Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Gym II

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard and Miniature Mouse is walking here. Today we have Crazy Gym Part 2. Tell us a crazy gym story. We have four that really, really deliver. Be careful in the gym and please enjoy Crazy Gym Part 2. We get support from Quince. You know what I think about a lot? The stuff in my closet I actually wear. Like not the trendy pieces, the sweater that goes with everything or the pants that fit perfectly, the tee you kind of just throw on without even thinking. That's what Quince does. They make those pieces. That's right. They have 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters starting at $60. Organic cotton, merino wool, quality you'd expect from a luxury brand. Luxury without the luxury price tag. We love that. They skip the middlemen, go direct to ethical factories and pass those savings to you. We're talking 50 to 80% less than similar brands. I'm so excited for fall simply because I love my cashmere sweaters from Quince. And I also got to add that right before I left Nashville, I was assigned the task of putting all the bedding back on my children's bed. And I got to fold first the Quince sheets and comforter, then unfold them and put them in. And the entire time I was spreading it all out, I was like, by God, they really are so soft. It's crazy. They are. I also have a pair of sheets from Quince that are really, really good. And honestly, what sets Quince apart is that everything feels intentional. These are timeless, versatile pieces designed to be the dependable stuff you reach for day after day. You're not buying something just for right now. You're buying something that's going to be in your rotation for years. They've also got hotel quality bedding and bath, kitchen essentials, even furniture. So if you're doing any kind of refresh at home too, same quality, same prices across the board. Quince just gets it. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash dax. Get free shipping. On your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada and the UK too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash dax. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Honestly, if I could just flip a switch overnight and be better at one thing, I'd want to be better at handling stress in a healthier way. Like not letting the small stuff snowball into this whole thing where I'm tense for the rest of the day over something that didn't even matter. It came to mind immediately because I know. I do it. Someone cuts me off in traffic and somehow I'm still thinking about it at dinner. Two seconds. That's all it was. So yeah, that's what I'm working on. And that's where BetterHelp comes in. You know how I feel about therapy. It's just necessary. In fact, sometimes I know I'm not supposed to say this. I judge you if you've never tried it. Better is a feeling defined by you. And for BetterHelp, it's a BetterHelp therapist who really gets you. It's a focus on global, emotional well-being with thousands of therapists and millions of members. In over 100 countries, it's progress. And it's getting better at letting the small stuff stay small. That's my better. Sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com slash DAX. That's BetterHelp.com slash DAX. You gotta know, I'ma keep on shining. Hi. Is it Maisie? Maisie, like the department store. Oh, love it. And when people fuck it up, what do they most regularly say? Maisie, which honestly, I don't really even notice the difference. I get a lot of Massey. Oh. Oh, no. Yeah, whatever. Monica, happy birthday. Oh, good job. Thank you. You're a hardcore armchair. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you. We're excited to have you. Now, when you were getting ready this morning, you have a very fun orange, like, let's celebrate. Let's be positive. Was that in the mix today? You're like, I'm in a good mood. Yes. And I knew that Monica's a fashionista. So I was like, what are my colors? How do I come off as my best self today? Wow. You're really doing it. It's a great color. Thank you. Oh, where are you? I am in a place that you were recently visiting, DAX. So Denver or Birmingham? I'm in Denver. Oh. You're in Denver. Okay. Are you from there or did you move there? I have moved around a lot, but I spent most of my childhood in the Denver area. And I actually went to your guys' Denver show when Monica was a guest. Oh, my goodness. Wow, I forgot. That was a long time ago. A lot's changed. I've gotten much older. I was reflecting on that while I was in Denver. I was like, oh, the last time I was here, we did that show. Wow. Fun. Fun, fun, fun. It was very fun. I had a great time. Okay, so you have a crazy gym story. I do. I work full-time in communications and PR, but my, like, passion job is I coach group fitness classes on the side. So, like, 5 a.m., 6 p.m., coaching classes. I've done this for a long time. I've taught just about everything that is available. But right now, I really just teach, like, HIIT and strength training. But I've taught spin, anything you can think of. Have you seen an explosion in females entering the weight training space? I feel like there's a good and positive movement towards that. Yes, and I love it. Bone density. Do you do? Do you do privates? I have in the past. Let's do it. I'm not ruling this out. I love it because, you know, you get to see people at all different stages of life. Like, we have women lifting their entire pregnancies or coming back from back surgery. In my free time, I like to try different gyms and, like, go take classes at other places where I can be anonymous. No one knows me. Just show up, have a good workout, and also learn from other trainers, see what they're doing, what works, what doesn't. So, this story takes place in 2021. In that time. In that time, it's hard to remember because it feels like forever ago. We were still doing group fitness classes and COVID facial mask. I was teaching spin at the time, so I got these really nice Under Armour branded masks that were athletic material. So, they soak up the sweat better, and then they were kind of, like, shaped so they didn't collapse into your mouth when you're, like, running around and breathing really hard. So, I was no stranger to working out in masks is the moral of the story before I tell you what went down. I had heard about this gym that was, like, in my neighborhood. And the really cool thing was they offered altitude training. So, in one of the rooms, they changed the oxygen level so that it simulates you training at high elevation. Oh, this feels dangerous. Yeah, it really does. Like, if this machine goes awry and everyone just slowly dives in there because there's no oxygen. Oh, my God. Like, final destination. Thankfully, that didn't happen, but it is a little risky. You're also already at altitude now. Or this didn't take place in Denver? No, it was. But we all like to be extreme. