Armchair Anonymous: Dinner Party

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman. Hi. Today we have crazy dinner party stories. Ooh. Shocking you don't have one given how many dinner parties you've had. I mean, I must. I must. Other than stanking up your whole house with fish. That was bad. Yeah, that was really, I don't want to think about that. But probably not worthy of, these are crazier. That was the whole story. It stank. Yeah. Please enjoy Crazy Dinner Parties. Good times, take them slow. My life, I had them all. But one thing, you gotta know, I'ma keep on shining. Hi there. How are you? Hi. Very nice to meet you guys. You're a lover of leather. Yeah. I'm pretty sure this is one of my Halloween jacket finds, but yeah. Is it Jillian? It is Jillian, yeah. Oh, okay, great. Where are you? I'm in Northern New Jersey. Northern New Jersey. Is that close to New York City? Kind of. It's really where the top of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania all meet. So kind of by high point monument. Oh, okay, great. Are you born and raised there or have you migrated there? Nope, born and raised in New Jersey. Okay, lovely. And how far are you from New York if you drive? New York City? Probably like an hour and a half. It's not too bad. Oh, and how frequently do you go? Not too often. I'll go to like see a show or something. I do have family who live out there. I hear this all the time. People who live like an hour away from New York. Don't you think, Monica, you would be going all the time? But then people don't. I would think that, but probably not. I mean, even when I live in Atlanta, I never went to Atlanta. Like I lived in the suburbs and you just don't go. You don't go. Yeah, same. I lived in Jersey City for a while. And even then I can count on one hand how many times I actually went into New York, even when I lived in Jersey City. Yeah. Yeah. You just stay in your area. It's also not for everyone. It's not for everyone. As shocking as that is to believe. Okay, so you have a wild dinner party story. I do. So this takes place in December of 2022. It was a cousin's giving. And my cousins, my sister and I, we used to all share and host. But this time it was my turn. And I was really nervous because I always screw something up. So whether I say something stupid or do something stupid, something ends up happening. And everyone's like, oh, Jill. How many cousins are there? Like how many people attend? Two cousins, a cousin's wife, and my sister and I, plus my husband. Okay, six. This is a manageable dinner party. Exactly. Like it wasn't anything. It was something that was supposed to be very simple, but it didn't turn out that way. So I can't cook to save my life. I have to preference that. Like I could boil a mean pot of water. You know, I could be a sous chef. But my husband does all the cooking. He's great at that. He's wonderful. So he agreed he would do the cooking and I would do the cleanup, which is perfect. That's a hard job. Yeah, exactly. I don't want to undercook the turkey, you know, and get everyone sick. So that was our deal. He goes shopping. He gets the turkey. He gets all the things for everything because we were going to do a couple of sides and everyone else was going to fill in the gaps. He gets all of that done. I'm cleaning the house the day before it comes. And he goes, you know what? I'm going to go out with some friends. I'll come back later. I'll get the turkey all set up. You go to bed because I know you're anxious about the evening. So I'm like, all right, fine. So I pop a tile and all p.m. I'm straight to bed. I'm basically dead to the world. I don't even hear him come to bed. So the next morning I wake up and I'm happy. I'm like, OK, today's the day he has everything all set. I go downstairs and immediately slip on the floor. Oh, no. Was it wet or you just slept? Well, I'm like, what in the world's going on? So it's very slippery. So I'm like, what's going on? And I'm feeling the floor and I'm like, this isn't water. So I go to grab a paper towel and there's no paper towels. We just bought a whole bunch. There's been an incident. He heard like the thud. And so he comes downstairs. He's just like, oh, hey. And I'm like, what's going on? Why is the floor so slippery? So when he went to the store, he saw vegetable and he saw gallon. And he just saw the two words and that checked off his list. He thought he was buying vegetable broth and he bought vegetable oil. Because they don't sell vegetable broth by the gallon. Oh, my God. I don't think I even know what vegetable broth is. Vegetable broth, like chicken broth. Oh, okay. But that's not vegetables, but similar to chicken broth. And normally they come in those containers, but they don't sell them by the gallon. Yeah, like the paper thing. Yes. I guess when he went to go throw in the spices, it just exploded everywhere. And even then, when he came downstairs, I noticed he had some spots on his face. And it didn't even dawn on me when we were initially talking. Do you think he might have been tipsy when he took on this project after coming home from the. Okay. Oh, yeah. Because I'm like, how when he's pouring it out, does he not realize it's oil? Well, so I guess when he was also heating it up, he realized it wasn't bubbling. And he was like, well, I guess it's ready. And went to go throw everything in and just. Oh, my God. Just everywhere. So I'm like, what are we going to do? I'm like, we can't go out and buy new turkeys. Forgive me. Why do we need the vegetable broth? How is the turkey involved with the vegetable broth? So I guess that's something that you use to brine it. Oh, okay. Okay. There's multiple uses. You use it for the stuffing. You use it for the gravy. I guess he used it on the turkey itself. He smeared it all over the turkey. Okay. He oiled it up good. Yep. Okay. He really laughed at it. Bathed it in oil. So at this point, we're like, we can't go out and buy a new turkey. So we then get it in the pan. And we open up the oven. Now, to preface this, we had a very small kitchen where you couldn't really open up the fridge and the oven at the same time. The oven was relatively small. So we go to put the turkey in the pan and put it in the oven. And now we realize that we can't even get the pan in the oven. The pan's too big. Oh, I hate this. God. It's so hard to cook Thanksgiving in a small kitchen. I've also done it. Yeah. And at this point, I'm just regretting all of my decisions. I'm like, should we cancel? Yeah. You're like, is there a Boston market nearby? At this point, like, let's just order pizzas and call it a day. But I remembered from when I was a kid, our