Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card X

Summary

Podcast Summary: Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Episode: Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card X

Date: December 5, 2025
Host: Dax Shepard (with Monica Padman and guests)

---

Episode Overview

This Wild Card edition of "Armchair Anonymous" is packed with unpredictable, untamed storytelling from audience callers. Dax Shepard, Monica Padman, and rotating co-hosts collect wild, sometimes hair-raising, always entertaining anecdotes—featuring near-death experiences, neighborhood scandals, legendary birthday parties, and even the horror of botfly maggots—all told with classic Armchair warmth and insight. As always, the hosts find humanity, humor, and some truly memorable lessons in the messiness of being human.

---

Key Discussion Points and Stories

---

1. Lydia’s Sailing Near-Death Experience

(Starts ~04:44)

Story Summary

• Lydia recalls a childhood summer at her grandparents’ Cape Cod lake house and her harrowing moment at sailing camp at age nine.
• On "Pirate Day", the campers practiced capsizing their boat intentionally, but on the final rehearsal, Lydia became entangled in a loose rope, which tightened around her neck as the boat flipped.
• Unable to free herself and with counselors too far away, Lydia was nearly pulled under and nearly choked before being rescued at the last second.
• Lydia suffered rope burns and trauma, but showed her resilience by wanting to return to camp the very next day.

Notable Quotes and Moments

• “We were left to our own devices... I was excited for the freedom. I was nine. I hadn’t experienced much of that before." – Lydia (05:57)
• “Never last one. If someone says, ‘last trip down the hill’ ... It’s a jinx.” – Dax Shepard (07:11)
• “She starts just screaming, ‘Don’t die! Are you gonna die? Lydia, don’t die.’ That made me get way more scared than I ever was.” – Lydia (11:29)
• “Have you stuck with sailing? Are you still a sailor?”
  Lydia: “I have never sailed since.” (14:55)

Takeaways

• Even in supervised settings, lack of protocol can lead to catastrophic events.
• Children’s resilience and desire for adventure can persist, even after trauma.

---

2. Stacy’s “Desperate Housewives” Neighborhood Affair

(Starts ~22:18)

Story Summary

• Stacy narrates the unraveling of her marriage after receiving a cryptic email from a neighbor’s husband, revealing her own husband’s affair with the neighbor.
• Jenny, the mistress, became close friends with Stacy after the affair ended—babysitting her son and integrating herself into the family.
• Stacy confronts Jenny and learns Jenny sought out the friendship to justify the affair ("I wanted confirmation that you were a really terrible person so that I wouldn't feel badly about what I did. But it turns out I'm not a terrible person" – Jenny at 30:08).
• Stacy’s marriage dissolves just before the birth of her daughter, but she later reflects that her children were both meant to be, and she builds a cordial relationship with her ex’s new wife.
• Years later, the affair’s other instigator marries another neighbor—giving serious “Desperate Housewives” vibes to their suburban saga.

Notable Quotes and Moments

• “So it’s basically like from a movie, where everything goes in reverse.” – Stacy (27:03)
• “She said, ‘I wanted confirmation that you were a really terrible person... but it turns out I’m not a terrible person.’” (30:08)
• “Great things can come out of not great things.” – Dax Shepard (33:09)

Takeaways

• Betrayal can create surreal, movie-like realities in everyday life.
• Tragedy often leads to unexpected blessings.
• “Sexy subdivision”: The interconnectedness and drama in close-knit neighborhoods can rival television.

---

3. Sophie’s Legendary Pranked Sleepover

(Starts ~36:21)

Story Summary

• Sophie tells how her creative ‘super-sitter’ Allison engineered an unforgettable 12th birthday sleepover in Athens, Georgia.
• Allison, who acted more like a co-conspirator than a chaperone, set a “no rules” tone, organized wild performances for pizza delivery guys (with escalating chaos), and staged disasters — tornado and fire drills, dry-ice fog spilling into the yard, and a talent show in pitch darkness.
• The peak: staged fights between pizza guys, police “arriving”, and a fake missed-prisoner alert call.
• The next morning, Sophie learns it was an elaborate prank—Allison recruited actors, friends, and neighbors for maximum mayhem. The capstone: each girl received a letter explaining the prank.
• In a classic Armchair twist, it turns out host Monica knew Allison from college and study abroad, connecting their worlds.

Notable Quotes and Moments

• “There’s one rule. It’s that there are no rules.” – Allison, via Sophie (38:19)
• “Who knew that Allison’s friends Eddie, Chris, and Brad were such good actors that they were able to come over dressed as pizza guys and pull the biggest prank on you... the person that called about the escaped prisoner was just another friend of Allison.” – Note from Allison (47:18)
• “Did you ever see the movie The Game? ... She should be planning real-life ‘The Games.’” – Dax Shepard (48:42)

Takeaways

• The power of imaginative adults to create formative childhood stories.
• Athens, Georgia is a small town—sometimes so is the world.

---

4. Andrew’s Eyeball Maggot Horror

(Starts ~52:49)

Story Summary

• Andrew, a geology grad, recounts a stomach-turning tale from fieldwork in Suriname: plagued by eye pain, he discovers he’s incubating botfly maggots in his eyelid.
• The camp’s initial plan is to “wait it out” until the larvae are large enough to remove (!!!), but local wisdom offers a solution: kill them by suffocation with a concoction of tobacco and Vaseline.
• After a failed hospital attempt and his own failed extraction, Andrew finally eradicates the unwelcome passengers when one erupts from his eyelid with puddles of pus—much to his coworkers’ horror.
• Andrew remains unfazed, joking about his “2015 vision” and attempts to bring maggots home as a souvenir for friends.

Notable Quotes and Moments

• “There’s something alive in your eye.” – Fiji (55:34)
• “We’d have field crews go down with dengue fever or leishmaniasis—which is a fancy way of saying flesh-eating disease.” – Andrew (53:44)
• “I made the poor decision of posting that to Facebook... my mom’s first response was just, ‘WHAT?!!!!’” (58:31)
• “I wanted to bring them home, bring back to America larva.” – Andrew (61:28)

Takeaways

• Fieldwork in the Amazon is not for the faint-hearted (or squeamish).
• Sometimes the wildest survival stories become the best party anecdotes.

---

Additional Memorable Moments

• Hosts on Wild Card:
  “Wild Card. And mostly Wild Card just because they often include one of those aforementioned prompts. Does this one have any duty? No, I don’t think we have any dudes. Oh, then don’t listen. But this one has maggots. Oh, yeah, maggots are always good.” – Dax & Monica (00:52)
• On Sailing Camp Safety:
  “I’m glad that the counselor had a knife... I hope they start adding those into the boats at this point.” – Dax & Monica (15:07)
• Athens Connection:
  “Did you ever see the movie The Game? ...She should be planning real life The Games.” – Dax Shepard (48:42)
• Botfly Story Reactions:
  “I hate everything you’re saying.” – Monica Padman (54:21)
  “I’ll choose death.” – Monica Padman (61:02)

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Lydia’s Sailing Story: 04:44 – 15:25
• Stacy’s Neighborhood Affair: 22:18 – 34:38
• Sophie’s Epic Sleepover: 36:21 – 51:21
• Andrew’s Botfly Ordeal: 52:49 – 61:41

---

Tone and Highlights

• The tone throughout is warm, witty, and delightfully irreverent, with Dax and Monica offering equal measures of empathy and comedic perspective.
• The episode underscores the uncanny way real-life wild cards—harrowing, embarrassing, or downright terrifying—often become the stories that bind people together and, sometimes, change lives.

---

Final Thoughts

If you love unscripted human drama, unexpected connections, and the kind of tales that make you gasp, cringe, and laugh out loud, this Wild Card episode delivers.
Hosts’ Parting Words:
“Love you, and good luck out there. Life is messy, but damn if it isn’t fascinating.” – Dax Shepard (62:04)

---

This summary captures the episode’s most compelling moments and colorful stories, serves up the spirit of each caller, and preserves the authentic Armchair Expert energy for listeners and non-listeners alike.

Transcript

[Dax Shepard]

Wondry plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now. Join Wondry plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. Our favorite prompt, Wild Card.

[Monica Padman]

We say our favorite prompt pretty much every time, but we do really like Wildcard. It's not our favorite.

[Dax Shepard]

Say it about three.

[Monica Padman]

I know, but we have to be.

[Dax Shepard]

I have three favorite prompts. Okay. What are they?

[Monica Padman]

Go Masturbation.