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I want to be at base camp for K2. Yeah. So, they offered that workout, and it's mostly strength training in that room. And then they offer another class, treadmills, a little bit more, like, HIIT style cardio and lifting. That morning, I taught two spin classes, 6 and 7 a.m. I went to work, and then I signed up for the strength training class after work in the altitude room because I was like, this is cool. I've never done this. I chugged my protein shake. And if you do a lot of workouts, you know, you have your routine. And I wore my shoes. I wore my shoes that are specifically for weight training. And even, like, my sports bra is not the one I would wear on a run. You're fueled before. So, I'm all ready for, like, heavy lifting. And I get there, check in, very nice facility, and everyone's kind of, like, huddled in the main area. There's, like, 30 people in the main area, and they're, like, getting hyped up, bouncing around, high-fiving. And they're like, benchmark 5K, you know, like, and you're really pumped up. And I was like, what's going on? And they're like, we're all running a 5K for time today. That's just not what I was expecting. It didn't say anything on the schedule or anything. And I'd already done two spin classes that day. But I was also like, I paid $30 for this class, and I need to prove to these people that I can run a 5K. Like, this is about to be a competition now. How it worked, since there were so many people just now in this one room, you had a partner. One partner would run the 5K for time, and you would mark down their time when they finish. And you'd hype them up, cheer them on, and then you would switch, and you would run. So, I decided, you know, I'm the new girl. Why don't you go first? But in my head, I was like, I need to know what time to be. Of course. Because this is now an unspoken competition. Machiavellian, yeah, you are, yeah. I know. I love your spirit. The people in this gym are phenomenal athletes. She was crushing it. I was starting to doubt myself, cheering her on the whole time. We're all in our masks. She finishes. I congratulate her. And I'm, like, a little bit nervous at this point. So, I come out hot. I jump on the treadmill, really pushing my pace. I'm scared already. I get to, like, mile two and a half. Since I do run, I have that, like, mental. I have a mental game where I know the last part is always going to be the hardest. Your body can keep going. Your brain will tell you you're tired. You know, I'm doing all the coaching in my head. I'm, like, you got this. You got this. A lot of times when things are about to happen with your body, you might get, like, a hot flash or a little tummy rumbling. But I think my body was already in such a stressed state from pushing this pace. There was zero warning whatsoever. And unauthorized evacuation from my mouth begins to happen. With a mask on. You're looking at an aspiration here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're on the treadmill. Oh, my goodness. All of this happens in, like,.005 seconds. You're just vomiting in your mask. I'm vomiting. I put my hands up to, like, involuntarily try to catch it. While that's happening, I trip over my feet. And it's like a belly flop onto the treadmill. Can I ask what speed you had the treadmill set at? I normally run at, like, a seven. So, I'm thinking I was, like, at an eight. Okay. That's fast. So, it's, like, full frontal smack onto the treadmill. In the process of that happening, you know, When you like pop a bag of chips or something. It was like all the vomit squished out of my mask. Water balloon. Big explosion of vomit. Fuck. All over the treadmill. And now just quickly, if I can imagine, now you have a ton of vomit on the spinning conveyor belt that's going to also pelt. And you're flying off of it, I assume. This is an unmitigated disaster. Yeah, I fly backwards. Thankfully, it wasn't like the one where the person was taking their sweatshirt off. That's one of my favorite stories of all time. I mean, wow. Going around. Going around. I just skid straight back. But vomit's flying everywhere. My partner's standing there like, what do I do? And you said you had just pounded a protein shake smoothie. So you had, what, 20, 30 ounces of fluid? Just pure protein coming out. Oh, yeah, yeah. My partner was very good. She stayed very calm. And she was just like, we need help. She didn't yell. But, yeah, vomit's splattering everywhere. I'm just kind of in shock. Like, at this point, my mask is not on. I have this stuff, like, into my hair. Because it all, like, squished across my face. You're laying on the ground behind the treadmill at this point? Yeah. But my inclination is to pop up and just be like, everything's fine. Yeah, nothing happened. And I was like, do you have a mop? I'll clean it up. And I just, like, went into fix-it mode. So all the coaches, because all the coaches were there for this big celebration, run over. And they're like, this is a badge of honor. You pushed yourself so hard that you threw up in class. This is where that workout community tips a little bit into insanity. Like, you can imagine if you had died, they'd be jumping up and down with excitement. You pushed to the ultimate goal. It was crazy. The coach was like, I'm an EMT. This is nothing. So he was really great. He cleaned it up. Did you start thinking it might be a meet-cute? Was he, like, tenderly wiping puke off your cheeks or anything? My mind was in other places. They got my partner, like, a new shirt to put on. So they really wanted everyone to stay and do, like, a little circle, you know, hand. No, that's over. And I was like, I really got to go. And they were like, no, you were the champion today. You need to stay. No one wants to stand by me. I'm just huddled. This is a sad story. This is a sad story. This, Monica, you would, can you even imagine? No. No. That'd be the last day I was alive. Yeah, yeah. If you had to