Hello, and welcome to Hankgames Without Hank. My name is John Green, I'm the manager of the league-leading AFC Wimbledon Wimbly Womblys. We won one game and suddenly we went from second to first, and all is well in the world. Today we're taking on Walsall... that doesn't seem real. Judging by their crest, which seems to involve a seagull, perhaps they are by the sea, perhaps "sall" means "sea" in Old English, and they were- they were a town with a wall- I don't know.

(0:26) Anyway, we got Seb Brown in goal who saved two penalties against Luton Town to send us into the Football League, made this all possible by putting us in FIFA '14. Then we've also got John Green/John Green up front, two men who love each other very much, despite the fact that they haven't been communicating well the last few games, but hopefully, whatever was going on at home has been resolved, and all is well between the two of them.

(0:47) So- what, you're going to call the foul because I just did such a nice job? Thank you, that's fantastic.

(0:55) So, we were doing Question Tuesday the last couple of videos, but every now and again you get- you get a single question that's so interesting and important and complicated that it demands its own video - that you think, "This isn't- this isn't something I can answer in 45 seconds or a minute, this is a full twelve-minute question." And this has just happened to us here at Wimbly Wombly Headquarters. You know, we've spent the last several minutes talking about this and now I feel that- that it demands its own video.

(1:24) The question we received from a Wimbly Wombly fan was as follows: Would you rather eat ten pine cones, or poop five?

(1:34) Now, the word "pine cone" was spelled p-i-n-e-c-o-a-n. It's possible that that's a different organism than the pine cone that I know and love, which is sort of- conically shaped and has a series of pointy ends - many, many pointy ends.

(1:53) [John sighs] This is a big question, and it's a complicated question. Obviously I think the way that you answer it says a lot about who you are as a person, it says a lot about your values, what- what's important to you, what kind of life you want to lead, what- what sort of- what sort of person you want to be, what you think your obligations are to others, what you think - if anything- is the meaning of suffering; and I want to- I want to give it its full importance, but I also want to acknowledge here at the outset that- you know, there are lots of right ways to answer the question of whether you'd want to poop five pine cones or if you'd rather eat ten.

(2:28) There's lots of- you know, it's one of those questions that has- you know- I'm not gonna say that people who disagree with me are bad or- or anything like that. I think this a question like- like many- that's open to interpretation and that, you know, thinking people can have disagreements about and I don't want it to become a, you know, a wedge issue in the world of the Wimbly Wombly fan community. I want us to be able to unite regardless of whether we're the sort of person who would ra- prefer to eat ten pine cones or the sort of person who would prefer to- to poop five.

(3:05) I'm just gonna say at the beginning here that, you know, obviously there's more than one kind of pine cone. You could have the- the sort of fully-finished pine cone where all of its sides are- are out, you could have the sort of early pine cone, you know, where the- where it's still a pretty compact- compact thing. Obviously I think that when we're talking about pooping five pine cones, we're talking- we have to be talking about undigested pine cones, because otherwise it's no- it's no contest, of course you'd rather poop five, you'd rather probably poop a hundred.

(3:37) Um, so it's- I assume it's an undigested pine cone that's being pooped, and I think for the sake of- for the sake of thinking about this question in as equitable a way as possible, you have to think of it not as a very early pine cone that's still quite compact and almost tubular, but as the full sort of- oh, I was offside. Dang it. As the full kind of conical pine cone with the- well, there's no nice way to say it- with the sharper edges.

(4:05) Um- and then of course, there's also the question of, are you allowed to season the pine cone for eating? Are you allowed to cook it? I mean, can I put my pine cone on the grill? Can I season it with salt and pepper? And then you know, maybe even soften it up.

(4:21) Oh, God. Oh crapburger! Westcarr! Dang it! Hmm. Not my best work, is it, Meredith? Are you disappointed? I know that- I know that Wimbly Wombly fans are just feeling like I could have done better.