[Dax Shepard]

I mean, clean it up. What was just masturbation story.

[Andrew]

I know we do that.

[Monica Padman]

This is basically so.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Then I was like, ew.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, put more lotion. Kids show.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, that's right. It is a kid.

[Monica Padman]

Unexpected orgasm.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Shit yourself.

[Dax Shepard]

Unauthorized evacuation. And Wild Card.

[Monica Padman]

And Wild Card.

[Dax Shepard]

And mostly wild Card. Just because they often include one of those aforementioned prompts. This one have any duty? No, I don't think we have any dudes.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, then don't listen.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, don't listen. But this one has maggots. Oh, yeah, maggots are always good. Oh, okay. Please enjoy Wildcard. We are supported by ServiceNow. You know what I love? Not having to do boring, repetitive stuff. I want to focus on the interesting conversations, the creative work, the things that really matter to me. And apparently, that's exactly what ServiceNow does for entire organizations. AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into. Here's the thing. ServiceNow has basically become the operating system of AI. Instead of Frankensteining together different tools, ServiceNow unifies people, data, workflows, and AI connecting every corner of your business. That's why it's no surprise that more than 85% of the Fortune 500 use the ServiceNow AI platform. We're talking HR, customer service, every department you can think of. And here's what's cool. They got Idris Elba as their brand ambassador. I mean, come on, if you're gonna have someone represent your company, might as well be the guy who's basically the CEO. Everyone wants to be, right? With AI agents working together autonomously, anyone in any department can focus on the work that matters Most. Learn how ServiceNow puts AI to work for people. At ServiceNow.com we are supported by Audible. You know, I spend a lot of time listening. It's literally my job. But when I'm not recording the show, I'm constantly consuming audio content. And honestly, I can get pretty overwhel overwhelmed by all the choices out there. That's why I love when Audible drops their best of the year collection. Audible's most anticipated collection, the best of 2025, is here. And let me tell you, these editors know what they're doing. They've spent countless hours listening, having heated debates, probably way more heated than Monica and I get, although that's hard to imagine. And they have handpicked this year's must listens. What I really appreciate is that they don't just go for the obvious picks. They found hidden gems alongside the buzziest new releases. Whether you're into true crime like Monica, historical bio biographies like me, or something completely different, this collection has your back. I've already started diving into their selection, and honestly, it's like having a really smart friend curate your entire listening experience. Want to finish the year with a sure thing? Check out Audible's Best of 2025 and discover why there's more to imagine when you listen. Listen now. Go to audible.com bestoftheyear.

Oh, times come and go?

Good times take em sl.

[Stacy]

My life I had them both.

You gotta know I'm gonna keep on shining.

[Lydia]

Hello.

[Monica Padman]

Hello, Lydia.

[Dax Shepard]

How are you doing today?

[Lydia]

I'm doing great. How are you guys?

[Dax Shepard]

Good. Where are you?

[Lydia]

I'm in Portland, Maine.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. Continuing our Northeast tour. These things are really suspicious.

[Stacy]

Eerie.

[Dax Shepard]

It's been a day of the Northeast.

[Lydia]

Have you had anyone in Maine?

[Dax Shepard]

No, not Maine, but we just got off with a New Hampshire and I.

[Monica Padman]

Dying to go to Maine.

[Lydia]

It kind of popped off on social media this summer, like everyone's in Maine.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, yeah. I think it's so beautiful.

[Dax Shepard]

I think it's the next Hudson Valley. It's that vibe.

[Monica Padman]

I want to go to both places.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, great. Lydia, can Moni stay at your spot while she visits?

[Lydia]

Oh, my God, of course. I'll give you all the wrecks. There's so many good restaurants and places to go.

[Monica Padman]

Amazing.

[Dax Shepard]

And do you serve wine in the home?

[Lydia]

Oh, yes. There are so many cute wine bars. You will be taken care of.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, sign her up. Okay, Lydia, you have a wild card story, which means we know nothing about anything.

[Lydia]

This story actually happens in New England. It's not Maine, but actually Cape Cod. Growing up, my family and I would go to Cape Cod to visit my grandparents. They lived on a lake, grew up going there. It's really gorgeous. So this story is in 2010. I'm about nine at the time, so. So on the lake, there's a lot of different guided tours you can go on. So you can go kayaking, paddle boarding, and we had tried basically all of them up until that point, except for learning how to sail.

[Sophie]

A boat.

[Stacy]

Oh, boy.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Lydia]

There was a kid sailing camp that I really wanted to go on. I'd grown up watching all the kids learn how to sail on the lake. So as soon as I was old enough, I asked my parents for an early birthday present and they signed me up. So my sister and I ready to go at nine, which seems way too young to be put on a sailboat.

[Dax Shepard]

How old's the sister? Older or younger?

[Lydia]

She's two and a years older than me, so she was like 11 at the time.

[Dax Shepard]

Neither of you equipped for a sea voyage, but let's go.

[Lydia]

We start the camp. It's a week long day camp and the winds are only high in the afternoon, so it was after lunch to dinner time. That's when we were out in the water. So the first half of camp, the counselor was in the boat with us. It was like a small 10 to 15 foot sailboat. Nothing crazy.

[Dax Shepard]

Did they call it a sunfish?

[Lydia]

There were sunfishes. This was like a little bit bigger than that.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Lydia]

So about 6 of us kids could fit in one comfortably. The ages ranged anywhere from, I think I was the youngest at 9 to 13 maybe. And the whole camp was run by a bunch of 16 year olds. So really starting off, not great. We started the week, had the counselor on the boat, learned the ropes, learned how to do everything, felt pretty comfortable. And then the second half of the week, all of the counselors left and they were in a skiff puttering around following us. So we were left to our own devices. And I was excited for the freedom. I was nine. I hadn't experienced much of that before. The last day of camp was what they called pirate day. Sounds exactly like what it was. We were able to go around to the other boats on the lake and try to capsize their boat and like take them over.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, fun.

[Lydia]

Really jazzed. I was a really competitive kid, and our group had gotten pretty close during that week that we were at camp. And by Thursday we decided we needed to practice. The way that we thought it was best to practice was to intentionally capsize. So, like flip over our own boat. Practice getting it back up.

[Dax Shepard]

Little dress rehearsal for the big war.

[Lydia]

Exactly. So we spent the entire time flipping over the boat. We had been doing it all afternoon. It went really smoothly mostly. And then the last 20 minutes of camp, we decided to do one more before we were called back in.

[Dax Shepard]

Here's my public service announcement. Never last one. If someone says, all right, last trip down the hill when you're snowboarding, call it last session. On the track.

[Monica Padman]

Call it last stunt.

[Dax Shepard]

We already nailed it.

[Monica Padman]

We don't need to do it again.

[Dax Shepard]

It's a jinx.

[Lydia]

We should definitely have called it about 20 minutes prior to this moment. We were all tired, we were all cranky. We had decided to do it one more time. And the way that you capsize a smaller sailboat is you pull in all the lines so there's no loops of rope hanging in the water and you all shove to one side. So we wait for the boat to kind of catch and start flipping on its own. Think of the boat at this point kind of horizontal in the water. The sails like lying flat on the top.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lydia]

At this point, typically we would push off and swim away and let it do its thing. But I had seen a lot of the older girls doing like this thing where they'd climb over the top and end on the bottom of the boat so they were completely dry. This was condoned by the counselors. This is not what they taught us to do. But I thought they were really cool, so I really wanted to do it.

[Dax Shepard]

I thought you were going to say that the trick was going to be to like hold onto the mast at the last minute and get flung back up with the boat.

[Lydia]

That would be insane. We were told very sternly not to touch the mast. So we all steered pretty clear of the sail on the mast. Those were the fancy parts of the boats and we didn't want to break them. All the rest of the girls, including my sister, so four of them swim away and I'm kind of just hanging on like you would to like a monkey bar with my hands on the top edge of the boat with the other girl that decided to stay with me.

[Dax Shepard]

And is your abdomen laying on the bottom side of the boat or on the top side of the boat?

[Lydia]

We're on the hollow end. So like where we would sit, I was kind of dangling with my feet in the water, but everything else was above the water. I was gonna follow this girl's lead. And as soon as she started climbing over, I started climbing over. I realized pretty quickly this was a lot harder than it looked like. And I did not have the upper body strength at 9 years old to do this. I decided to bail. I'm like, I'm going to cut my losses. I'll try it again tomorrow. Pretty rational for a nine year old. I was a little bit embarrassed. I let go. But I hadn't realized that at this moment, the girl that was in charge of the main sale line had not brought in the line all the way. So there was kind of a mess of ropes underneath me.