stand there while people were celebrating. No, by the way, no, I just wouldn't. I'd be like, I'm going. And then I would just run out. Cry, you'd be crying. Of course. And then the cry would make the vomit, like, even thin. Wash some of it off. But it would be thinner. I'm so sorry that happened to you. It's okay. It's okay. I mean, it made for a good story. And I did email the owners the next day. And I was like, great thing you have going on. Really excited to try the altitude room. I think it would be helpful in the future if you can just update the schedule. Like, if there's a special class so people know what they're getting into. And they were very receptive. So, kudos to them. I've been back since then. So, are you still exercising at this pace? Yes. I tore my ACL two years ago. So, I kind of slowed down a little bit after that. And then I recently broke my collarbone. So, I haven't been lifting for, like, the last six weeks. On a bicycle? Yeah. Oh, no. Same with Dax. Well, motorcycles. But it's all the same injury. When you go over the handlebars, right? Did you go over the handlebars? I did. Yeah. That's a bar. That's so upsetting. Were you doing downhill or what was happening? We were gravel biking in Denali National Park. And I think I was just, like, looking at the scenery. Movement is dangerous. And life-saving. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Macy, that story was awesome. You went through the ringer, my friend. It was visceral, too. Yeah. So, be careful on your trails. Be careful on your treadmills. If I can just, like, give you a little shout-out, Monica. My husband and I have been trying to get pregnant for, like, the last year. And I've had a handful of miscarriages and it's been a rocky road. And I recently started listening to Race to 35 because I think we may need to go down that avenue with some medical assistance. And I was like, I know what to expect because Monica, my friend Monica, has done this. And she survived. I did survive and you'll survive, too. That's amazing. Thank you. And just the bravery it took you to do that in such a public way is. It's really inspiring. I appreciate it. I'm going to send you all the love and all the luck. And it's going to go great. Thank you. Well, lovely meeting you, Macy. Yeah. I told my friend Erica, who's my Cali, that I'd give her a shout-out because I got her hooked on you guys. We love that. Shout-out to Erica. Shout-out, Erica. But thank you guys. So nice to meet you guys. So nice to meet you. Thank you so much. Have a great day. And Monica, let me know if you want to train. I will. Take care. Bye. I don't want to train because you get hurt. Well, I don't know if you'll be training on that level, but who knows? Maybe she'll have you running 5Ks. That is a thing I'm more able to do is run than lift. But I need to lift. Also, fair to say you haven't had a ton of experience lifting, so you're not sure that you're better at one than the other. You just have more history doing one. I have more history. I have the body for it a little more. Boobs are hard for lifting. No, for running. And lifting. When I lift, I have to lift so much already. I'm always lifting. You're always lifting. I guess you don't need to lift. You don't need to train. I'm ABL. Let's talk to Alex. Oh, my God. Hi. Alex? This is crazy. I'm really nervous right now. Oh, no. Don't be nervous. First of all, are you a gamer? You have an incredibly good-sounding headset. I'm not a gamer, but my brother is actually living with me, and he's a true gamer. I like your headsets. They're pretty good-looking. Oh, thank you. These are our classic Shure, right? No, that's our microphones. Oh, DT770 Studio. Okay, I'm writing that down. Yeah, please do. Okay, I'm not going to say it out loud, but I saw your last name when the Zoom started, and that's an incredibly interesting last name. What's the origin of that? I'm Brazilian, so that's a Brazilian last name. Love it. That last portion means son, so we don't do junior in Brazil. Oh, that's so cool. Okay, okay. And what generation are you? Who came here? Who came here from Brazil? My whole family moved here about six years ago, but I'm Brazilian. Oh, so you were raised in Brazil? Yep. And where are you at currently? Florida. I'm going to keep it at Florida. Okay, keep it anonymous. I do have a crazy gym story. It will take a turn. Okay, good. This happened a year ago. I was finishing my second year of college going into my third year. I live in a student housing, which means, like, I have new roommates every year, and my past roommates were moving out. I have an empty apartment, and it's starting a fall. People want to start going out. We need to look good, so I started going to the gym. So I'm going to this new gym. I'm not usually one to be socializing at the gym, but there's this guy, and we start talking. And at first, everything was okay. He was just a guy who was helping me out with my workouts. It became pretty clear that we had sort of the same schedules because every time that I was at the gym, he would be there, so we just became gym buddies. Everything was fine up until two weeks later when I get an email from my complex with the new roommates' listings. -Oh, I'm already scared. -Me too. Really quick, I presume you're working out at the student gym for the school? Or are you off-campus at a chain gym? Off-campus gym, just because I go to a pretty big school, so it's kind of hectic to work out at the school gym. But I get an email from the complex, and in that email, I'm scrolling through the names, and I see this guy's name. And for the story, I'm going to call him Damon. -Oh, all right. -Okay, great. It reminds me of Matt, obviously. Yeah, yeah, sure. It'll be easy for you to remember. Let's call him Matt Damon, actually. No, I have a feeling this person does not resemble Matt Damon at all. I don't want to give Matt Damon that description, so let's not do that. Okay. Damon is on that list, and when I look, I go through the email a couple of times because I cannot believe this. I didn't even know that he was in college, but either way, I sent him a text, and I'm like, "Hey, I saw that your name was on my roommate's list for next year. Are you in school? I didn't know this." And then he was like, "Yeah, I saw your post, and I saw that you lived at this complex, so I looked it up, and it looked like a pretty cool complex, so I signed up for the complex." He told me that it was a pure coincidence, and