock up on.
So this is a very helpfularticle.
You need band-aids, gauze,antibiotic ointment, and
indigestion medicine shouldeasily be accessible, which we
all probably already have in ourcabinets anyway.
Well, there you go.

(08:08):
That's a way to stay out of theER this holiday this
Thanksgiving holiday.
All right, we need to move onwith the question of the day.
All right, here is the questionof the day.
Since we're coming up onThanksgiving, and since we just
did an article on uhThanksgiving, how about what is

(08:29):
your most favorite Thanksgivingtradition in your family?
If you don't like that question,then tell me what your favorite
side dish is.
Mine is new.
My new side dish that I lovethat the gent makes is the corn
casserole.
Now we do my sister-in-law makeshad made these um sweet potato
dumplings.

(08:49):
Oh, she just gets these uh sweetpotato patties that are already
made up from the refrigerator orfreezer section, and then you
roll out the you get a Pillsburyuh crescent roll can, you know,
and you open those up, you rollthose out, you put the patty in
the middle, you roll it up, youbake it, but then you put it in
like this mixture of sugar anduh these other things that make

(09:12):
it like a cinnamon and sugar,something else, I forget what
else.
It's like a syrup that goes in.
Oh, they're so good, but sosweet.
And oh, they're like they'realmost like a dessert instead of
a side dish.
But getting back to the corncasserole, that's my favorite.
Okay, that's my favorite.
Okay, we gotta go.
Thanks for listening.

(09:33):
Bye.