[Dax Shepard]

Uh oh, are you going to leave? Monica just made such an abrupt movement that it looked like she might depart.

[Lydia]

So I let go and I fall into this loop of rope. And I didn't realize this at the time because it was pretty slack. It wasn't fully capsized yet. It was just laying in the water. And it was kind of up above on my, like, upper body, so my life jacket was not letting it touch my skin, so I couldn't feel it. So I start trying to swim away, and I realize I'm not getting very far. And as I kind of lean forward to start swimming, the rope slips up and now is stuck around my neck.

[Stacy]

Oh.

[Lydia]

It wasn't super tight at this moment, so I was like, oh, I can just probably take it up over my head like you would a sweatshirt or shirt. I would be fine. But what I didn't realize is the last little bit of it fully turning like a 180. The boat goes pretty quickly. So as soon as I realized where it was on my body, I couldn't get it over my head. So I was kind of stuck. I need help. So I look at my sister, who's not paying attention at the time, and I like, call over to her. I'm like, help. I can still talk at this point, I'm all fine. And she realizes we might need the counselors. Let's call them over. So all the girls kind of motion for them to come over in their little boat. They're about 200 yards away. And this boat motor is really old and really small, so they don't move very fast at this point. Instead of staying in one place, I'm being dragged back by my neck towards the side of the boat. And I'm panicked a little bit, but I'm kind of in shock. I don't know what's going on. And pretty soon the back of my head is kind of flush with the. The side of the boat that's almost fully a 180. And the rope starts tightening and tightening and is not getting looser.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God.

[Lydia]

So I had my fingers, like, in between the rope, but at a certain point, it got so tight that they kind of popped out. And I couldn't breathe at this point.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, Jesus.

[Lydia]

And the water is maybe up to my chin, and I'm not fully panicked at this point. I'm just kind of like, keep your head above water. Keep breathing as much as you can. My sister, though, is fully in hysterics.

[Sophie]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

So helpful, isn't it?

[Monica Padman]

But also, how could she not?

[Lydia]

I don't blame her. And I talked to her before this, and she was like, you looked like you were dying.

[Sophie]

Yes.

[Monica Padman]

I mean, you kind of were.

[Lydia]

I was, like, getting there.

[Dax Shepard]

You were on the road to death for sure.

[Lydia]

Instead of saying, it's okay, we called for help. It's gonna be okay. She starts just screaming, don't die. Are you gonna die? Lydia, don't die.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, now round the questioning, do not die.

[Lydia]

That made me get way more scared than I ever was. I didn't realize at 9 years old, I could die. The boat is still about 100 yards away with all the counselors in it, and my sister's fully freaking out. The other girls are like, what the hell is going on?

[Dax Shepard]

And no one's attempting to loosen the tension on this rope?

[Lydia]

No. They're all kind of just staring in shock. But at this point, the rope starts dragging me underneath the water rather than just keeping me above. So it was trying to bring me down to where the mast was, which was about 10 to 20ft under the water, which is how tall it was. And at this point, only my nose and my eyes were above the water. And I was starting to swallow a lot of water. I was trying to cough it up. I didn't have enough air to cough it up. I start fully panicking. I'm kind of gasping in a lot of air. And I can hear now that my ears are under the water, like, the vibration of the boat coming towards me. So I know that help is on the way. I am turning blue at this point. My sister told me, and I was almost fully submerged when the boat with the counselors pulls up, and the lead counselor jumps in the water to try to cut the ropes underneath the bow.

[Dax Shepard]

Good. So someone has a knife.

[Lydia]

Very small pocket knife. These ropes were kind of thick and big. It was taking a while. I am now kind of starting to pass out a little bit. My vision's going. I'm getting kind of drowsy. I knew I would probably be okay, but in the back of my head, I just heard my sister's voice just screaming over and over again, like, don't die. And like, are you gonna die?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Lydia]

So not helpful. But after what felt like another six hours, I felt the rope, like, slightly loosen around my neck. I start coughing up all the wal water. I get hoisted into the boat by all the counselors, and I get brought back to the dock with my sister. Since we lived on the lake, they knew where we were at. And my parents had heard all the commotion and come down to see if we're having a good time. They thought all the screaming was just kids having fun. My sister and myself are dropped off completely hysterical. I was crying at this point, coughing up a lot of water, and I had this massive rope burn from underneath one side of my ear all the way across to the other. And it was bruised. My whole body kind of hurt because I was just, like, straining against the water and, like, the rope. They tell my parents what happened. My parents were just so thankful that they could get there in time and I was fine and everything was okay. My parents thought I would be afraid of the water for the rest of my life. I wasn't. I asked to go back to camp the next day after I had calmed down.

[Dax Shepard]

You wanted to participate in Pirate Day?

[Lydia]

Yeah. I was so excited. It was like the big day. And they were like, okay, we'll walk with you and see how this goes. So they walk me over. The counselors was like, we don't want the risk on the water. You can come in our boat. We don't want you in a sailboat. And I was like, so fair. I totally get it. And come to find out they thought my parents were going to sue them. So that's why they were, like, so nice to me and my sister after that. They didn't know my parents weren't very litigious.

[Dax Shepard]

Was best that they didn't know they.

[Lydia]

Were not going to sue them. They realized it was just me being dumb and I was okay and everything worked out. But, yeah, that's the story about how I almost died.

[Dax Shepard]

Wow.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

I hate those stories. Everyone's having fun, and then we're not having fun.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Scary.

[Monica Padman]

I'm glad you made it.

[Dax Shepard]

Have you stuck with sailing? Are you still a sailor?

[Lydia]

I have never sailed since.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

I find it scary, that whole, like, getting out on a boat for days. That's where you'll find my confidence and fearlessness ends.

[Stacy]

That's good.

[Monica Padman]

I'm glad it has an end.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, Lydia, I'm glad you made it. I'm glad that the counselor had a knife.

[Monica Padman]

Yes, me too.

[Dax Shepard]

Telling all them going forward.

[Monica Padman]

Hope they start adding those into the boats at this point.

[Dax Shepard]

Me too.

[Lydia]

I honestly haven't seen the camp since, so I think I might have been the last year that this.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, wow.

[Lydia]

Was put on. I think I might have scarred them all a little too much.

[Monica Padman]

Thank you for sharing.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. It's lovely to meet you.

[Sophie]

Yeah.

[Lydia]

Thanks, guys.

[Dax Shepard]

Take care.

[Mel Robbins]

Bye.

[Stacy]

Hello.

[Dax Shepard]

Hello. Hi. What fake name are we gonna go with?

[Stacy]

We are gonna go with Stacy. A shout out to my best friend, who I'm hoping will become a devoted listener once she hears this.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, we love this tactic.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, it's a good T tactic. It's flattery and light manipulation, but we like it for sure.

[Stacy]

I'm surprised she doesn't already. I talk about it all the time.

[Dax Shepard]

So you have kind of a Tina Fey vibe. Have you heard that before?

[Stacy]

I have not, but I will take that because one of my co workers loves Tina Fey.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, she's the queen on earth.

[Andrew]

She is.

[Stacy]

I love her. I actually did want to say to Monica in particular that I am a pt.

[Monica Padman]

So we're already friends.

[Stacy]

Yeah, exactly. I work exclusively with kids, and I have a special interest in concussion.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow. God, you guys should really go out for drinks.

[Monica Padman]

CTE plus pt. So many letters.

[Stacy]

I thought I have to share this because the number of times I hear you mention CTE on the podcast, I'm like, oh, this is right in my wheelhouse. I love talking about concussion.

[Dax Shepard]

What's the very most common way kids get concussions?

[Stacy]

It's typically sport related. I would say. In the last few years, 90% of the kids that I've worked with have had concussions from sports injuries. A lot of hockey, we see a lot of that wearing from.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, okay. You're in Canada.

[Stacy]

Yes. Oh.

[Dax Shepard]

As a Michigander, I know.

We are supported by quints. So I'm standing in my closet the other day, and I realize I'm reaching for the same three things over and over again, and they're all coming from quints. Which got me thinking, when did I become that guy who actually cares about where his clothes come from? I'll tell you when. When I discovered quints.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly. I was at a happy hour a couple days ago with a very cool woman named Margot.

[Stacy]

Very chic.

[Monica Padman]

And I was like, ooh, I love your pants. I love your sweater. And she said, quints.

[Dax Shepard]

Boom.