oven caught on fire during the holiday. So I knew when I was a kid that we could cook the turkey on a grill. We did have a grill. So I'm like, listen, let's not panic. We'll do it on the grill. And he's like, no. I'll do it on the grill. He's just like, you don't know how to do this. So he goes outside, figure it out. He goes to light it. And we have no propane. So he goes out to go get propane. As he's grabbing his car keys, he realizes now it's pouring rain now. Oh. So not only is he going to have to go out in the rain, but now he's going to have to cook the entire turkey in the rain. Oh, boy. He's gone. He comes back. He's getting everything situated. And I'm noticing that people are starting to show up early. Turkey's not cooked. Like, everything's kind of chaotic. I had invited my cousin, his wife, and their dog. And the dog is very cute, but she's a little bit of a nervous pup. And I did not realize that. But they were coming from a far distance. And I was like, no, just bring her. It'll be fine. So the dog's barking. She's nipping at us every single chance we get. This dog clearly does not want to be there. And we're still trying to get everything situated. My husband's soaking wet from the rain. He's, like, coming in and out. We're leaving the door open a little bit because there's no ventilation. They come in. They say hello. And eventually my sister comes in. And I'm like, okay, well, now I want to go. I'm going to go to the living room and join the conversation. We get in there. And when you approach a dog, you're supposed to go the top of your hand out, not palm up. Okay, for the sniff. Yeah, so they can sniff you. I did not do that. I went palm up. And the dog immediately nipped me and bit me. So it wasn't a big bite. But it was enough where it was just profusely bleeding. Oh, God. Wow, wow. Yeah, this is really going sideways. Nothing's working, really. The socializing isn't working. We got an attack dog on the scene. Yeah. It was just chaotic. So my cousin was very apologetic. He's like, I'm so sorry. Are you okay? I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm fine. But meanwhile, I'm like, ow. And now we have no paper towels. So I have nothing to wrap it in. So we had some of those fancy Thanksgiving napkins that don't really absorb anything. They just have the fancy turkey picture on it. So I'm trying to hold up my hand so it could try to stop bleeding. But I still have these sides that I have to mix and everything. So I'm mixing with my non-dominant left hand. We're slipping on the floor. There's blood everywhere. Like, it was just. It was chaotic. So my other cousin now comes in. She's the one that actually lives in New York. She comes in and she's like, what in the hell is going on? She sees I'm sweating because it's hot in the kitchen. You know, she's slipping on the floor. She's wondering if there's going to be like blood in the mashed potatoes. It's too much. Now my husband comes in and he sees my hand. He's like, what happened? So I told him he runs upstairs to go get me a Band-Aid. In the meantime, again, the doors opened up a crack and the dog just walks over and runs out the door. Oh, my God. And I lived on a very busy street corner. Oh, Jesus. So I was like, oh, my God, the dog's going to run out in the middle of the street. It's going to die. My cousin's never going to talk to me again. This is just the worst day ever. It's not your fault. Thanksgiving's going to turn into a funeral. Now we're running after this dog, my husband and I, in the rain, bloodied up, just not feeling great at this point. Thankfully, my cousin's wife opened up the door, called the dog, and the dog thankfully ran to her. But it was continuously running in between my neighbor's yard, my yard. It was just a nightmare. And, of course, I don't want to grab this dog again. Because I don't want my whole hand getting chopped off. So we finally get in. Everyone's now calm. We thankfully have the Thanksgiving turkey. And it came out beautiful. So shout out to my husband. He did a beautiful job. On the grill. On the grill. That feels challenging. Yeah. Wow. Because you're using the grill as an oven, kind of. Yeah. Which, yeah, you can do. If anyone's ever in a pinch, use your grill. Pop it on the grill. Just make sure you have propane. It had, like, a nice crispy crust, too. Yum. All that oil. Yeah. And thankfully, no one's eyebrows got singed off. So that was a good thing. But, yeah, so Thanksgiving didn't turn out to be a total. It was a total disaster. But it's safe to say we have not hosted anything since that point. It's hard with all those restrictions. Well, I think it's very human. People get a little too ambitious on that day. Yeah. They go, like, I haven't really tried all this stuff, but how hard could it be? It's fun to do, but it's a lot. I have fun showing up to the event and being like, I brought a pie. Yeah. That's ideal. Safe to say we have not hosted again. We've gone out since. Cousins giving. You're just going out now. Yeah, exactly. Like, professionals know how to do this. Even if you had crammed that 10-pound. turkey and the five pound oven now where are you baking all the shit because you got so much stuff to bake you got the sides because i do monsgiving so i cook the whole thing i've done this now two or three years three years i think and you have to have a whole system laid out time-wise so this goes in at this time then comes out then this goes in and then this comes out sometimes you can double if there's space yeah it was honestly it was just so chaotic definitely if i do do something in the future i have to be able to time it out a little bit better but thankfully it did come out all well and that's a huge thanks to my husband he's actually here if i could bring him out to meet you guys let's meet the griller the grill in chief hey guys oh you're holding a little turkey how small this is our baby oh how old is this baby eight weeks old oh my gosh oh my god he's so cute no he's gonna cry if i do that you he doesn't care about being on armchair expert he's the master griller he did a fantastic job i love that she picked this story i swear i'm good at cooking sometimes i mean a lot of misses but at the end of the day you saved it it flew under the radar nobody asked any questions and so i was a success now how did so much oil get on the floor i understand it exploded when you put the spices in you gotta remember it was late at night which was my first mistake you know you're supposed to boil the broth and the spices and then you throw the turkey in it wasn't boiling and i'm like why isn't it boiling because it's oil super heated yeah so