he was very happy that he got randomly assigned to my unit. At that time, are you taking it all at face value, or are you starting to get a little bit of spidey senses? As you guys say, that was my first ding, ding, ding. -Okay, okay, okay. - That was maybe ding, maybe we don't have ding and ding yet, -but we definitely have ding. -The first ding is there. That was a little bit of a reflect for me, but I was like, "Okay, at least I know one of my roommates who are moving in. We already work out together. He seems like a cool guy. Everything will be fine." We get support from YouTube Premium. Okay, I got to tell you something, I just got you to YouTube Premium this year, and it's completely enhanced how I use YouTube. I already liked YouTube for obvious reasons. -Yes. -I'm watching all my car stuff on there. -Everything. -Everything's on there. And thought, "How could YouTube get any better?" Well, Premium has awesome features like offline downloads, just use it on a plane ride, so I can download my favorite automotive shows and videos to watch when I'm on the go. And that means I don't have to wait when I don't have Wi-Fi, which is especially great when I'm traveling and don't have guaranteed Wi-Fi on airplanes. Speaking of not. I'm not waiting, and this is my favorite part. YouTube Premium is ad-free, so I can watch uninterrupted whenever, wherever. Background play also comes in clutch because I can lock my screen and keep the audio going. This comes in handy when I go out for a walk or when I'm in the middle of a great podcast. Plus, it has a ton of other features I didn't even know about. Like, did you know, Premium automatically downloads videos from channels you subscribe to? 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Your info stays with you so you're not starting the process from, scratch. Plus, you're working with local dealer listings, so you've got real people helping behind the scenes. And when you're ready, you can pick up your car or have it delivered, really. Buy your car online on Autotrader, really. For the next couple of months, everything is chill. We are roommates. We do roommate stuff together. We watch movies. We work out. We go to the library. At one point, all of my roommates shared locations. At one point, I had Damon's location. One day, I checked. He was at a community college and to everybody in the apartment, he presented himself as a university student. That was the second thing. It became pretty clear that he was not going to our school. I now know this information about him. So one day, I actually confront him about the whole thing and he just lays out so much new information that I didn't know about. So he is going to my school. He goes to a community college. He was too embarrassed to tell the roommates that he did not get into my school. I can understand how that might feel. And then he's had a cool personality. He was very chill. And in a span of two weeks, his whole mood just changed. He would come slamming the doors in the apartment. We would hear him yelling in his room, crying in his room. We didn't know what was going on. But me as a friend, I was the only one close to him in the apartment. I didn't know what was going on. I decided to have a conversation with him. And that's when he laid out to me that he impregnated a girl, his ex-girlfriend. At first, he wanted to pretend that it was not his son. I was like, I think the most right thing for you to do right now is to get a paternity test. But he doesn't want to get a paternity test. A couple months later, the girl actually takes him to court because she's been asking for help because she's pregnant. She got calls. And he's like, I don't know. I don't know just ghosting the girl. But at the same time that he's ghosting the girl, I start to see that he's a creep because I had his locations. We roommates found out that she was creeping outside of her apartment, just trying to see if guys were coming in or not. Oh, boy. I decide that this is not someone that I want to be hanging out with, but I'm in the situation that now he's my roommate. So this now is December of last year. I'm trying to keep my distance. But now his whole obsession sort of transformed into obsession with me. Every time I would get out of the apartment, there would be questions about who I was hanging out with, where I was going, what time I would be back. This pattern kept going up until March. He's now taking steroids. And I think he's getting some roid rage. His mood is not the same. We live in a five bedroom apartment. So there's me and four other guys. He was a pretty clean guy. But the apartment started becoming a mess. We had an air fryer. And that air fryer was being used and used and used repeatedly without cleaning. So our fire alarm in the apartment was starting to go off every night because of the accumulated grease that was burning out. He needs his protein. It's the chicken broccoli rice. This roommate is already scared of Damon. He decides to write a post-it note and put on the air fryer, asking the guy to clean the air fryer. Damon doesn't take that nicely. When he wakes up and sees the post-it note, he just crashes out. He not just yells at the guy, but he starts kicking the door. He's yelling, if you're a man, you're going to come out and talk to me. Why couldn't you just have a conversation with me about this? You didn't have to put a post-it note. And to me, it's pretty clear why the other roommate did that. Because he was literally trying to avoid this whole situation. So I get involved because I did not want Damon to actually touch the guy. I get Damon away from him. And that was the first incident. This incident kept going. I think we had four of those. But never to me. Up until April, apparently three of his eggs went missing in the fridge, and he decided that I took his eggs. Oh boy. The great egg caper of April. We did have a short of eggs, which I understand. You brought out the worst in him, that scarcity. I wake up. I think it's going to be a normal morning. I only have one class for the day. I need to do laundry. So I get my laundry basket out of my room and he's in the kitchen. And the only thing that I see is him pointing at me. And he starts yelling at me. And he calls me a stealer that I've been stealing his food. He knew that I took his eggs. I try to calm down the situation. And I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about, but can you please lower your voice? Let's figure this