[Monica Padman]

And I was like, I should have.

[Dax Shepard]

Known, should have known. Turns out Quince cracked the code on something I didn't even know was broken. They partner directly with these ethical factories, cut out the middlemen. So you get the same Mongolian cashmere that cost 200 bucks elsewhere. 450. Same quality, none of the markup. Perfect timing, too, because holiday shopping is coming, and I actually have good answers for once. Not just clothes either. They've got home stuff, travel gear, all of it. Give and get. Timeless holiday staples that last this season with quince Go to quints.comdax for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.comdax free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.comdax this show is sponsored by BetterHelp. The holidays are all about traditions, right? Some we inherit, others we create ourselves. And honestly, I've been thinking about what new traditions might actually really serve us. Here's one I didn't see coming. Therapy as a holiday tradition. I know, I know. But hear me out. December can be intense. Family dynamics. Year end pressure. All the reflection on what went right or wrong. What if instead of just surviving the season, we used it to actually understand ourselves better? We have talked numerous times about how the holiday season can be a activating event. Yeah, you're with your family.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly. Family dynamics. Also pressure. Moms have pressure. Dads have pressure for these children presents. I have pressure for my gift guide.

[Dax Shepard]

Better Help makes it simple to start. They've got over 30,000 licensed therapists who follow a strict code of conduct and their matching system actually works. We're talking 4.9 out of 5 stars from over 1.7 million reviews. They've helped more than 5 million people globally figure things out this December. Start a new tradition by taking care of you. Armchairies get 10% [e-mail] Dax that's betterhelp.com Dax this podcast is brought to you by Squarespace, the all in one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online. When we were building the Armchair Expert website, Rob actually used Squarespace to get it up and running, which was a smart choice because they've got everything you need in one place to create something that actually looks professional. What really stands out is their blueprint AI feature. It's like like having a design assistant that helps you build a site that doesn't look like every other cookie cutter template out there. Answer a few questions about what you're trying to do and it creates something that actually fits your vision. If you're someone who offers services, whether that's coaching, consulting, creative work, whatever, Squarespace handles all the business stuff too. Payment processing, scheduling, client management. No more juggling five different platforms just to get paid for what you do. The whole thing is designed so you can focus on your actual work instead of wrestling with website tech, which, let's be hon, most of us would rather avoid. So head to squarespace.comdax for a free trial. And when you're Ready to Launch. Use code DAX to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. We are supported by Skims. You know what, Monica, I have to talk to you about these skims pajamas they sent us.

[Monica Padman]

Yes. I was literally just thinking about how much I love mine. I think I've worn them every night since we got them.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah, I barely was able to get out of mine to come in today. So I've always been that guy who just sleeps in whatever random T shirt. You know, old shorts. These skims jammies, first of all, they're in the pattern I love. They're in the checkered red and black.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

And then the fabric is just snuggling me all night long.

[Monica Padman]

It's such a good product. And also for the women's ones, the one I have is so cute. I like after my shower, my routine to get into a cute pair of pajamas. And I feel like my sleep is improved when I'm wearing cute pajamas. You eventize it.

[Stacy]

That's right.

[Dax Shepard]

And honestly, I feel more put together wearing matching pajamas instead of my usual mismatch situation.

[Monica Padman]

The timing couldn't be better either because it's holiday season and honestly, these would make incredible gifts. They have options for women, men, kids, and even pets. That's so cute. Who doesn't want to feel this comfortable?

[Dax Shepard]

Sleeping shop the best [e-mail] after you place your order, be sure to let them know we sent you. Select podcast in the survey and be sure to select our show in the dropdown menu that follows. And if you're looking for the perfect gifts for for everyone on your list, the skims holiday shop is now [e-mail].

Okay, so what is your wildcard story?

[Stacy]

My story occurs over the course of about 18 months from October 2009, when my son was 7 months old, to about March of 2011. The timeline's fairly important. Key players in including my husband. We'll call him Logan. Neighbors Jenny and her husband Johnny and their next door neighbors. We'll call them Candace and Neil.

[Dax Shepard]

Listen, Stacey, I am applauding you. It's very hard to remember fake names. I find this one wherever we're using someone's fake name, it's hard. So the fact that you have about seven to juggle is going to be impressive.

[Stacy]

Hopefully I can land it. Candace knows Logan because Logan's family owns a very well known restaurant in our city. Candace introduces Logan to Jenny because Jenny's running an event where she needs some prizes. So Logan generously has his family donate Some gift cards for this event that Jenny's running. Within a short period of time, Jenny happens to be walking in the neighborhood and sees us on our front porch, stops by, introduces herself to me. So now I know who Jenny is. I'm seven months postpartum. I'm not super comfortable in my postpartum body, but. But Jenny is ultimately very friendly, neighborly, but she's not terribly threatening. Fast forward a few months to about May of 2010 and I start seeing Jenny around the park. I'm now taking my over one year old son to the park. Jenny and I start hanging out. We spend a lot of time together. We text, we email, we confide in each other about our respective marriages and things that are going on in our lives. She's a primary school teacher with two kids of her own. It gets to the point where she generously offers to babysit my son so that Logan and I can go to Sunday baseball, which is a few hours every Sunday. This is great, right? I'm terrified. I'm a new mom. I don't like sending anyone in to look after my kid. This is costing me nothing. Jenny and I continue our friendship and then she kind of falls off the face of the earth. So around August 2010, I stopped hearing from her. I reach out a handful of times and and figure, okay, she's confided in me that she's struggling in her marriage, maybe she's focusing on her marriage and she doesn't really have time for this relatively new friendship. So I think nothing of it. In November 2010, I go to the fertility clinic for an embryo transfer. Both of my kids are the product of in vitro. Yay, science.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Stacy]

So I have my transfer a couple weeks later, get confirmation that I am in fact pregnant with my second child.

[Dax Shepard]

And you've got a 14 month old at this point or something.

[Stacy]

They're about two years and four months apart. He's like 19 months I guess get halfway through my pregnancy. So about 19 and a half weeks I go to jump on the elliptical because this time I'm going to be super fit for my pregnancy. But I take a detour and I check my email instead.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Stacy]

I open the email and I see this email from Johnny. Johnny's married to Jenny. Johnny and I have met, but we've never had a conversation. In fact, I thought he was a little bit creepy. So I actually assume that it's Jenny sending this email because I had sent her a couple emails over the last little while, hadn't heard back. Maybe she got rid of her email, and she's now using his. I start reading, and it's super cryptic. They're going on about the year from hell, knowing information and how it's had an impact on their life. And I'm reading and I'm not really getting it. I don't understand what's going on until I see one line. Your husband had an affair with my wife.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, okie doke.

[Stacy]

I must have read it like three or four times, thinking, wait, what? So you're saying that Logan and Jenny had an affair? Clearly, it's Johnny. I figured that out at this point, and I'm like, wait a minute. Johnny has just alluded to the fact that he has had this knowledge for a year. That means the affair ended. Or he found out in March of 2010.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, maybe he could have found out last week and he said, how long was that going on? And she said, a year.

[Stacy]

I didn't actually think of that, But I surmised that the affair would have happened around October 2009 till it effectively ended March 2010, when Johnny found out. But then I'm like, well, wait a minute. If it's March 2010 that Johnny finds out. Jenny became my friend in May of 2010 after the affair would have ended. She came into my house and babysat my son and looked us dead in the face. Me obviously not knowing, but my husband totally letting her come in and babysit our child.

[Dax Shepard]

You've got to almost recompute every interaction you've ever had with her.

[Stacy]

Absolutely. So it's basically like from a movie where everything is in reverse.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And you start playing through everything.

[Monica Padman]

Also, how would she have known him before you guys even met?

[Stacy]

The timeline comes in. So Logan and Jenny meet in 2009. In October, I meet Jenny at the same time. They have an affair that ends 2010. She becomes my friend two months after it ends.

[Dax Shepard]

Now we've got some clues that I can build a little theory on, which is the husband shut it down. But she wants another way back in. She wants to be around the husband. I don't know. That's where my head would go.

[Monica Padman]

This is strange.

[Stacy]

It really is. So the first call I make is to my. Incidentally, my parents just returned at that point from Savannah, Georgia.

My mom thinks someone has died. I'm on the phone, sobbing. I'm halfway through my second pregnancy, and I've just disclosed that my. My husband has had an affair. I hang up with my mom. My next call is to Logan. I gotta say something. I actually blurted out to his sister who answers the phone, she just quietly passes.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm sure she handed him the phone with quite a specific look on his face, like, you're fucked. Enjoy. Yeah, pretty much.