i started cranking it and then i can't remember what the catalyst was but you know you agitate it in any way and it wasn't you know like a little bit of a geyser nothing caught fire but the window just had covered in oil the surfaces covered in oil and we used i think like an entire costco package of paper towels like please don't wake jill up please please don't let her find out that i'm doing this oh that's great oh boy well it's delightful to meet you guys what a sweet family yeah i would also like to give a quick shout out to my sister trish my cousins who you know thankfully ate the food and to our friends katie and claire who got us turned on to armchair anonymous and claire just recently got engaged congratulations we love that oh so much life affirming stuff happening yes life moves on after the oil keeps rolling on well jillian so nice to meet you it was so nice to meet you guys have a great day you too bye bye couldn't happen to a nicer person oh that baby was really small eight weeks how old is fizz right now nine nine weeks yeah probably around that could have been his bro they're about the same age yeah they could hang out they could hang they'd have the same nothing to say yeah they get along in that way but they might kick each other well they might get to play soccer given this is extreme aptitude hi there hi hi how are you guys great is it cat cat yep cat where are you i am in cedar rapids iowa okay and you're in a bit of a small little area our company just put in our office these little sound booths just for this yeah employees are on podcasts because everyone knows cubes all on top of each other and this way i guess you can talk on the phone without interrupting yeah what line of work are you in insurance insurance okay okay health property all of the above commercial property and casualty okay okay this is what our good friend huey's line of work is yeah so you have a crazy dinner party story yeah ever since i got the email and then i confirmed i was second guessing myself i was like oh my god it's not crazy enough for you guys so i don't know just add a dead body at the end just throw one in randomly there are dead bodies oh my god wow can't wait yeah i'm not sure this was back gosh like 2001 it was the summer after my first year of college and i went to stay with my aunt in muskoka i know you're familiar on the lake yeah she was building a new cottage on the lake kind of like between port carling and brace bridge area and is she a canadian or she just had a vacation house no she's californian but my great-great-grandparents they had an island forever ago and my mom and her grew up going to the island every summer in muskoka and so it's just been a whole life thing for her and she started going back as an adult and renting a cottage and then after i don't know 15 years of doing that she decided to build her own cottage oh lovely i went to live with her that summer to help her work on her cottage and paint floors paint walls do all the things there the community there they're all really tight-knit and they're having dinner parties and events all the time like it's very social and everyone hangs out all summer together a lot of boathouse parties dock parties lots of parties in general so the night in question i was there i'd only been there like a week or so at that point and was just kind of meeting some of her friends kind of getting acquainted and we went out to a friend of hers we'll call her betty we went to betty's island you have to go by boat and we get there and it's beautiful it's all set up outside you know tables tablecloths very nice dinner for 15 20 people everyone's chatting cocktail hour and then we all go to sit down for dinner and betty comes over and she looks at me and she says i'm gonna be super tacky and leave the wine bottle on the table you know i was 19 and i was like is that tacky i don't know yeah was that a wink wink like go ahead and have some drinks you're also in canada where it's 19 is the law legal and everyone was drinking but it was like i'm just gonna leave the wine bottles on the table it's so tacky okay i don't know why that would be tacky i think that's her wink wink wink saying like go ahead and okay yeah these will be out go ahead and have a glass that's what i'm interpreting it as is that what you thought it meant no i just thought it was she thought that it was really rude truthfully and she was embarrassed she had some etiquette stuff obviously we sit down we're eating dinner it's beautiful normal nature sounds all of a sudden betty says oh excuse me for just a minute and she excuses herself from the table and she walks up into the house comes out just a minute or so later with her shotgun oh my goodness oh that's one of your dead bodies she turns around fires one shot and all the birds fly up crows yeah fires three more shots takes several birds out oh my god okay just for fun in the middle of the party yeah and then she just walks back in the house comes sits down she's just made a comment about how oh you know those crows are just a constant nuisance i'll clean that up later oh god it was on with dinner no one says a word i'm 19 like i don't know what just happened that's that really dinner goes on everyone eats drinks has fun my aunt and i get in the boat to go home and i just looked at her incredulous and i was like she said it was tacky to put the wine bottle on but thought nothing then to go get her shotgun and murder birds yeah murder the smartest birds on the planet murder the murder no one thought anything of it or at least they didn't say so out loud my aunt just started laughing she's like yeah she's a little quirky oh my and would you say that the crows had been being a nuisance at dinner or no they're making noise but you're eating outside you expect noise right yeah most people do whoa what an interesting gesture was she sorry i think maybe you said it was an interesting gesture i think maybe you said it was an interesting gesture i forget it's hard to judge when you're 19 right yeah everyone looks imagine she was in 50s or 60s i mean she had adult children okay okay and was she single no married her husband was there very quiet okay he just watched her drop a couple birds that's how they've delineated the work there at the house she's in charge of murdering the birds i wonder if it is supposed to be like bad form to leave the wine on the table i've never heard this before i never had either and you go to and they set it on the table you know i thought nothing of it i really think she was trying to let you know you could have some wine like it's gonna be out she wouldn't have to say it's tacky