out. He did not take that well. He escalated completely. He started coming at me. And then he was yelling slurs up until the point that he was about to touch me. And then at that point, Monica would be really proud of me because I threatened to call the cops. I think that scared him off. I went to my room, locked the door. He did the same thing of kicking and yelling, but I was so fed up. So I just told him to fuck off. If not, I was going to call the cops. He did. I was very overwhelmed after that situation. So I decided to get off the apartment, go to my friend's place. That same night we were planning to booty pump, but you know, it didn't work out. He sent me a text a little while after the whole situation, explaining that he did not feel like himself. He's been going through so much with the paternity court and his whole situation with the son and everything. And I'm like, I get it. But at the same time, I don't think this is a reasonable behavior for you to be having with your roommates. That was my last actual interaction with Damon. After that, I got so scared to live in my own apartment that I was couch surfing. And whenever I completely knew that Damon was not in the apartment, I would come back, but it was some very stressful time. And that's when my parents actually got involved in this and found out that he had a couple battery charges and he had two aggravated domestic violence charges. That's when I was finally able to talk to my complex office to sort of get him out of our leaving zone. So that was my story about how a gym friend became a crazy roommate. This is also a mesh of stories. That's true. It was also a crazy roommate story. Yikes. Boy, there's a lot here. Was it easy for them to get him out of that apartment? Our apartment complex, we go through some background check. It wasn't easy just because they approved the background check. And in Florida, we have some laws for like non-discriminatory protection. But I think he was also just fed up with us that the office kind of offered him to leave without having to pay anything. And then he kind of took the bait and left. Gosh, so he's still out there. That was only a few months ago. Was he getting visibly bigger? were the roids working the roids were working there's so many young dudes on roids and yeah they're so emotionally unstable yeah it's insane what's fucking with their hormones oh boy oh boy so he wasn't romantically in love with you to me and i can't you're not supposed to diagnose people that you've never met and especially if you're not a psychologist which i'm not but it sounds a little bdp he immediately was obsessed with you yeah it did sound like that but then the roids made more sense it also just points out how tenuous our grip on acting normally is like you add a little bit of this into your body and then mentally you're unhinged the thing that stuck with me was how normal he seemed in the beginning and how quickly things changed and that kind of scared me off from building new friendships and stuff like that because we never know what's going to happen you don't know it's true oh boy well alex you're a delight to me yeah i can see where someone really wanted to live with you and be friends you're very friendly no this is totally insane i just wanted to tell monica that monica is my biggest parasocial relationship oh i love being on the other side of the parasocial relationship it's been all right well good luck with everything you're about to start your senior year this is first day of classes so i'm going to class in about an hour oh my god enjoy your last year thank you guys thank you for having me take care hi there kate hi how are you cute sweatshirt thank you so much and cute sunshine pendant the was that what we don't call it a pendant uh charm what is it what do we call it necklace well isn't the necklace the round part okay i don't want to get into it okay i think a pendant okay good good good good and where are you kate i'm in st pete florida are you shortening st petersburg i am yes oh okay okay okay and is bush gardens still thriving down there yeah that's over in tampa i don't get there often but it's still going how far of a drive is that for you 40 minutes yeah it'd be like half an hour oh you've been short or you're pretty close and what kind of uh heat are you dealing with down there right now oh well let's just say i shouldn't be wearing this sweatshirt but i did it for you guys okay it's quite unbearable in the summer but we're towards the end when it starts to get nice and reason why people move down here and where are you from i'm originally from new jersey oh lovely i would imagine there's a lot of transplants from that area down there definitely it's a really cool city we got the beach there's a really cool like art scene down here okay so you have a fun gym story or i don't know if fun's the right word but you have a gym story i have an interesting gym story well first i have to say monica have happy birthday oh my goodness thank you guys the jerry's are so sweet that's really nice they all know your birthday i'm her best friend and i have to think constantly like okay this is coming it's the 24th you know i'm not i thought you forgot today no you thought so this morning the second i saw you i was singing happy birthday how could you know before or you just were anticipating i was going to come out and i know it was your birthday okay and then yesterday i was at your house saying yeah i thought you forgot okay okay okay but i really didn't know that i was going to appreciate you knowing and thinking thank you absolutely so my gym story takes place here in st pete florida this was in the spring of 2024 and for a little backstory i had started dating my girlfriend a few months prior to this and we actually met at the gym monica meet cute that's a different gym story i guess yeah so at this point we've been dating for just a few months we're definitely like in the honeymoon phase of our relationship and at the end of the year we're our gym was having a adult field day oh they have it at a local park it was like a sunday adult field day that we had signed up for so that's where my story takes place so the morning of the field day we decided to go for a little walk beforehand so my girlfriend jenna and i are walking our dog and all of a sudden this dog off leash comes flying at our dog and latches onto his neck so everything happened very quickly but we're both holding mugs of coffee