Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Episode: Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation II
Date: September 12, 2025

Episode Overview

This installment of Armchair Anonymous explores “unauthorized evacuations,” a playfully euphemistic and comedic framing for stories of public incontinence and messy gastrointestinal accidents. Hosts Dax Shepard and Monica Padman, joined by recurring contributors, create a judgment-free space where listeners call in to share their most mortifying tales of unexpected bodily betrayal. As always, Dax and Monica use humor and empathy to highlight the universal messiness of being human, with each caller’s story offering both catharsis and comic relief.

The stories this round are particularly vivid and memorable, featuring accidental public defecation in the military, on a school bus, during a bartending shift, and even in the middle of a romantic date. Far from mere toilet humor, the anecdotes touch on vulnerability, resilience, and the ultimate power of embracing humiliation.

Key Discussion Points and Caller Stories

1. Setting the Tone: Why “Unauthorized Evacuations”?

• Dax and Monica reflect on why these prompts are audience favorites—people “deliver” the goods, quite literally, and the stories never fail to elicit both laughter and empathy.
• Monica: “They're so fun. They deliver.” (00:47)
• Dax jokes about “Meet Cute” stories, and how these unauthorized evacuation tales are, in their own messy way, a kind of humanizing “meet mortified.”

2. Doug’s Military Mishap (St. George, Utah)

Segment Start: 03:27

Story Highlights

• Doug, then stationed at Camp Johnson in Jacksonville, North Carolina, recounts a 2018 military misery: after a night devouring an “all-meat pizza” with his buddies, he wakes just in time for his early morning 7+ mile run.
• Suffering severe stomach distress, he’s denied a bathroom break mid-run. “There’s barracks around us and like office buildings, but nothing’s open. ...You’re just gonna have to hold it.” – Doug, quoting his sergeant (06:06)
• Halfway through the run, disaster strikes: “It was like a Jackson Pollock painting in brown.” – Doug (07:15)
• Humiliated, Doug tries to clean up using leaves—only later realizing it was poison oak: “It was burning... what did I wipe my ass with? ...It ended up being poison oak.” (11:38)
• The pain and embarrassment last two weeks, compounded by ongoing required morning runs.

Notable Quotes

• “I have the shirt long enough down where it covers my junk, but I’m just in my white sneakers that are now a white shade of brown... worried about everything because a base higher up could see you.” – Doug (09:05)
• Dax: “They have all these really intense tests of durability and resilience. They should add this to SEAL training.” (12:26)
• Doug: “Moral of the story is, if you order a big pizza, don't eat it and try to run the next morning.” (12:45)

3. Mickey’s School Bus Blowout (South Texas)

Segment Start: 14:32

Story Highlights

• In junior high, on a late-night team bus ride after a basketball game and Texas fast food (Dairy Queen, Whataburger), Mickey is struck by sudden gastrointestinal distress.
• Sitting in the coveted lone back seat, she’s soon overwhelmed and can’t hold it: “It just came over me, like, literally exploded. ...It was so bad, it filled up my jeans, went up and out the back.” (18:33)
• The “tidal wave of smell” ripples up the bus—students pile to the front, and it’s clear Mickey’s the source.
• Bus driver stops at a small Walmart. Mickey is handed a too-big random uniform, told to clean up. Other girls enter the bathroom; humiliation is total.
• Her mother, informed by the bus driver, gives her “two days off” for “emotional recovery.” After return, only one peer asks about it directly, comically blunt: “Did you shit your pants on the school bus?” — “Yeah. ...I couldn’t help it.” (27:06)

Notable Quotes

• “At this point, I knew I was gonna have to make peace with my mess.” – Mickey (23:14)
• “To this day, I have never seen that much diarrhea.” – Mickey (18:58)
• “If I can survive that, I can survive anything.” – Mickey (27:53)
• Dax: “This is about as bad as it could get. ...a seventh grade school bus is really gotta be up there.” (29:31)

4. Tony’s Elevator Emergency (Omaha, Nebraska)

Segment Start: 31:03

Story Highlights

• Tony, a bartender moonlighting to escape his “boring day job,” works a busy shift at Blue Sushi. He lives across the street.
• Suddenly hit by disastrous GI distress, he sharts behind the bar, weighs his options, and sprints to his apartment, where he’s foiled by “the slowest, rickettiest, most unpredictable elevator.” (32:39)
• While riding the elevator—“before I could get to my floor, the fifth floor is like turning on a garden hose... ran down my leg and gets in my shoe, and then ...a perfectly round puddle on the floor of the elevator.” (36:49)
• By the time he cleans himself up and returns to the elevator, the mess is already gone—cleaned by Jason, the building manager, who later posts a sign: “Whoever shat in this elevator is out of here!!!” (39:07)
• Tony quietly harbors the secret for four years until his confession on Armchair.