yeah i don't but she's a strange bird i guess i never took it that way but you might be right because i was just like apparently in etiquette class they covered wine on the table but not yeah exactly murdering a bunch of crows oh wow oh wow you spent the whole summer there uh a good portion of it yeah and have you been back i think i went back once since then i went and spent canadian thanksgiving with my aunt one year but otherwise i haven't kids and life and craziness it makes it hard have you watched sterling point no it's a show that a lot of people are obsessed with and it takes place there so it's very top of mind to talk about muskoka people love it no i'd love to go back my aunt sold the enormous cottage she built that summer because it just was ridiculously expensive and now has like a one bedroom so i my family it's not gonna work unless i rent a place yeah although i gotta say if she built in 2001 that was a dream time to do it because my trip there was in oh six in in the previous three years like everything on that lake had tripled or something it really blown up it was amazing for sure really quick had everyone finished eating when she killed the birds because that could curb your appetite no we were right in the middle of dinner okay were you eating chicken smack in the middle i wish i could remember i don't know Well, lovely meeting you. It's good to meet you. Ooh, can I go ahead and just shout out to my kids, Hudson, Brooks, and Patriot. Great names. They're going to freak out. I didn't tell them I was even doing this, but they listen with me all the time. We get in the car. Can we listen to Armchair? We have a chat at a future generation of listeners. I love that. How old are these three? 14, 11, and 8. It's action-packed, huh? Oh, yeah. We're busy, for sure. All right. Well, good luck with everything. Thanks so much for telling us that story. Yeah. Thanks, guys. Have a good day. All right. You take care. Hello. Oh, my God. This is a trippy angle. It looks like you're upside down, but you're not. It looks like you're lying down on your bed. That's what it is. Yeah, lying down. That would have been a good idea, actually, given my situation. Tell us about your situation. My closet is so tiny, so I have this duvet cover over my head. It's getting really warm in here. And then I have my laundry kind of drying rack. It's a very small space. Are you getting claustrophobic? No. No. No, I'm good. But I just realized that this is going to be warm. Oh, yeah. Toasty. It's a pretty duvet. You're in Vancouver Island? I am on Vancouver Island. I'm in Nanaimo. Yeah. Oh, wonderful. And is your accent from there? No. Good catch. I grew up in the UK. I'm a dual citizen, but I've lived most of my adult life here in Canada. Okay. What age did you move to Canada? Well, I was born here. That's what's complicated. Let's get complicated. So I moved there at four. I left again at 21. So you did a good 17 years there. I did. My formative years there. Yeah. And do you miss it? Do you have thoughts of moving back or no? You're happy. I love to visit, but I wouldn't move back. The quality of life is a lot better here. Good to know for picking between locations. So you have a dinner party story. I do. And I've been waiting for this prompt for four years. Oh, this is great. Oh, my goodness. Okay. What patience you've exhibited. Okay. So this takes place in 2022 in a town called Qualicum Beach. It's about 40 minutes up island from where I am right now. First of all, I have to give you. I have to give you some context on Qualicum. It's this lovely kind of well-kept town. And it has one of the oldest average ages for a community in the whole of Canada. So it's a lot of retirees here. It's pristine. It's really pretty. It's really wholesome. There are no chain stores or chain restaurants. Nothing is out of place. Like it's just a very quaint town. Is it rural or is it pretty built up? It's a small coastal town. It's like a string of like communities up the coast here. And then in the center of the island is more rural. My dad's best friend had recently retired here and he brought his wife with him, of course. And we'll call them Nathan and Susan, not because they've done anything wrong, but just because respectful. Show, show. And I had never met them before, but my dad was really pressuring me to get together and spend time with them, which was very nerve wracking for me because that's just like a socially awkward situation as far as I'm concerned. Eventually, I get this text from Nathan saying, and it was a very formal text. It was written by like a letter. It was like, dear Sarah, we would love for you and your husband. To join us for dinner on this date at this time. It was very sweet. And I was kind of obliged to accept at this point. I would never have heard the end of it from my dad if I didn't. On the day of the dinner party, my now ex-husband and I, we'll call him Simon, were having a super stressful day. We had unexpectedly closed on a house and we had to get the deposit to the other realtor in a strangely accelerated fashion. And it was a Saturday. So the banks made it kind of hard. So we're playing a lot of Tetris with the banks. Simon took the brunt of that. By the time we left for dinner, we were just really. Like not in the mood at that point. To have dinner with strangers. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. He had to kind of be on after this crazy day. And so I really didn't know anything about these people except for the fact that he was very much a gin connoisseur. So we of course picked up a bottle of local gin to take with us, hoping that it would break the ice, make it that first interaction a bit easier. As it turned out, Nathan and Susan, they're just lovely, lovely people, gracious hosts. They had pre-dinner G&Ts and then we had wine. Sounds lovely. We all sat down for dinner and the context of the room is important for this. So if you can imagine at the back of the room is the kitchen and then you have parallel to that, like a big oversized island. And then again, parallel to that is a big farmhouse table. And then again, parallel to that is like the back of a sofa. And that kind of delineates between the kitchen, the dining and the living room area. And beyond that sofa is another one and massive windows out onto the street. Nathan had made dinner for himself. He was very proud of it. It was like a one pan creamy pasta bake, you know, you throw the cheese and the pasta and everything and throw it in the oven. So he put it down on the table. He put it in front of us, very proud, announced what he'd made. And given that Simon had had a especially