the mugs of coffee are all over us we're on the ground pulling this dog off the owner comes over luckily our dog was okay that's kind of the start of our day so we start the day walking back to our house pretty rattled we've got coffee all over us and i just had this feeling i'm like i don't know just something about that situation is telling me like we just shouldn't do the gym thing today we should just skip over this whole adult field day i just have this intuition but our dog was fine and she's like you know what we signed up for this we've been looking forward to it let's just do it we get ready i throw on some gym shorts and i steal my girlfriend's westfalia vintage t-shirt i thought looked really cute and she says to me that is my favorite shirt please don't get grass stains on it which i'm like i'm not gonna get a grass stain okay adult field day so anyway we take off to field day there's probably like 120 to 150 people there there's a couple different vendors they have a dj so it's really fun like little setup big turnout is there like events planned like a three-legged race that kind of stuff yep so it's like the tug of war race all that kind of potato sack race exactly we were put on the same team we knew a lot of people that went to this gym but our team that we were paired with there were eight other people and we didn't know them start off we do the tug of war lose miserably next station lose miserably and i should know my girlfriend and i are both like pretty competitive people and like even though this is like a fun light-hearted day i'm like hey we're here like we're putting in the effort our team's slacking a little bit we get 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particles dissolve to help break down plaque and stains for a whiter smile so your teeth can feel clean look bright and make brushing a no-brainer try armin hammer toothpaste simple powerful clean so we get to a race where it's all of the teams are competing at once so there's like 12 of us and it's one of those relay races where there's the potato sag down and back and then you put the egg on you know very fun so at this point we were down one person because one girl on our team just kind of gave up and was like i don't want to do this anymore so we're down to nine people everybody else got 10 so we start this potato sack goes we do the egg and i'm looking around like we're all right like we're ready to take it up i'm starting like the adrenaline's kicking and the very last portion of this race was running backwards so you like run backwards to a cone turn around and run backwards so we're standing there there's a guy in front of me and i'm like hey man can i go in front of you i'm really good at running backwards and he's like yeah sure if i were him i'd be like how do you know that i know how would you even know if you're good at running backwards i don't know super confident so i turn around i make it about five strides and my foot catches and i just immediately go down oh and i did exactly what you're not supposed to do which you know my dad's a college basketball coach and he always says like if you're ever gonna fall don't put your arms back that's exactly what i did so i put my arms back and the second i go down i'm like i'm screwed like this is not good at all but i did not want to just lay there and have all these people come over to me and want the attention so i'm like okay i've got to get up and finish this so i pop back up Pull my arm up. arms like in close to me i'm like i just can't look down no matter what i do i just can't look down so i finished the one and go back on my way back i catch eyes with my friend chelsea and she's like are you okay i'm like absolutely not keep going i see my girlfriend i'm like i'm not okay i'm going over there and nobody kind of really realized when i went down how hard it was because i was just so embarrassed and i didn't want the attention so i finally like run off behind to this little section where nobody was and i look down and immediately pass out they are just like dangling my wrists just don't look like they're attached to my body you've got silly hands now what if you had popped up and ran and then looked and your hands weren't there they were back on the ground still yeah so i come to and there's a few people there's this one member who is a nurse and she was amazing we had these like motivational plaques and she took those and put them on my wrist and like wrapped it up to get me to the hospital i show up to the hospital and they do x-rays and i get put back into a room and pretty immediately they're like we gotta cut that shirt off like there's just no we gotta cut that shirt off so vintage shirt completely ruined and you certainly got grass stains on it when you fell backwards but now it's just totally shredded grass my god if i were her i'd be like wait can we just try to get it off well but can we cut her arms off exactly yeah i don't need those i just need the shirt they get that off and then they're basically like we need to manipulate them back into place before anything else so do you remember those like finger traps that you had as a kid or you put in this yeah we know what they used to be called i have a picture of this that i sent in but this machine that they basically put me in i have my hands up all 10 fingers are in these oh yes they gave me some morphine and then the doctor needed to manipulate my wrist back into place whoa whoa this is wild looking i broke both wrists once they saw the x-rays they were like okay you're gonna need to get surgery today and as i mentioned my dad is a basketball coach and he's like you're not getting surgery right now like i want to call i'm a surgeon so he's up in new jersey and he's gone so i end up leaving the hospital i just discharge myself i'm on all this medication and the cast went from about here halfway up my arm so past my elbow so my arms are literally just stuck out like oh like uncle jesse yes yeah okay uncle jesse if you don't know that reference like the position someone's in just before they start doing the robot that's what you're stuck in basically okay but most people understand uncle jesse from full house and it was really upsetting and then he's stuck like this and it's sad it's sad i think he wanted to hug someone and he kind of couldn't hug i forget the details but it's a sad episode okay i end up getting in touch with a surgeon the next day and they say that they can operate