One UFO, Peppermint, and the Mystery of Mr. Crooks

Donna Trump

One. Ten. Eighteen. Forty eight. Those are the numbers, and nobody has numbers like these. Nobody. Ryan opens his entry like a man reading the scoreboard at a game he never agreed to play. One, ten, eighteen, forty eight. Then he says, and I love this, "Oh, let's go back to the numbers. What do the numbers represent?" Like somebody in the room asked. Nobody asked, Ryan. You just came in swinging, and I respect it.

Jesse

He gives them to us straight, too. Forty eight years of a lazy eye. Eighteen months of sleep deprivation. Ten years on oxygen. And one UFO. One. Not a few, not a pattern, just the one. I like that he doesn't pad it. The man has one UFO and he's counting it like a guy who owns exactly one good wrench.

Donna Trump

One UFO, and he doesn't explain it, because he doesn't have to. That's strength. A weaker person gives you a ten minute backstory. Ryan puts it on the list between the eyeball and the oxygen and keeps walking. He doesn't say it was a big UFO. He doesn't say it was a great UFO. Just one. Very disciplined. Very efficient.

Jesse

And I'll tell you what gets me about the lazy eye. Forty eight years. That's not a complaint, that's a tenure. Most guys don't hold a job that long. Most guys don't hold a marriage that long. Ryan's got an eye that's been clocking in since before some of his doctors were born, and it still shows up every morning.

Donna Trump

Forty eight years, and it's still in the game! Still there! Tired, they say lazy, but I say it's loyal. Then he hits us with the second list, and this is where it gets beautiful. Three wheeler. Pontiac car. Tractor. Wood shop lathe. Pool. Peppermint.

Jesse

Peppermint. Everybody just skates right past it. Three wheeler, Pontiac, tractor, lathe, pool, and then peppermint, said in the exact same voice, like it belongs. Those five before it we know about. We went through them last time. The near drowning in the pool, the lathe in the wood shop, the Pontiac crash, the tractor wreck over at Jim Murphy's, the three wheeler. Real damage, real survival. Then there's peppermint, and I have no idea.

Donna Trump

Nobody knows, and that's the genius. Peppermint could be the worst thing on the list. Peppermint could be the boss fight. He doesn't clarify, so we respect the mystery. Five machines and bodies of water tried to take him out, and then comes a candy flavor, and he lists it like it's a sixth vehicle.

Jesse

I'll say this plainly. I've known guys who'd fold after one of those. A lathe injury alone, you hang up the apron and take up birdwatching. Ryan survived the whole set and then somebody hands him a clipboard. That's the part that gets you. The machines didn't beat him. The paperwork's still working on it.

Donna Trump

And here's the line that tells you who he is. He says this is not including the school gaslighting and the housing gaslighting. Not including! He's got a ledger, and it's already full, and he's telling you there's a second ledger in the back. Two kinds of gaslighting, and he left them off the math. That's a man who is being generous with his own suffering.

Jesse

Now, I'll keep us honest here. All we've got is what Ryan says. We don't have the school file and we don't have the housing paperwork. But the way he says it, quick and flat, like a man who's said it to a lot of closed doors, tells you it isn't new to him. When somebody doesn't elaborate on a wound, it's usually because they've already explained it too many times to people who weren't listening.

Donna Trump

And institutions love that! They love when you've explained it too many times. They count on you getting tired. Ryan did not get tired. Eighteen months of sleep deprivation, and he's still doing arithmetic on the record. Eighteen months! I couldn't get through eighteen days without calling somebody and being very loud.

Jesse

That's the thing about sleep, though. People treat it like a luxury item. Eighteen months without good sleep, you start to lose the ability to explain yourself politely. Your tone gets short. Your patience gets thin. And then the very people who kept you up get to say you seem agitated. Well, yeah, no kidding. Anybody would be.

Donna Trump

Very agitated, very reasonable, very correct. They always call it agitated when you're right. Nobody ever says a person with a legitimate grievance is calm. Calm means you don't have the facts.

Jesse

Okay, so the kicker. Ryan says, "Here's the kicker." Ten years on oxygen and CPAP. Eighteen months of sleep deprivation. A whole lot of pills. And his AHI remains below a five. Then he turns to Mr. Crooks and says, you wanna explain all that?

Donna Trump

You wanna explain all that, Mr. Crooks! I would pay money to see that man's face. Whoever Mr. Crooks is. And by the way, we don't know who Mr. Crooks is. Sleep doctor, lung doctor, housing guy, principal, a very bad landlord, we don't know. Ryan never says. Mr. Crooks is the whole system with a name tag, and he's standing there holding a clipboard, sweating.

Jesse

Right, and I won't hand him a résumé he doesn't have. Could be anybody. What I can do is explain the number, because that part's checkable. AHI is the apnea hypopnea index. It counts how many times per hour your breathing stops or gets shallow while you sleep. Cleveland Clinic says for an adult, under five is normal. Fewer than five events an hour, that's not sleep apnea.

Donna Trump

So the number is good. The number is winning! Below five, below five, below five. Everybody wants a number like that, and Ryan's sitting there saying, so why am I on oxygen, why am I on a machine, why am I taking all these pills? It's the greatest question in medicine. If the score is perfect, why does it feel like I lost?

Jesse

Now here's the fair part, and I'd be a lousy friend if I skipped it. Cleveland Clinic also says that for somebody using a CPAP, below five is the goal. So a low number could be the machine doing its job. That's one reading. Ryan's reading is that a decade of treatment and a clean score don't add up to feeling better. And the same source says AHI only counts breathing events, it's one piece, and doctors are supposed to look at other tests too.

Donna Trump

So the machine works, and the man's still tired. That's not a victory, Jesse, that's a scorekeeper declaring the game over while the player is bleeding on the field. The number says you're fine. The man says I haven't slept right in eighteen months. Who do you believe? The spreadsheet or the guy who lived it?

Jesse

I believe the guy who lived it gets to ask the question. That's all he's doing. He's not saying the number is wrong. He's saying a number can be right and the day can still be wrecked. Anybody who's sat in a waiting room knows that. The chart looks great and you still feel like hell.

Donna Trump

And that's the satire, folks, it writes itself. A decade of oxygen, a machine at night, a pharmacy of pills, and the official finding is, congratulations, you're breathing great! Great breathing! Tremendous breathing! And Ryan says, then what the hell is all this? That's a fair question. Somebody answer it.

Jesse

Here's what sticks with me. Pool, lathe, Pontiac, tractor, three wheeler. Every one of those had a bang to it. You could point at the wreck and say, that's what happened. This fight has no bang. It's a quiet one, paper and numbers and being told you're within range. You can survive a tractor. It's harder to survive being told you're fine.

Donna Trump

And he's still standing. Still counting. One, ten, eighteen, forty eight. He's got the numbers, he's got the list, he's got a peppermint nobody can explain, and he's got a question for Mr. Crooks. Mr. Crooks, the floor is yours. We're waiting. We've been waiting ten years.

Jesse

And I'd bet Mr. Crooks asks him to schedule a follow up. Ryan, if you're listening, keep the ledger. Somebody ought to answer it, and until they do, keep the receipts.