stressful day without much of a chance to sit down and eat, he loaded up his plate, which wasn't unusual because he was a big guy, but like super active, trying to get all the protein in that he could. But he'd been off carbs for a while. Oh, OK. All right. Yeah. And so this was like an epic, epic event for him. And I remember we were driving there and he said, I'm going to eat carbs today. Yeah. Yeah. So exciting. He would often be testing out the latest fitness related diet trends and he didn't drink much. So he's very kind of health conscious. Really quick. Was that annoying? I think I just got used to it after a while. It became white noise. How's he eating this week? OK. Yeah. Well, there would be like three month stints and then he'd take some data and do some workouts and test it. He's like a scientist on his body. Yeah. After a lot of like polite chit chat, Simon gets up and goes to the bathroom and he was a while in the bathroom. Oh, no. Sure. But he came. He came back and fully loaded his plate up again with another full plate full of pastas. Things are getting a little messy. There's a lot of stuff to consume. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And that's when things started to go off the rails. I have to be honest. I hadn't noticed yet. But Susan turned to Simon and was like, are you feeling OK? And to be fair, he was looking a bit gray. Oh. OK. He was like swaying a little bit, you know, like in a circular fashion. I'm like, oh, no. So she suggested he just go sit on the sofa right there and we could all chat. Chat until you feel better kind of thing. He's a child. Yeah. Yeah. And he did. He like went over there and he kind of his head kind of just went back against the back of the sofa and he had his arms out, you know, like stretched out along the back of the sofa. And his head just like starts rolling back and forth. And I'm just like, what's going on? And then suddenly he shouts, oh, no. He finally like lurches forward and like projectile vomit across himself. Oh, the coffee table. It even hits the sofa beyond. Oh, boy. He's a big boy. And he exploded. Oh, God. He popped. It just kept coming like wide angle. Violently spewing everywhere. Oh, no. What terrible dinner guests you guys are. I have never seen so much sick in my entire life. Ew. Regurgitated. Bastard was like everywhere. Oh, boy, boy, oh, boy. It was just in shock. We just like stood there watching in horror as this unfolded in front of us. And he eventually like rocked back into the back of the sofa, kind of moaning. And I just started. My first instinct was to apologize profusely. Simon was covered. The sofa he was on was covered. Oh, the silk rug in front of it was covered. No. He kind of is a baby a little bit. Yeah. This is horrible. This is horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. It was horrible. So, Susan rushes over with a dustpan and like two like cake slicers, you know, that you slide a piece of cake out of a cake. And so she and I started like scraping the vomit off the carpet into the dustpan. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. This is. And is Simon just sitting on the couch watching all this? He's like barely, barely conscious at this point. Meanwhile, Nathan had grabbed a bowl and he's pushing the vomit off the coffee cup. Oh, my God. And he's like, oh, my God. And he'd be like, oh, my God. is that he'd had such a stressful day and he hadn't had a chance to eat much or even drink much. So he's really dehydrated. He only had literally a couple of drinks and then he ate all this food. He's like a puppy. Yeah. His body was like, um, no. We don't do this. Decided to, um, yeah. Save it. Get rid of it. Oh, fuck. Were you ever invited back other than to swap the clothes? They came to us. Oh, that's nice. I hope to God Nathan took a shit in the middle of your living room. I mean, we deserved it. But then every time after that, that he looked like he was going to burp or something, I was just like, Oh no. You know, like when you have a cat that's kind of heaving and you try and direct them off the carpet. Yeah. Or a child that's sick. Yeah. It was very traumatizing. Yeah. The thing makes me think of all the times you have your kid in the bed. They're sick. You've got to try. Next to the bed. And for some reason, even that is just not enough to get in there. Wow. That's a disaster. Simon, I mean, then you just like handed him the papers. You're like, you know what? This is not, I can't do this. I can't do these double dates anymore. We'll have no friends left at this rate. Yeah, exactly. Oh, well, Sarah, you're so much fun and you're so articulate and you have a really wonderful vocabulary and I enjoy all those things. Yeah. Well, it's so nice to be here. Yeah. Thanks for chatting with us. Yeah, you too. Thank you so much. This has been really exciting. And can I just give a quick shout out? Oh, you can give many. My friend Summer helped me last night. I was panicked a bit with the tech. We did a practice call and tested these headphones that I grabbed from work. So I just want to say thanks, Summer. Thank you, Summer. Thank you, Summer. You did perfect. You sound great. No technical problems whatsoever. Which is rare. We generally deal with a good six, seven minutes of technical issues before each. That's what you're spared in editing. Perfect. Yeah. All right. Well, be well. Take care. Thank you, you too. Bye. Bye. I liked her duvet. Yeah, I liked her whole. She had a good vibe. They kind of matched my pants. Are you getting more and more intrigued by Vancouver Island? I am. Like everyone we interview from there raves about it. Yeah, I bet. It's great. And if she's saying it's preferable to the UK, I certainly like the UK. I do too. But that feels personal. hi you're so cute is it sarah yes yes sarah where are you i'm calling from massachusetts central massachusetts are we in the berkshires there what's happening in central not that far left i'm more outside of worcester oh worcester okay wonderful and are you from there or have you moved there moved here after college found the love of my life now we live here so you followed a boy there no we met when we both were already here great correction is he from there though no nope we both just went to college here and this is where all of our people are yeah oh that's so fun where are you from originally i'm originally from illinois which is where this story takes place okay do you want to tell rob where because it's fun for him to hear i'm from geneva illinois lake geneva lake it's just straight up geneva yeah is it the place princess diaries sometimes i also get genovia she's the