on me in nine days they have to do both arms at the same time so i was wearing that for nine days so i just want to remind you guys that i just got in a relationship we actually had just moved in together so my girlfriend needed to do absolutely everything for me from like feeding me to wiping my butt so that was the honeymoon phase of my relationship and without her t-shirt knowing you ruined her favorite shirt on top of it i know oh she's a good one then trial by fire can she actually come say hi before she does i have a couple follow-up questions were you on grass or pavement grass you're just gonna be uneven i suppose i was very nervous you were going to tell me that the bones were out when you stopped running oh my gosh like sticking yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and then last thing is um my friend joey ricardi when aaron and i were in eighth grade we were skateboarding in the driveway and he went off this lawn trip and at this point aaron and i were in his garage having something to drink we hear him screaming and he runs and he's holding his arm and when he takes his hand off his arm it bends like he has two wrists i'm imagining that's what you had going up because it broke clean both those bones and he just had two wrists it was alarming yeah that is exactly what it was all right let's meet your impossibly nice girlfriend yes jenna hi hi jenna i'm so sorry about your shirt it sounded really cute it was just pretty funny that that ended up that way crazy start to the relationship has she made any effort to replace the t-shirt there's a lot of different websites that she could be you know not yet if we come across one i'm sure she will there's one at a store called max fields in los angeles it's a vintage shirt it is two thousand dollars oh if you're interested in purchasing that maybe you could either go to europe or you could get this t-shirt choice is yours that can rip another one yeah exactly well it's lovely meeting you guys i'm sorry you had such a terrible day at the field day have you guys been back is that an annual event they do we have not been back and i don't think that they've done you ruined it you really fucked it up well thanks so much for calling it's great meeting you guys all right great to meet you take care hi we're confused by the sign in name and then the name we think you're is it steph yeah steph sorry i'm on my husband's work laptop we couldn't get mine to work so here i am and is your husband i see a guitar hanging but i also see some sound dampening wall behind you what's happening in this room yes this is my husband's cool shed office that he outfitted is that an animal back there like a seal on the printer yeah oh it's a slot a slot i think we have that slot our kids had i think you have all the sloths that were ever made that's true where are you steph i'm in oregon in the willamette valley oh lovely and are you from there or did you move there so we moved here about a year ago from long story but minneapolis and then england and then now here oh my god sounds like a fun story boy am i immediately my detective mind wants to know like what industries are thriving in both of those locations that you'd go back and forth okay so you have a crazy gym story okay so this is about six years ago when i still lived in minneapolis at the time i was going to this very cool trendy bouldering gym i don't really know how else to describe it but the cool kids went there like there was a kombucha bar a yoga studio yeah yeah and you could stay and study if you wanted to but obviously there was bouldering too it was always super crowded and it's where all the people gathered and mingled so on this particular day i had been there for about an hour and i was working on this one route in particular and had really been wanting to try and finish it i'd gone back and forth to it throughout the day had gotten close several times there were other people there that were better boulders than me who had been failing at it and i was close so i just was like i'm gonna get this i was about to leave then i was like okay i'll just give it one more shot public service announcement to anyone who does anything dangerous one last shot slash last run the second you say that out loud pack your up and go home do not ever proceed after one last shot i wish i knew that psa at the time so this particular route was on this inside corner so the route was mostly on this wall and then the last handhold was on this wall the only way that i really could figure out how to do it was you had to jimmy your foot in once you got up there and then just kind of like push off and hope for the best that your hand would get that hold are you wearing a line you're in a harness okay okay bouldering is without oh my god all right the walls are not as high but it was still one and a half stories oh and is there a pit under you not a pit there's like a mat it's a two-foot mat that's not enough no i like jimmied my foot in and reached out for it and pushed off and i got it and my roommate was there and some friends below and i just heard them all cheering and they were so excited for me for me i was so excited but then the force of pushing off caused me to kind of swing one way and then on the back swing my hand fell off and i fell and when you're bouldering you can fall well like i'd fallen well many times you fall on both feet and then you just kind of roll back and it's great but i fell with the full impact on my ankle oh well because you're so off balance if you were in a pendulum state and that brought you off of your hold right you're skeddywomping to begin with you're not falling now straight right you're falling sideways ish yeah it was problematic so i hit the ground and i just heard the cheers immediately turn to like gasps and screams of horror that's the worst part you had the whole spectrum of human emotion in like three seconds and i didn't feel any pain at this point but i knew it was bad because the way people were reacting so then i looked down and where my foot is supposed to be i just see bones sticking straight out of my leg oh oh what they call that they call that a certain kind of fracture when it comes out of your skin what's it called a gross one an open dislocation is what it was called oh god there's blood gushing everywhere there's just like a pool of blood at this point oh anytime bones are on the scene it's like oh fuck really disrupts the natural order of things yeah