(4:36) And, I mean, we're nearing the first half and I've only begun to plum the depths of the eat ten poop five question. Um. So, I- I think- I think you have to be able to season your pine cone, but you can't be able to soften it so much that it doesn't hurt a little bit going down. So maybe you can add some peanut butter to it, but I don't think you can like, soak it through with salt water or anything, so that it becomes kind of a pine cone-y mush.

(5:03) I think you've gotta eat- uh, eat a pine cone essentially. You can't change the pine cone so much that it becomes something else, you know. Like, if you dipped your pine cone in an infinite amount of butter, then it would stop being a pine cone and become just sort of- a pie or something. You can't bake it into a pie. I think you have to eat the pine cones, you can't blenderize it or anything like that. You get to eat ten pine cones or poop five undigested pine cones.

(5:31) I think that um, for me, it's mostly about the- I'm gonna be very frank in this- well, if I already haven't been pretty frank. Um, there's not a lot of blood flow down there to your um, to your- you know, to your rectum. Oh, God! Everything worked out better than expected. And um, and so it can be very difficult for cuts to heal, um, near the end of your digestive tract.

(6:04) If I can say that without- I mean, anyone who's been alarmed by anything so far, you're probably gone. If you were gonna be- if you were the kind of person who's gonna experience worry about the content of today's Wimbly Wombly video, you've probably already stopped watching. And if you're the kind of person who's looking to watch some good football, you've also probably stopped watching.

(6:25) So we're just left with the hardcore Wimbly Wombly fans and people who are fascinated by the "eat ten poop five" question, which- I mean, you know. That should be several- hundred thousand people. Um.

(6:37) So I guess my concern would be- long-term health consequences related to um, to pooping five. I worry that the choice to poop five in some ways- because, oh, well, part of the reason we're not doing well is that our team, our boys are exhausted!

(6:55) We've gotta bring on Hells Pells. He's the key for us. But then also- we've gotta protect the health of Bald John Green and Other John Green by bringing on green eggs and Sheringham and these boots were made for Strutton. So that's what we're gonna do here at half time. I think that's just the right- I know we're losing, but like, we also have to think about the future of the club. And the Gaulden Child is a huge part of the future of the club, and if he's tired... I mean, you know. Look at him. He's only eleven years old. He hasn't even reached puberty yet. If he's tired, we need to get him off as soon as possible.

(7:25) Um. I mean, Hells Pells- he's just sort of- he's bouncing. He's excited to come on. Hopefully that's gonna be the edge we need in fitness to pull out at least some kind of result here.

(7:37) But yeah, I would be more worried about long-term health problems arising from pooping five. Whereas with eating ten, I think it would be horrible and I think that it would take me several days, but um. You know, I think with enough chewing, I could avoid serious injury to my mouth and throat. And the nice thing about- even if I couldn't, the mouth and throat heal pretty well, 'cause there's actually a lot of blood flow. Like, if you've ever bit the side of your cheek or flossed after not flossing long enough, you might notice that you bleed a crapton from your mouth. So that's actually- that's good from a healing perspective. I don't know it's bad from a what-grosses-you-out perspective, but I think it's good from a healing perspective.

(8:23) I think pretty much any doctor is going to go- I mean, I'd actually be curious to get a physician's opinion on this. If there's any physicians out there in Wimbly Wombly land, let me know what you think, but I think any doctor would go for eat ten over pooping five. Unless we were talking about the very, sort of early pine cones with narrow dents. Um. You know, almost poop-like in its structure pine cones, because then maybe you could avoid any cuts.

(8:48) But I just think- for me, the- from a health perspective, I wanna eat ten. From a, you know, kind of getting it over with perspective... I'm not sure I wanna spend the next three to four weeks of my life eating pine cones on the other hand, and like stressing out about eating the pine cones. So from that perspective, I think it's better to- probably better to poop five. Because then you can, you know, probably get that over with in two or three days and you know, eventually you will heal. They've got treatments for that stuff.