[Stacy]

It should come as no surprise that he denies it. Tells me I'm acting crazy, and I hang up on him. Now I'm like, well, how do I get confirmation? Because I'm reeling at this point. I'm like, wait a minute. Candace introduced Logan and Jenny. She'll know.

[Dax Shepard]

And real quick, are you considering calling the husband to just say, like, okay, I got your email. I need a little more proof?

[Stacy]

Not. At that point, I call Candace. She confirms, yes, Jenny and Logan had an affair. She said I had told Logan that if I had ever asked him, she said that she would tell me the truth. At this point, my son has now woken from his nap. I plop him in the car and I drive to Jenny's house.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, boy. Okay, here we go. Here we go. He's heating up face to face.

[Stacy]

So I drive to Jenny's house. I'm sitting in the driveway. Obviously Candace has alerted her as to what has happened. Jenny considers waiting me out, but this is never gonna happen. I'm pretty persistent. And her personal trainer actually shows up. So they have a standing session that she's supposed to make. So she finally shows up. She pulls into the driveway. She's got her five and nine year old in tow, and we each get out of the car. And I said, look, I am not about to cause a scene. I'm not gonna scream at you. I just want some answers.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Stacy]

She invites me into her house and our kids go into the play area. She doesn't want her older kids in earshot. They clearly know something is off. So they give us about 30 minutes, maybe not even. And I ask all of my questions, like, how long? When did it start? Hash out those details. But then I say to her, what on earth possessed you to become my friend after this whole thing ended? Because it did actually end in March of 2010 when Johnny found out. She said, I wanted confirmation that you were a really terrible person so that I wouldn't feel badly about what I did. But it turns out I'm not a terrible person.

[Dax Shepard]

Right?

[Monica Padman]

Was the first. Yeah, you're a Tina Fey person. It was your husband telling her that you were a bad person. I mean, obviously, I guess.

[Stacy]

Yeah. That was basically the long and the short of it is that nothing good was said about me at the time that they were having this affair. And unfortunately for Jenny, she came to find out that I'm a pretty likable, good person and I didn't deserve that. And she actually really enjoyed our friendship, but clearly had to cut it off. I mean, you don't carry on a friendship like that.

[Dax Shepard]

This is all interesting. I'm just gonna say I believe her. I believe your husband said those things. I don't believe she needed to go find out if that was true. That's immaterial. What the. It's not on you to like go become an investigator now. That's her own obsession with Logan.

[Monica Padman]

I think I could see it because if that ended, she's probably mad at him.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

So she's like, he told me all these things and now I have to sit with this guilt. I want to know if that's warranted or not. I think that's just adding more. More cruelty onto you. It's not nice or wise, but I can see how that happened.

[Dax Shepard]

I think she wanted to go answer if he has been lying across the board. I think she probably, when they broke up, felt like, I wonder if anything he said was true about how he felt about me. And now one way I can go find out if he's full of shit is I'm going to find out if the wife was really a terrible woman.

[Sophie]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

I think she more wanted to find out if she had been lied to about everything and used our friend Stacy here to confirm whether he was a.

[Monica Padman]

Liar across the board.

[Dax Shepard]

Which I don't think is your right.

[Stacy]

To do, interestingly enough. Obviously my suspicions at this point are raised, but I'm halfway through a pregnancy with my second kid and I have an almost two year old.

[Lydia]

Right.

[Stacy]

Yeah. I decided, well, I should try to see if this is a marriage that we can work to repair. I'm able to get access to his phone, however, and it is very clear by text messages to numerous people that his behavior is not going to change. Like, he would say things to other women like, I was a nag and he wasn't getting any sex and having those kinds of complaints. So I was like, okay, well, our marriage is effectively over. So about nine days before my daughter was born, we sat down two days after my birthday actually, too.

[Dax Shepard]

What a week.

[Monica Padman]

This is a horrible.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh my gosh, what a time to be alive.

[Stacy]

So anyway, our marriage effectively ends. And what I will say is that we have a fine relationship now. He has remarried, not Jenny. And I love his wife. His wife is one of my most favorite humans on the face of the earth.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, God, that's nice.

[Stacy]

Everything is good. My kids are now 14 and 16 and it was actually my 16 year old who told me to write in this story.

I owe him a debt of gratitude for this whole thing happening. The other really interesting piece for me personally is that that were I to have found out anytime between March of 2010 and November 2010, my daughter wouldn't be here. And she was meant to be on this earth.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great things can come out of. Not great things.

[Stacy]

Absolutely. The last piece of this story, because there's more, is few years after this whole thing happened, I find out that Jenny is now married to Neil. Oh, Jesus Christ.

[Dax Shepard]

The other neighbor.

[Monica Padman]

My God.

[Dax Shepard]

Sexy subdivision here.

[Monica Padman]

This is very Desperate Housewives vibes.

[Stacy]

And I've told this story so many times because it's a great party stories. And it's not until I actually start telling that I'm like, this is crazy. You can't make this up. That's why my son was like, you should write in. Because we listen to Armchair Anonymous Friday mornings on the way to school.

[Dax Shepard]

Lovely. We love to hear that. We do, we love it. I don't know if it's good, good content for kids, but they love kind.

[Monica Padman]

Of wholesome about the whole family.

[Dax Shepard]

Hearing how messy it gets out there.

[Monica Padman]

This is so weird. But the new wife that you really like, do you ever feel defensive of her? Are you like, well, he's kind of a bad dude. Why are you nice lady who I like married to him? That's another complication on top.

[Stacy]

Yeah, well, my hope is always that he turned a new leaf and is standing up guy. I said, you know, if he this up, I'm gonna murder him because she's just phenomenal.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, if he did fuck it up, minimally would point out that this is his problem. There's no perfect mate for him.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, wow, that's a wild story.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. What's the fake name we can give your 6 year old? Because when you guys listen to it together, I want to say hi to them.

[Stacy]

What is a good fake name?

[Dax Shepard]

You've used all of the names.

[Stacy]

Let's call him Liam.

[Dax Shepard]

Liam. Nice, nice. Liam Strong Liam. We love having you in the audience infect your high school pe.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Tell them they're missing the boat. All right, well, lovely meeting you. Take care.

[Sophie]

Bye.

[Monica Padman]

People really can accumulate some stories over a life.

[Dax Shepard]

It sounds like that whole neighborhood should just done like musical chairs. Everyone has stood up, moving to the house next door and let's just keep this thing going.

[Sophie]

Hi.

[Dax Shepard]

Hi. How are you?

[Lydia]

I'm good.

[Sophie]

How are you guys? Good.

[Dax Shepard]

You have such a warm and inviting smile.

[Sophie]

Oh, thank you very much.

[Dax Shepard]

Where are you at in the country?

[Sophie]

I am in Athens, Georgia.

[Dax Shepard]

What? In the whole world.

[Sophie]

And I went to UGA Dogs.

[Dax Shepard]

When's the last time you ate her favorite cake? What's it called?

[Monica Padman]

Yes, good memory. At Last Resort. My strawberry cake.

[Sophie]

I went to the Last Resort for brunch a few months back, but it was too early for me to have the cake.

[Monica Padman]

You can always have the cake.

[Sophie]

I should have just had the cake.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly. That's the move.

[Sophie]

I think the actual store closed that she used to have.

[Monica Padman]

Well, she also passed.

[Sophie]

Oh, okay. I didn't know that part. Well, I'm glad her cakes live on.

[Dax Shepard]

That's her legacy.

[Sophie]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

You're making me very nostalgic knowing you're there. I hope you're enjoying it.

[Sophie]

I love Athens.

[Dax Shepard]

You have light fantasies of just moving there, right?

[Monica Padman]

It's the best. And the vibes are so good.

[Dax Shepard]

That could be your second place.

[Monica Padman]

We'll think about it.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Lydia]

Yeah.

[Sophie]

I lived in Austin for a while and then I just back cuz I was like, I want to be back close. I grew up in Athens as well.

[Stacy]

Love it.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so you have a wild card story which we love because we have no clue what the topic is.

[Sophie]

Even the story is about the time my babysitter threw me my 12th birthday.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, great. Unconventional already. The babysitter generally doesn't handle that.