and it was kind of like if you sprain your ankle on a curb and it rolls inward but just kept going so my foot was like still technically attached i found out later was only attached by skin no but it was like folded all the way up and i was staring at the bottom of my shoe the sole of your shoe no yeah like imagine money it came all the way oh fuck man all the way up i can imagine passing out from the side of that i'm not one to pass out easily but i was feeling close at that point like i was like either i'm to throw up or pass out. But once I saw it, I just started screaming fuck over and over again. And it was like this kid-friendly gym. So I felt kind of bad. What were you going to do? I know. I mean, I feel like if there's an appropriate time to use the F word, that's when it is. Like the kids will understand. Yeah, they need to learn. They need to learn when it's appropriate to use that word. And that's it. But my roommate said that at that point, she saw people just exiting in droves and she saw one girl go and throw up. It was chaos. Like it was pretty much completely silent in the gym except for my screams. And someone obviously called the paramedics. There was a few people surrounding me. There was randomly a boulder there who was also a nurse and she came and helped me out. And I asked someone to grab my phone and call my husband. And so I had him on speakerphone and he was kind of keeping me calm. But then when the paramedics arrived, someone took my phone away. And I, to this day, just remember being so pissed about that. I was like, he's what's keeping me calm. Like, why did you do that? But yeah, so the paramedics got there and they said they were going to give me something that would not numb the pain, but make me dissociate from it. So they pumped me full of that stuff. And then they kind of splinted the ankle slightly to get me on the stretcher. God bless paramedics. Can you imagine anything worse than re-articulating someone's folded up leg? It doesn't sound fun, but they probably get a lot of joy out of it. Yeah, it was like a 15-minute drive to the ER. And when I got there, the people that greeted me kind of took a look at the situation and they said, okay, we're going to put you under for a few minutes just to stabilize you. And then they said, by the way, we can't find a pulse on your foot. So you might wake up without one. I was so high at the time on whatever the paramedics had given me that I did not give a shit about that. I was just like, please don't cut my climbing shoe. That's all I care about. Please don't cut it. It was so expensive. Isn't it funny? The human brain. As someone who's been in several motorcycle accidents, your literal first thought is like, is the bike broken? Like, how could that be your thought? And it's covered in blood. I've never worn them again. I don't know why. So they put me under. When I woke up, I still had a foot. Oh, thank God. Yeah, because you could have torn all the vascularity and stuff. Pretty much everything was torn off. They told me it was hanging on by like, just threads of skin. I had major surgery the next day. And then I was there for a few days for the antibiotics. And then they discharged me. So I still have a foot. Oh, I'm so glad to hear that. They put plates in there. They thought they were going to, but they actually didn't have to. It was a really crazy injury. It was really rare. I fell and didn't break any bones at all. Oh, popped it off. Yeah. What? Where the leg meets the foot. Just. Split right at the perfect spot of those bones. If you ever make a chicken, a roast chicken, and then you're carving it, the wings just pop right off at the joint. That's what happened. There's photos. Oh, fuck. This might be the first set of photos. I don't know if I can look at. Okay. So this was after they splinted it. And this was in the ambulance. Oh, my fucking heavens, dude. That's the worst photo I've seen on the show. Oh, that's an honor. What is happening? Step, step, step, step. Step. Oh, my fucking God. I don't even get it. And I can't stop staring at it. And it's so vile. You can see the little bit of blue, and that's my shoe. Yep. It's still the wrong way. I'm seeing a shoe just pushed up. All they did is they ace banded your shoe to the side of your leg. Yeah. They just taped your shoe with an ace band. They were pretty much like, let's just keep the foot from falling fully off before we get there. Wow. Wow. How soon were you back out bouldering? Ever? I'm a therapist. And so I was like, I got to do some exposure therapy on myself. So I did eventually go to a climbing gym with ropes, and I climbed, but my hands were just like shaking the whole time. I don't enjoy it anymore. Yeah. But I just don't want to be afraid of anything in my life. And so I knew I had to do that to get over the fear. But yeah, it's not the same. I know everything about your childhood from that last sentence. I just don't ever want to be afraid of anything in my life is a very. Well, no one likes being afraid. It's horrible. And I can relate. Oh, man. Yikes. Well, Steph. I'm so glad you walked away with your foot. Good job. Well, take care. Thank you so much. Thank you. I imagine that she woke up from her surgery, and she looked down, and there was like a Mr. Potato head foot just stuck in there. That's what you thought was going to happen? Like they put up prosthetic foot? No, a Mr. Potato head. Have you ever seen them? Oh, the actual whole potato? No, Mr. Potato head's foot. Okay, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Have you ever played with Mr. Potato head? Of course. Okay. You can't grow up in America and not spend some time with Mr. Potato head. Yeah, so he has like a little shoe, I think. White little shoe, and you just plug it in there. She'll just wake up and look, and that's just where her foot was. Well, and if you see in that photo, there is a hole they could have put a plug in. Potato head. I know. That's a rough picture. Sorry about that last one, but hey, you get what you get. I can't listen. You don't ask for seconds. What is it? You don't get upset. You don't get upset. Okay. Oh, love you, and happy birthday. Thank you. All right, bye-bye. Do you want to sing a tune or something? We don't have a theme song. Oh. Okay, great. We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go. We're going to ask some random questions, and with the help of our cherries, we'll get some suggestions. I'm a flyer, I'm dish. Enjoy.