(9:20) Um, but, you know. Just- I don't know. I don't know. This is a difficult, complicated question, like I said. And I don't wanna offend- there's many viewers who likely disagree with me. By the way, fantastic saves from Seb Brown. Um. But I just- I come- I ultimately come down- Meredith, I don't know, where do you come down on this? I ultimately come down on the side of eating ten. Just because I have a profound- I just- I just worry about the health consequences of pooping five more than I worry about- and you know, I'm a hypochondriac, so it's not about pleasure for me, it's about wellness. Um. And so for me, it's eat ten, but I'm interested to know what you think.

(10:00) Oh, Meredith's wondering if there's a time limit! I mean, if there's like a- yeah, if there's a two day time limit, that does change things a little bit, because then you might wanna- you know, it'd be really hard to eat ten pine cones in two days, no doubt about it. You'd go eat- yeah, I mean. That's- that's where I'm leaning, for sure. I just think like, as much as that's gonna suck, it seems less risky. You know? Like, I've had really bad like, cold sores and cuts in my mouth and stuff, and like, that stuff heals up pretty quickly, you know?

(10:29) But I'll tell you what! I don't wanna do either. Like, one of my biggest ambitions in life is never to eat or poop a pine cone. In fact, now when people say- all the time in interviews, people are like "What's next for you? What are you working on?" I'm just gonna be like, well I'll tell you what's not next for me! Pooping a pine cone. Or for that matter, eating one. That's what I'm really trying to work on right now, is making sure that I don't poop or eat a pine cone.

(10:52) Um, so like, yeah. When NPR interviews me about the Fault in our Stars movie, they're gonna say like, "what's next? What's next in the world of John Green? Are you working on any new books or new video series?" And I'll just be like "I'll tell you what I'm working on. Not eating and pooping pine cones. That's a big focus for me right now. Just been so nervous about this because I think they'd both be really bad. I don't think we'd enjoy either of them."

(11:16) Um. I'm very interested to know though, what you guys feel. Meredith and I both coming down ultimately on the side of eating ten pine cones rather than pooping five, but I'm very interested to know what you guys think, the Wimbly Wombly supporters. If you feel differently about this. I'm also interested to know what the official AFC Wimbledon YouTube channel thinks about today's video and whether they wanna end our sponsor relationship (laughs). Or if they're still cool and they still like us. Um. They almost- they almost- they almost- oh, oh, oh! It's a great opportunity!

(11:51) He must score, and he does! He does! Ohhhhh! Are you kidding me?! In the eighty-sixth minute! (sings) He scores in the loo, he scored with his shoe, green eggs and Sheringham, he just scored on you! (talks) Or alternately (sings) He'd score in a boat, he wouldn't score with a goat, green eggs and Sheringham, he just scored a - goal-t. (talks) Thank you. Thank you very much. I am a great song-writer. Almost as good a lyricist as I am a singer, don't you think, Meredith?

(12:30) Alright, we've got two minutes to try to take one point- make- turn one point into three. Let's see if we can do it. That's a nice ball! Oh, but he gave up on the run. Oh, but a great- get up, get up! Get up, get up, get up, get up, get up! Ohhhh, get up! Oh, don't stop running! Don't give in! Find a way to score!

(12:47) Ohhhh, if you guys don't get three points out of this, I'm gonna make one of you either eat five- eat ten pine cones or poop five. The ultimate punishment. I think that would be abuse of my players. I would never do that. I would never do that, Wimbly Womblys!

(13:00) It's a one one draw. It's not a great result, but we came from behind. I'm proud of that. Um. Great goal from green eggs and Sheringham there at the end. And Seb Brown had a nice couple saves. So.

(13:12) Thank you for watching! I hope that you never have to eat or poop a pine cone, my friends. Best wishes.