princess of genovia who is a girl from princess diaries oh okay but she's from this town in illinois no she's from genovia oh she's a princess of genovia okay so sorry i did one time have my husband tell someone very confidently that i was from genovia that's nice and what did you major in at this college so i actually went to university of vermont and then kind of everybody leaves there and goes to boston which is where the love story started but i'm a special educator so i study education oh okay wonderful okay so you have a dinner party story i do have a dinner party story again i'm gonna say it again it might be annoying you're just terribly cute it's like i'm like looking at five omouskowitz or something you could be a cartoon character so much i work on a college campus and i get mistaken for a college student all the time yes i would bet that congratulations yeah thank you you look 19 or 20 i don't know how old you actually are i'm 30 you're gonna look outstanding when you're my age yeah yeah yeah so this took place in illinois in geneva illinois which is a very small town i like to say it's the last stop on the train from the city of chicago before you hit just total cornfields i was 10 years old which brings us to december of 2005 when this story happens and the other key player in this is my sister her name is emily and she's two years younger than me so she's eight and you're 10 yes exactly is it snowy there in the winter in december it is snowy this was i'll feel like a little more icy like the snow usually hits in january but it's definitely cold you don't want to be outside in december which also factors into this story because my parents are having a dinner party in this story and so my dad's job brought us to illinois but he was originally from connecticut and my mom was originally from virginia so all of our family is up and down the east coast and so we moved to illinois and we don't know that many people but my mom being southern loves to be a hostess loves to have people over to our house and show hospitality to the max southern charm all of that and so my parents had a lot of dinner parties when i was growing up and i remember me feeling like a kid they are gonna have such a fun night i'll get to hear them from either upstairs or downstairs because they usually would hire a babysitter to just keep an eye on us while they had all their couple friends over sure party let's be honest exactly it was a party we lived on this square of a neighborhood that there was a park in the middle and then houses lining the square and almost i would say 50 of the houses around the square were adults my parents age with kids roughly around my sister and i's age how fun yeah it was a lot of people to invite over to these dinner parties usually they would have babysitters but now i was 10 years old this is the first dinner party i remember that my parents said we don't need to hire a babysitter you and your sister you've got it handled we'll be upstairs you guys can go hang out in the basement while we're having our dinner party and by basement i mean it was fully finished there was a bathroom a little kitchenette and like our playroom was down there wood paneled walls yep wood paneled walls blue patterned carpet it was very like midwest it was kind of like a circle so you would go down the stairs in the middle and on one side was the playroom where we had all our toys bathroom on the back side and then the other side was we called it the man cave for our dad but i don't know that it was really ever used as that but it had like a tv and a leather couch and a pool table god guys are so predictable they gotta have a leather couch why do we have to have a leather couch not comfortable no none of them are if you try to lay down and put your face on it and you're like yeah and they get cold yeah they don't get warm yeah they're either sticky in the summer or freezing in the winter we never really used the pool table because it came with the house the last owners had it and i guess it was going to be so much trouble getting it out of the basement they asked my parents if they wanted to keep it and they said sure but we didn't really use it it was like a prop for my sister and i's games sometimes but we didn't play pool this is the story of all pool tables which is fun it just kind of sits there and collects dust and every guy wants one so my parents are having this dinner party and they say one of the couples that we're inviting is matthew and william's parents who were our neighbors down the street these two young boys that were the same exact age as my sister and i so we'll see if we can find out what's going on and then we'll see if we can find out what's going on and then we'll see if we can find out what's going on and then we'll see if we can find out what's going on and then we'll see if we can find out what's going on and then we'll see if we can find out what's going on and then we'll see if we can find out what's going on and then we'll see if we can find out what's going on and then we'll see if we can find out what's going on in the middle of our houses like tag hide and seek they had a trampoline fun stuff outside so my parents were like well what if we let those two come over that way that's kind of entertainment for the party parents are upstairs nothing could really go wrong yeah we're on cloud nine our parents order us pizza we hear all the other couples coming in upstairs and get through like the tour of our playroom and we come to the realization that we don't really have a lot of toys for boys we have dress up and barbies and crafts and all of that stuff we're a girl house so we're kind of like what should we do we've already eaten our pizza we don't really want to watch a movie just yet it's too early in the night so what should we do and the boys are like we want to play pool of course it's in their genetic code it's on the 46 chromosome yep and my mom taught my sister and i to be very good hostesses you know whoever's coming into the house you have to do what they want to do and so my sister and i like okay we don't know how to play pool but fine so i don't remember why but i was the last to grab a pool cue from the wall we had like a little rack of pool cues and we had adult size pool cues and then we had kid size pool cues and i was a kid so i usually used the kid size pool cue but just to put it into perspective at age 10 this pool cue probably came if it was up on the floor right about to my belly button oh it's a tiny little guy yes it's tiny but it gives me more control because i really don't know how to play this game and so the boys set it up and