[Sophie]

Right. My babysitter was very special. She handled a lot of things in my life. Her name's Allison. It set the stage for this 12th birthday. I switched from going to public school to a smaller private school for middle school in sixth grade. And this private middle school was. Was K through 12. So people had been there kindergarten all the way on. So everyone knew each other and had kind of been together their whole lives. And then I just popped on in there. So I was really nervous as most 12 year olds probably are starting a new school. My babysitter, Allison, who was also kind of a nanny, she traveled with us. She was with us a lot. She had this great idea. It was like, let's just throw this epic birthday party. We're gonna get all these girls to be your new best friends.

[Dax Shepard]

This is like a common trope.

[Sophie]

It definitely is. It kind of is like movie esque where it's like, let's just do one thing. I was totally down for it though. So I'm approaching my parents, like, can I have this huge sleepover? It's going to be a few of my old friends. So that I feel more comfortable. And then basically all the new girls in my class and then my little sister and her friend, because she always has to be included.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sophie]

About 20 kids. So my parents are not thrilled with the idea.

[Dax Shepard]

As a parent of a 12 year old, no, thank you.

[Sophie]

Worst nightmare. So then Allison steps in and is like, don't worry, I will handle it all. We're going to do this for Sophie. It's going to be great. You guys can even just go to a hotel for the night. I really got this. She was actually a fabulous babysitter.

[Monica Padman]

How old was she?

[Sophie]

I think she was about 25. She was an adult, but with a very childlike, chaotic, creative spirit. I had a lot of fun with her. All my friends were obsessed with her. They always wanted her to be there when they were hanging out with me. So she convinces my parents, they go to the hotel, everyone gets there, and the first thing she does is round us all up. And she's like, guys, there's one rule. It's that there are no rules. She has like a whiteboard. Like, she presents it like we're about to go through all the rules. And then that's the only thing she writes. 2012 year olds.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God.

[Sophie]

And then she goes through some stuff that will happen. We're gonna have a fake wedding. We're gonna have a talent show.

[Monica Padman]

A fake wedding.

[Dax Shepard]

This is ambitious.

[Sophie]

The first thing that happens is there's a tornado drill.

[Dax Shepard]

Wait, planned? Or a real life tornado drill.

[Sophie]

We're practicing for a real tornado.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay.

[Monica Padman]

She's put this on.

[Sophie]

We know that there's no tornado. We're practicing because she's like, there might be thunderstorms tonight.

[Mel Robbins]

This message is brought to you by Apple Card. It's a great time to apply for an Apple card. You'll love earning unlimited daily cash on every purchase. That includes 3% daily cash when you buy the latest iPhone, AirPods and Apple Watch at Apple through this special referral offer. When you get a new Apple card, you can earn bonus daily cash. To qualify, you must apply at Apple co getdailycash Apple card issued by Goldman Sachs bank usa Salt Lake City. Branch offer may not be available elsewhere. Terms and limitations apply.

[Dax Shepard]

As a small business owner, you know that change is the name of the game. Operational cost, labor markets tariffs. Wouldn't it be nice if something stayed the same? How about your business Internet rate? Get reliable, secure 5G business Internet from T Mobile for business for $50 a month with a 5 year price guarantee when paired with a Voice line. That's the stability you need from a partner you can depend on. Switch now@t mobile.com BI/ taxes and fees guarantee exclusions like taxes and fees applies to exclusions and details@t mobile.com we are supported by AG1. So I've been taking AG1 for a while now and honestly, it's become one of those things I don't even think about anymore. It's just part of my routine. AG1 is this daily health drink that combines your multivitamin pre and probiotics, superfoods and antioxidants in one simple green scoop. It's genuinely one of the easiest things I do to support my body every day. Let's be honest, my diet during the holidays is not exactly balanced. But AG1 next gen has more vitamins and minerals than ever before and it's clinically shown to fill those nutrition gaps. Plus the probiotics help with digestion, which is clutch when you're eating like it's Thanksgiving every day. I swear by AG1 I drink it in the morning and it puts a real pep in my step. AG1 has their best offer ever right now. If you head to drinkag1.comdax you'll get the welcome kit, a morning person hat, a year's supply of vitamin D3 plus K2 and AG1 flavor sampler. And you'll get to try their new sleep supplement, AGZ for free. That's 120 in free gifts for new subscribers. Drink ag1.comdax.

[Sophie]

So we all have to squeeze into this tiny little bathroom in the middle of my house. The safest spot. All 20 of us in this bathroom. She's like, let's put someone on someone's shoulders. So that's how the party started. Then we're going to order pizza.

[Lydia]

Pizza.

[Sophie]

She's like, this is gonna be great. I think you guys should put on a show for the pizza guy. I was always dancing to Brittany, Spice Girls, NSync. Like, it was my constant thing was, will you please sit down and let me show you this? I was very into it and I picked the song. I decided we would do the intro to Bring It On Nice so each girl could have her own part, sort of like each of the cheerleaders. And when you walk into my house, you open the front door and there's a staircase right in front of you. So I'm like, we can each walk down the staircase. We'll line up, we'll each do our bit. We're all dressing in in feather boas, glittery things where I have, like, tons of makeup. We really raid my costume drawer. And then Allison's like, wow, this is the best performance I've ever seen in my life. You know what I think we need to do? I think we need to order from not just Domino's. I think we need to order from Papa John's and Pizza Hut so you guys can really put this performance on.

[Monica Padman]

What is happening?

[Dax Shepard]

She's losing control of it, but she's instigating all the loss of control.

[Sophie]

Yes. That is her in a nutshell.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God, Allison.

[Lydia]

Is she okay?

[Dax Shepard]

Also, if I'm like a 22 year old pizza delivery man, I don't want to see 12 year olds put on.

[Andrew]

A show for me.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm going to feel very uncomfortable.

[Sophie]

Right. As a 12 year old, I thought it was going to be the most amazing thing.

[Monica Padman]

Also, why didn't you guys order from Gumbies?

[Dax Shepard]

They're not good audience members. The employees at Gumbies, they're like, we make good pizza. And that's it. We're not offering audience services.

[Monica Padman]

They made such good pizza. All right, Allison, she made some mistakes, but okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Sophie]

So the first pizza guy arrives, and the music is, like, blaring. And so we do our performance, and we didn't really plan for what would happen if the second pizza guy arrived when the first pizza guy was there.

[Dax Shepard]

They're stacking up. Okay, do we reset or just say join mid show? It is mid show, but you're invited to watch.

[Lydia]

Yeah.

[Sophie]

Things got a little hectic, and so we finish and we start over. She's like, up the stairs again. Again. Music starts over. We're back down the stairs. Midway through, I. I'm noticing that the two pizza guys are, like, talking very animated, and then all of a sudden, they start fighting, physically fighting.

[Dax Shepard]

They got in a fist fight.

[Sophie]

They're down my front steps and they're literally rolling around.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, it's a fight.

[Mel Robbins]

Oh, God.

[Monica Padman]

Because, like, whose pizza's better or what did instigate it.

[Sophie]

Some of this is hard for me to remember, but the rumor was that they dated the same girl.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, that's like, yeah, that'll happen.

[Sophie]

So then the third pizza guy, which is pizza, arrives. He jumps out, puts his pizza boxes down, just jumps in and starts trying to break this fight up.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, a Good Samaritan pizza man.

[Stacy]

Yeah.

[Sophie]

So then the one pizza guy, I think it was Papa John's, gets up and runs and gets into a car. And then the Domino's guy is like, that's my car.

[Stacy]

He's stealing my.

[Sophie]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

This is pandemonium. This is like a slapstick.

[Monica Padman]

I hate to blame Allison, but I do. I do think it's her fault.

[Dax Shepard]

We got a guy in the wrong car now.

[Stacy]

Oh, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my goodness.

[Sophie]

Then all of a sudden, the cops are there. Some of the girls are scared. They're upstairs. Other girls are more adventurous. They're kind of like peeking out, walking onto the front porch.

[Dax Shepard]

I always say these are the moments you find out what everyone's child home life is like. If you're out there in front, you're like, okay. They see some action. They're used to this.

[Sophie]

I was downstairs, I was very polite, people pleaser. I'm like, this is my party. I need to make sure everything's okay. So I was very anxious. So this party had fog machines, strobe lights, disco balls. Each room was themed. And I look down and there is dry ice. Because there were dry ice little stations in the sinks, up to my knees. Like, I can't even see the floor of my house. And it's just basically billowing out into the yard. Allison turns around and she's like, fire drill.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God.

[Sophie]

At this point, things had calmed down outside.

[Dax Shepard]

We love Allison.

[Monica Padman]

She's a great baby now.

[Dax Shepard]

So I'm a little wondering if she's in some kind of a swing.

