Flightless Bird: Rabies

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Armchair Umbrella

Tv & Film, Music, Comedy

4.6 • 68.3K Ratings

🗓️ 21 March 2023

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David Farrier gets bitten by a squirrel, forcing him to come face-to-face with his greatest nightmare: rabies. Why does this virus have a near 100% mortality rate and how are you meant to be treated for it? David joins the 60,000 Americans who find themselves having to reckon with the risk of rabies every year, whether they are bitten by dogs, raccoons, bats… or in David’s case, a squirrel. To learn more, David meets fellow victims Courtney and Paul, who all had to have jabs in their arms, legs, and butts! David discovers that American emergency rooms can be very expensive and that rabies makes you terrified of water! For more on his rabies encounter, see Farrier’s newsletter Webworm: https://www.webworm.co/p/rabies

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm David Farrier in New Zealand, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick.
0:07.2	Now I have to be honest with you here.
0:09.0	I feel about 30-35% more scared in America than I did in New Zealand.
0:15.3	Maybe this is as much about my timid New Zealand brain as it does about America, but I don't
0:19.4	know.
0:20.4	Things seem scarier here.
0:22.4	When I go on a walk, cars try to run me over way more than they do in New Zealand.
0:27.4	And then there's other weird fears like being sued or offending someone by not tipping
0:31.2	enough.
0:32.2	Maybe if I survive all that, someone will shoot me with a sniper rifle when I'm out
0:36.0	on a hike.
0:37.0	A tourist is shot and killed on a popular hiking trail in Highland Park, taken out in
0:41.0	one shot by a rifle wielding gunman hiding in far away bushes.
0:45.0	More recently, I discovered another fear.
0:48.6	This is a voice memo I recorded on my phone.
0:51.4	OK, so I was in the park and a squirrel bit me.
0:58.2	We don't have squirrels in New Zealand, so in my mind, they're basically just a Disney
1:02.1	character.
1:03.1	They're there to be cute and entertain.
1:05.2	Look, I'm not a boy.
1:07.9	I'm not a squirrel, I'm a boy.
1:11.5	A human boy, not a real squirrel.
	...

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