they put the balls on the table and they break it and they're trying to teach us how to play pool and my sister and i are just like not getting the hang of it and after a few rounds we're like we really don't want to be playing this game and so it starts to get that like kind of rambunctious we're chatting on the side we're like how do we get these boys to stop wanting to play pool we want to have a fun night we're kind of over this game and so i had this brilliant idea and i just said i bet that i could jump over this pool queue and clear it oh well it's standing up right okay so you're committing to jumping at the height of your belly button basically yep with a little yep and if i clear it we don't have to play this game anymore we don't have to play pool i get to pick what we're gonna play and of course boys love a bet they do that's a fine challenge yeah yeah yeah so now my sister and i are just like how do we get these boys to stop wanting to play this game sister and the two boys are like watching me and waiting for me to jump over this pool queue is your sister gonna hold it up vertical someone's got to hold it right that would have been really smart but i'm 10 i think i can hold it myself while i jump over it literally impossible it sounds more like a pole vaulting situation with too small of a pole yeah so they're all looking at me and i'm holding this pool queue upright and i jump and i land on it no i'm kind of impressed you get that high what are you wearing i'm wearing sweatpants like a t-shirt yeah okay goes right through the pants oh and i'm on the ground all i feel is the worst pain of my entire life oh my god my hands do exactly what yours are monica and they go straight to my crotch and i am grabbing for dear life and i'm laying on the ground and it kind of knocks me down and i'm like oh my god i'm so tired i'm so tired i'm so tired i'm so tired the wind out of me so for about 30 seconds there's just me on the ground not making much noise and the three other kids staring at me in horror because there's blood everywhere okay i have to ask a hard question the pool cue let me ask is it in you or is it on the ground beside you it's on the ground beside me there was a quick in and out and after about 30 seconds of like catching my breath and in pain i get out the words get mom and i make dead eye contact with my sister because the boys are just like they're already planning how they're gonna say they don't know what happened exactly we had nothing to do with it she totally did it on her own i mean in this case they would be right yeah unfortunately mom comes downstairs she's thinking that like it's gonna be something silly you know yeah you're ruining the dinner party for nothing and so she says she just comes down and sees blood and that was enough for her to be like okay jump into action so she went back upstairs and she got my dad and said you need to carry sarah upstairs to the bathroom we're gonna lay down some towels something happened there's a lot of blood get her up to the upstairs bathroom so they get me up so they can like look and see what's going on and quickly realize we got to go to the emergency room the blood is not stopping and my mom says i was white as a ghost and i'm already a very pale little kid so she was like i knew something was wrong but there's guests downstairs well they gotta go yes step one is getting the guests out of the house so i remember my parents going down there and very kindly and calmly trying to be like this was so great we gotta cut this early sarah's not feeling so well she has a hyper extended anus oh well i don't know it could be either right well we don't know yeah we don't know we're gonna cut this early sarah's not feeling so gonna find out could have been either so she is like rushing people out of the door and i'm just laying on the bathroom floor not sure how much time has passed but hearing people leave and then i think i remember my mom grabbing like a bag of a few like essentials just depending how long we were going to be at the emergency room now i'm in the car still on a towel feeling a little better still bleeding not as profusely luckily this is where being from small town illinois comes in handy because we get to the emergency room and it's about i would say two weeks before christmas so people are trying to be safe for the holidays trying to make it through the holidays so the emergency room was like dead empty there was maybe like one or two other people but i was walking into an empty emergency room and i'm the only kid i do remember getting brought to a room first and then asking me to recount what i did and first off feeling so embarrassed like there's no amount of stupidity of your actions now occurring to you as you say it out loud yes yes why did i think i was going to be able to jump over a floor and i was like oh my god i'm so embarrassed i'm so embarrassed i'm so embarrassed that i was holding i don't really know but i'm explaining this and she's asking me questions about it but she's also kind of asking questions like are you safe are you okay oh right yeah of course this sounds like an insane story someone told you to say luckily there were witnesses and that was fine they get me into my room pretty quick but the second issue is that the doctor that can operate on children he's gone home he's like it's late at night it's the holidays they were probably like yeah we're not going to be able to go to the hospital and they're like not going to see any action go home so now i have to wait for the doctor to get there and i don't remember much in that time but i do remember watching disney channel and hearing those commercials like and you're watching disney channel 100 so i remember that and i remember my mom pulling the doctor into the hallway and asking like really upset i know she's only 10 but will she ever be able to have children so it is the vagina catastrophizing he tells her she's but basically she gave herself an epistiotomy oh it's a nice tear between the vagina and the butthole to get a baby out you know you're having a hard time and i'm i'm 10 and i gave myself one of those so wait because you had to get stitches because it just didn't go in it caught the edge presumably yeah and then kept going i am impressed that you even got that high on the jump okay yeah there is some things to feel proud of yeah like that's pretty high to have to jump to even clip it well kind of not though also monica because you could just run and not even come off the ground holding it yeah but if she's trying to position it so she clears herself i mean she also wouldn't even need to jump no imagine