Notable Quotes

• Dax: “You’ve got a chicken, a fox, and a bag of grain, and you gotta cross the river and go back...” (37:48)
• Tony: “I like to think I’m not just going to shit in my own elevator and then, like, not clean it up... but I have to finish shitting.” (37:55)
• Dax: “I lived in the building for four more years after that. Just, like, harboring this secret.” (39:29)

5. Nicole’s Date Night Disaster (Vancouver, Canada)

Segment Start: 42:24

Story Highlights

• Nicole, hosting a budding love interest (Sam) for a movie night in her bedroom, is anxious but eager for some intimacy. She’s wearing light sweats and nervous enough to barely manage a beer.
• Suddenly notices her leg is wet: assumes it’s spilled beer, but—“I try to do, like, a sniff test... and immediately am hit with ache [smell].”(45:59)
• Realizes with horror that she’s unknowingly defecated herself without any sensation—stunned, she retreats to the bathroom.
• The situation rapidly escalates: “I just unleash. And then I start vomiting all over myself, all over the floor.” (48:03)
• Sam, hearing the commotion, checks on her; ultimately, he leaves a bag with towels, sweatpants, and “a ten pack of granny panties.”
• The relationship does not survive, but a subsequent partner (now husband) is far more understanding when faced with another “couch incident.”

Notable Quotes

• “It’s like I glitter bombed the entire bathroom. ...The checker print has just given me the spins.” – Nicole (48:52)
• “I felt nothing. I don’t feel sick. I feel totally fine.” – Nicole (45:46)
• Monica: “Are you married to him now?” – On Sam’s care package (50:44)
• Nicole: “I … trusted a fart. I the couch.” (51:10)

Notable Insights & Reflections

• Vulnerability and Growth: Callers repeatedly reference how surviving such shattering embarrassment made them stronger, and less easily shamed.
• Empathy and Shared Humanity: Both hosts and callers remind listeners that “bodies are bodies,” echoing Monica’s refrain that these stories, while gross, are “so human.”
• Resilience through Humor: Each caller’s ability to share these stories openly is celebrated. Dax repeatedly highlights that these are universal experiences.
• Relationships and Support: The care shown by Sam, and later Nicole’s husband, is noted—showing that real intimacy can survive, even thrive, in the face of the totally unglamorous.

Memorable Quotes

• “At some point, your brain and your body can attack you. ...Our biggest enemy really is ourselves. It always is.” — Dax (41:13)
• “If I can survive that, I can survive anything.” — Mickey (27:53)

Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment / Quote | |--------------|----------------------------------------------| | 03:27 | Doug’s Marine run story begins | | 07:15 | “Jackson Pollock painting in brown” | | 11:38 | “It ended up being poison oak.” | | 14:32 | Mickey’s bus ride story begins | | 18:33 | “It just came over me, like, literally exploded.” | | 23:14 | “I knew I was gonna have to make peace with my mess.” | | 27:53 | “If I can survive that, I can survive anything.” | | 31:03 | Tony’s elevator story begins | | 36:49 | “The fifth floor is like turning on a garden hose…” | | 39:07 | Jason’s sign in the elevator | | 42:24 | Nicole’s date night story begins | | 45:59 | “I try to do, like, a sniff test…” | | 48:03 | “I just unleash. And then I start vomiting…” | | 50:44 | Monica: “Are you married to him now?” | | 53:09 | Nicole: “I've never had that happen since.” |

Closing Thoughts

This episode stands out for its honesty and humor in the face of taboo. The blend of compassion and merriment from hosts Dax and Monica allows listeners to find laughter—and maybe some healing—in life’s most undignified moments.

“Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation II” is a reminder that, for all of us, the most embarrassing things we imagine are often the most universal, and survivable—sometimes even the stuff that connects us most.