[Monica Padman]

Is something going on?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, she in kind of like a manic swing. That was so ambitious.

[Monica Padman]

What kind of 12 year old party has a tornado drill and a fire drill? Three pizza delivery.

[Dax Shepard]

It's a lot.

[Andrew]

It's a lot.

[Monica Padman]

Wow. Okay.

[Andrew]

All right.

[Sophie]

So the last part of the story is that we go inside after this fire drill, police are gone. And she's like, let's just try and regroup here. Let's do the talent show. Then the phone rings because it's back in early 2000. So my landline ominously rings. And I distinctly remember this part of being like, allison, will you get the phone? She's like, no, it's your house. Get the phone. And it's the county calling me to inform me that some prisoners or fugitives or something that were cleaning up around the area did not make it back onto the bus. And they were missing three people. So we needed to stay inside, keep the doors locked for the night. It's dark by this time, like it's pitch black out. So I hang up the phone and something came over me. And instead of my normal shy polite, I'm like, there's fugitives on the list.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my. I wish I had Been at this birthday party. She did throw a fucking bag. She did.

[Monica Padman]

This is one where you're like, I am gonna be friends.

[Sophie]

She's like, everyone to the basement immediately.

[Dax Shepard]

What if she handed out guns?

[Sophie]

She handed out blankets instead of guns. And she was like, everyone cover the windows. And we have to do this talent show in the pitch black with this.

[Monica Padman]

Tiny little show must go on.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, it must, Kat. And I'm starting to wonder if she bribed the drivers to fistfire.

[Monica Padman]

That's what I'm saying. Is all this planned?

[Sophie]

I think we watched the Never Ending Story, and we finally fell asleep. The next morning, she walked each kid out to their car after everyone was gone. She was like, I didn't give anyone goodie bags, but I gave them this note. Why don't you read it out loud? I didn't have the note, but I texted her yesterday, and she's just amazing. She texted me the Note from, like, 22 years ago. And, yes, it was all a prank. And I can read the little section of the note if you want me to.

[Andrew]

Please.

[Dax Shepard]

I want to hear. Oh, and I want her number so she'll plan my next birthday party.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, God.

[Sophie]

So it says, thank you for coming to Sophie's party. There are no party bags, but there is this note. When you think about it, getting a note is actually better than a party bag because you can fold it up, carry it around with you everywhere. It doesn't rot or become too sticky or spoil or leak all over the bottom of your purse. It's just a cool piece of paper that can last forever. You guys were really all fun to hang out with. Very entertaining and so talented. Who knew that so many people could fit in a tiny bathroom? And then she lists other things that happen at the party. And who knew that Allison's friends Eddie, Chris, and Brad were such good actors that they were able to come over dressed as pizza guys and pull the biggest prank on. You knew that the car that was stolen was actually not from Pizza Hut. And who knew that the police officer was actually a neighbor? And the person that called about the escaped prisoner was just another friend of Alice. I mean, seriously, what a great, talented bunch of people we are. You just really fell for it. Don't forget to adhere to the rules. Thanks for coming.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I love her.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Sophie]

The amount of calls that my parents got from these private school girls. I mean, it lasted years.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God.

[Sophie]

That's my story.

[Monica Padman]

That's fantastic.

[Dax Shepard]

It is.

[Monica Padman]

Wow. Allison. What is she doing now?

[Dax Shepard]

Did you ever see the movie the Game. It's David Fincher's maybe second movie with Sean Penn and Michael Douglas.

[Stacy]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

She should be planning real life. The games, where it leads you all the way to ending your life, but then reinventing your life.

[Stacy]

Yeah.

[Lydia]

Yes.

[Sophie]

I love that movie. She was a screenwriter for a while, so it all tracks.

[Monica Padman]

Yes, that does track.

[Sophie]

She works for TCM in Atlanta. Editor and stuff.

[Monica Padman]

That's so funny.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, the Turner Classic Movie.

[Sophie]

Turner Classic Movies, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, good. I'm glad she's in a creative capacity.

[Monica Padman]

That's awesome.

[Sophie]

She actually worked at UGA for a while. I don't know if you. So she was the coordinator on the Cannes Study Abroad. Wait, Allison.

[Monica Padman]

Does she have red hair?

[Lydia]

Hair, yeah, that's her.

[Sophie]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my dingle.

[Sophie]

No, that was her job before tcm, and then she did screenwriting on this side. That's my nanny.

[Dax Shepard]

Did she ever run you through drills?

[Sophie]

No.

[Monica Padman]

But Allison was so cool.

[Sophie]

I used to go to that because my dad is Nate Cone. Stop.

[Dax Shepard]

What's happening?

[Stacy]

Stop.

[Monica Padman]

I actually was gonna say, are your dates professors? And who are they? No. Her dad was a professor who took the kids to the Cannes Film Festival. And we were in his class. We had to do movie reviews.

[Sophie]

She became the coordinator because she was my nanny. And then she was like, this is not enough work for me. What else can I do?

[Dax Shepard]

It was kind of similar stories.

[Monica Padman]

Here I am shook. Also, Allison was so cool. She, like, looked so cool. And everyone in the program was like, oh, my God, Allison. And like, she told us we should go buy, like, French makeup products.

[Sophie]

That's very funny. And I feel like she is really gonna get a kick out of this one. I'm about to call her.

[Lydia]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

What a small world.

[Sophie]

But maybe it redeems her a little bit.

[Stacy]

You know what?

[Monica Padman]

It does. Because even though you loved Alison, I.

[Dax Shepard]

Was like, well, I had a moment where I was afraid she was in the middle of a ramp up, right? But now I realize she's just a party animal.

[Monica Padman]

She's just a really cool girl.

[Dax Shepard]

She's a good time.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, I'm so happy that she's doing well. I love that. What a fun thing that just happened.

[Dax Shepard]

But it's not a small world. Athens is a small city.

[Monica Padman]

No, it's a small world.

[Dax Shepard]

Ok, okay, okay.

[Lydia]

It's both.

[Sophie]

That is really that. So I can't wait to tell my sister, too. She is a avid listener, but my sister is going to be like, how did I not make this connection already?

[Monica Padman]

That is so wild. So nice to meet you.

[Lydia]

You Too.

[Dax Shepard]

You guys are both so. Georgia, I love it. I love all this.

[Monica Padman]

I can't wait to tell Anthony.

[Dax Shepard]

All right, well, lovely meeting you, Sophie.

[Sophie]

You as well.

[Dax Shepard]

And if you run into the old babysitter, tell her I think she's a gangster.

[Monica Padman]

Please tell Allison I said hi and that she's the coolest. And please eat some cake. Take soon.

[Sophie]

I'll do all of those things.

[Stacy]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, bye. Wow, that was wild.

[Monica Padman]

In the middle of her story, I was gonna. I was like, oh, I should ask if her parents are professors. Like, maybe they're in the theater department because of all this. And they weren't, but I still knew.

[Dax Shepard]

You still knew them. And you went to France with one of them.

[Monica Padman]

Listen, I went to France with the main character.

[Dax Shepard]

Incredible. Oh, do you have soundboarding behind you?

[Andrew]

Yeah, I. I do.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, we have the same soundboarding at the Nashville studio.

[Andrew]

I would say it's more for aesthetics than anything.

[Dax Shepard]

It's gorgeous.

[Monica Padman]

It sounds nice.

[Andrew]

Thank you very much.

[Dax Shepard]

Andrew, where are you?

[Andrew]

I've been in Denver for the last four years, me and my wife now.

[Dax Shepard]

You'Re our first Denver caller to use your real name. We've had two others today, but they wanted code names, and I'm trying to make a big stereotype that people in Colorado want to stay anonymous more than other people. But you've broken that a bit.

[Andrew]

I have. Maybe it's my Canadian connections.

[Monica Padman]

Well, no, the other Canadians we had wanted a fake name.

[Andrew]

Oh, no.

[Dax Shepard]

Stacy. Yeah, Stacy didn't make no meal of that. Clean slate. It's going to be great regardless.

[Andrew]

Let's hope so. How's Wild Carpet going?

[Dax Shepard]

So far so fun always. What part of Canada are you from?

[Andrew]

Calgary.

[Dax Shepard]

The cold part.

[Andrew]

One could say I love Den Brights. They think that they get cold winters, but pales in comparison to what we get up north.

[Dax Shepard]

You're cut from a different cloth, we might say.

[Monica Padman]

Yes, a freezing cold cloth.

[Stacy]

Cloth.