like you're holding and then you're jumping from holding there's a lot going on i'm impressed but she is holding it to her bottom so that she's probably let it right there yeah i think your instinct i got to clear this with my bottom so i'm going to position it right at my bottom and then i'm going to fall onto it i think you did a great job i think you should have been an olympian i was a high jumper and another life maybe but not this one and the benefit was that since i was the only kid there i remember getting so much like attention in the emergency room like got a little stuffed animal teddy bear and a little reindeer and some candy so i was in pain but feeling pretty pampered yeah well my mom is like really stressed out and the teddy bear definitely was covered and what's that super bug uh uh oh mursa mursa yeah that's right slathered in mursa big absorbent teddy bear that's getting passed around all the children did you receive stitches i did i underwent a surgery in the middle of the night that was pretty in and out like an hour of stitches all the way up and then they dissolved do you know how many they gave you i do think it was around a dozen how was peeing after that bad yeah and so was just like being in any position of other than laying down well i also think when it's time to go duty you're in trouble because all of it yeah oh the pressure oh no oh goodness this is horrible kids do the darndest thing wait boys these boys yeah wait hold on they want to play pool and they're not listening to the girls saying they don't want to play pool i don't know if we can credit the boys in this one hey i'd never been to the emergency room after playing barbies so that's right that's right although we had did have that guy who got the barbie stuck up his butt yes i do remember that i can't go that can also go wrong yeah oh that's awful that's really terrible and were you then forbade from babysitting or did they let you go right back at it i think my parents waited a good year before they hosted another dinner party they were like let other people be the host not here yeah that's fair and then the boys now did you go to school with them i assume yep and did they tell everyone i don't know luckily no their mom and my mom were really good friends so i think my mom probably was like sarah's so embarrassed she feels so bad and their mom probably said if you say anything she was also a pretty stern southern lady oh good for her back to the lizzo episode this could become an urban legend no one would be just satisfied with the real story they'd have to augment it to make it i did after the fact have a lot of nightmares that i would fall off of cliffs into a like pit of pool cues oh that's so sad yeah i would imagine you had a little vaginal ptsd i'd almost be afraid for anyone to ever touch it yeah like have you had children not yet but i did have to see a pelvic floor therapist for that exact reason okay yeah that's wise should i see one if you want and i think you do want it was a painful story but it was also very adorable yeah we're glad you survived i'm glad i survived too i always tell the story my friends all know it so it's a classic it's a classic classic sarah but my husband does want to say yes of course we'd love to meet him he showed me your podcast and we've gotten in arguments about when he watches this show without me on car rides oh that's nice hey guys hello how are you wow how are you doing so good i didn't realize you guys are in the seats for the anonymous too yeah like where you guys are for the regular interviews we're in our special seats yeah where the guest normally sits we pop a camera and a monitor and when i say we i mean rob does and how are you liking your massachusetts life it's a great life i'm from northern california i've been out here for a while now though so i'm a little bit more used to the cold kind of feel like my hands get like purple every winter sure swell up a little bit part of the lifestyle out here and do you work at the university as well i don't i'm an it recruiter but she's a saint like she does incredible work with the universities so we all know the term it tech and we were watching silo with the family the other day and the girls asked like what it stands for what is it and i'm like well it's the people that fix the computers and shit at work and then i'm like what does it stand for and my guess and hopefully you'll know is i was like is it something to do with telephones because it's that old of an occupation like is it instruments and telephones what is it for technology information technology information technology yeah great that one's gonna make me sound great yeah really good do you watch the mission impossibles absolutely classics right and you know they work for the imf but do you know what that stands for something cool impossible mission force that's made up right well yeah there's no such thing as the imf that's yeah but the whole movie are all eight of them you keep hearing imf and i'm like what does imf actually stands for and it's so on the nose impossible mission force well yeah they made that up in like the 90s you know it's a different time then they were just throwing acronyms out there sure just see what would stick just put tom cruise in front of it yeah it's fine no one will ask questions now we think sarah's among the cutest human beings we've ever met in our lives and do you feel that way do you feel like wow i really got a unicorn are you kidding me of course absolutely and she's smart as hell too oh you got it all like she's working on getting her uh doctorate in education right now sarah what a champ she's a beast you know the second you saw her oh yeah we met on good old hinge nice oh lovely i love to hear those good success story on hinge i heard a lot of them actually oh you guys are cute yeah we like you guys thank you all right well so nice meeting you pleasure meeting you guys i'm a og fan oh thank you appreciate it nice well stay super cute you guys oh well thank you all right you too okay take care bye oh god i love them that used to be something you'd write in like your books like stay cute or we would do the number two too cute plus to be forgotten or too sweet to be forgotten yeah there was always yeah stay sweet thank you good night sweet pea oh no one wrote that okay all right well that was that was wonderful love you do you want to sing a tune or something or a theme song oh okay great we don't have a song for this new show so here i go go go we're gonna ask some random questions and with the help of our cherries we'll get some suggestions on the flyer rindish on the flyer rindish enjoy