[Dax Shepard]

The coldest of the cloths. Okay, so you have a wild hard story and we're dying to hear.

[Andrew]

So let's move back 15 years. 2011, fresh grad, out of university. I graduated with a degree in geology. A still a solid decade for my prefrontal cortex fusing, which served me really well in terms of what I was about to experience. I was looking for a really good, fun new job coming out of school and I took one down in Suriname, South America. So I took a gold exploration geology job where I would be hiking out in the middle of the Amazon doing field mapping, running field crews, doing stream sediment Sampling part of the job description said, must be comfortable sleeping in hammocks under tarps and 100% humidity. It was rotational type of work, 30 days on, 26 days off. So it just scratched every itch I had.

[Dax Shepard]

Did they downplay the bugs though in the first warning?

[Andrew]

Okay, you're getting ahead of this story.

[Dax Shepard]

Sorry, sorry. But I think in that list should have been extreme bug content.

[Andrew]

Yeah, if you look at my day to days they were hiking out in the bush where my white collar friends and friends that had more traditional type of jobs, people were phoning in sick with like a head cold or their kids were sick or whatever. In my case, we'd have field crews go down with dengue fever or leishmaniasis, which is a fancy way of saying, saying flesh eating disease.

[Dax Shepard]

I mean I'm basing all this on the path between two seas. When they tried to build Panama Canal. The amount of disease that was just riddling through all those crews, a lot.

[Andrew]

Of snakes as well.

[Monica Padman]

I hate everything you're saying.

[Andrew]

And you know what I loved at Monica.

I couldn't have asked for anything better. Trust me, right now I look back at this, I have no idea how I survived. So I'm about a year in. I've gone through a few rotations here. I've gotten the lay of the land. So I wake up one morning out of my hammock and my eyes bugging me. It's just like a little bit of a infection. I'm like, oh, it's a sty in my eye or something like that. And what any 20 something year old male would say is it's probably just going to clear up on its own. I'm just going to give it a few days and I'll be fine. Three days go in, it just keeps getting worse to the point where every hour, basically on the hour, it's almost like clockwork. It felt like a wasp was stinging me in the eye. I kept on looking at my eye, I'm like, what is happening? I couldn't see anything. There's like a jump, but nothing major. Again thinking like this is a really weird sty. So eventually I break and I go to my co worker, Fiji, who actually reappears several times in the story. She was a godsend. Hey, my eyes been really bugging me for a few days. I think it's more than just a sty. Can you just have a look and get to the bottom of this? So all 5 foot flat of Fiji's up on her tiptoes. I'm Crouched back in my chair, and she's peering in, and then her face drops and she says the words I would never want to hear.

[Dax Shepard]

Here.

[Andrew]

There's something alive in your eye.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, okay, okay, okay. Is it in your lower eyelid?

[Andrew]

Upper.

[Dax Shepard]

Upper eyelid. Oh. Trying to get to your brain.

[Monica Padman]

Something a lot. No, don't say that.

[Dax Shepard]

Sorry. That's what it wants. Yummy. Eating something.

[Monica Padman]

No, don't say eatings about brains. I'm scared.

[Andrew]

Rightfully so. We both race off to the medic. The diagnosis is a bot fly guy had bit me and laid eggs in my eyelid, which had hatched, and I had been the unwilling host of, essentially, maggots in no mama.

[Dax Shepard]

The timing of this. We just had a maggot takeover of a trash can. I've been fighting them all week. Oh, my God. Oh, yes. Yes, I have video.

[Monica Padman]

No, I don't like maggots.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, Andrew. Maggots in the eyes.

Okay, what's the treatment schedule for this?

[Monica Padman]

Now I feel like you have.

[Dax Shepard]

I probably do. I probably do. Yeah. This place is crawling in my.

[Sophie]

Stop, Stop.

[Andrew]

Plan A is traditionally, you can pop out bot fly larvae, Kind of like a pimple or something. For some reason, one medic sits on my chest, they put a stick in my teeth that I can bite down on because they figure they're going to have to really reef on this thing to get it out. But as you know, if you pop a sit, you kind of need some foundation, something structural behind it to get the leverage, like a bone or a muscle. But we're dealing with an ey fall at this point, so they have a go for a solid 3, 4 minutes. Medics out of breath. I'm getting a little woozy from them just kind of hammering away at my eye. And it's quickly determined we can't pop this thing out. So we are moving on to plan B. And plan B is we're just going to wait this thing out, let them get a little bit bigger. Then if they get bigger, maybe we can get that leverage, pop them out. Or they'll just crawl out on their own.

[Dax Shepard]

They don't have any desire to live in your body. They want to leave anyways.

[Andrew]

They just. Just want to feast and grow and get big enough, and then eventually they'll fly away at a certain point.

[Monica Padman]

How? They just pierce through.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So there's a small hole, and this is actually where plan C comes in. So I don't love plan B. As I'm leaving the medics, I'm like, I can't Stick this up for another few days and I run into some of the local field workers and I go, no, no, no, don't listen to the medics. What we would do is we just suffocate these guys. Kill them. They'll just fall out. We break apart a six cigarette, mix it with some Vaseline, smear it over the hole over my eyelid and patch it all up. And I think I sent in a photo.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, no. Okay.

[Andrew]

This is before I went to bed.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you look great.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, it's covered, it's covered. Thank God. Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

No, but it looks like you were out hunting with friends and someone shot you in the eye. Yeah, we've put that amount of appropriate dressing over it.

[Monica Padman]

Well, it's suffocation.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I'm glad you said the Vaseline because I was like, what, are we going to put a suction cup over there and suck all the air out? How are we going to do this?

[Sophie]

This?

[Monica Padman]

I'm so itchy.

[Andrew]

I made the poor decision of posting that to Facebook. I thought this was like the coolest thing ever. And my mom's on Facebook. The first response was a what all exclamation marks, followed by my sister commenting, saying, you need to talk to mom immediately.

[Dax Shepard]

And this is why you were still down there.

[Andrew]

Oh, yes.

[Monica Padman]

That's not nice what you did to your mom.

[Andrew]

Poor decision as a son. So I wake up the next morning and the pain's gone. I'm feeling great. I think, hey, I'm in the clear, off to the races. Can get back to my regular day to day. Unfortunately, again, not quite the case because I never saw that the fly larvae after that point. So again, a few days go by. Eye keeps getting a little bit bigger. Not a cherry size, but to the point that it's starting to obstruct my vision. So I go back to Fiji and say, hey, I need to go and see a real doctor at this point. We hop into a truck, we drive the hour and a half to Paramaribo, the capital. And this is where we get a little bit of some chaos at the hospital. We have a Cuban doctor who only speaks Spanish, speaking to their translators, later into Dutch, speaking to Fiji into English. And we're playing this game of medical telephone where the gist of it is they need to open up my eye, do a surgery and clean it all out and then stitch back up.

[Monica Padman]

I feel like that should have been plan A.

[Dax Shepard]

Sure, sure.

[Andrew]

But okay, funnily enough, this is actually where I put my foot down and I said, I can't rely on this medical game of charades to feel super comfortable. I was in a foreign country tree. I figured, hey, I'm flying home in a week. I'm going to be back into a situation I'm more familiar with. Can see the family doc. And we again leave. Take the hour and a half back to our camp. But fortunately I didn't have to wait the full week. The next day I'm chatting with some co workers, Fiji included. I kind of forget the whole thing. For some reason I scratched my eye because it was a little bit itchy.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh boy.

[Andrew]

And I could tell by the gush of warm liquid across the side of my face, coupled with the absolute horrified look of my co workers that it had just erupted and we had bot fly remnants and unknown liquid and pus all came out. And honestly, by the time I made it home, it had fully cleared up. And you couldn't even tell they didn't.

[Monica Padman]

See anything fly out?

[Andrew]

No, no, no. We managed to suffocate them before they became the full blown bot fly.

[Dax Shepard]

You were just expelling carcasses at this point. I'm sorry, but that's what happened. And then it just fell. Great. And then you went home and you need to see the doctor.

[Andrew]

Still have 2015 vision in both eyes. That was post laser eye surgery. But I always like to brag it's better than 2020.

[Monica Padman]

Whoa.

[Sophie]

That.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, that would be hard for you.

[Monica Padman]

I'll choose death.

[Dax Shepard]

And I embarrassingly would have probably gone through all these steps. You did. In the exact same way. Like. Well, let's just see. I have no optimism in my life except for my health. I'm like, oh, yeah, that'll probably fix itself.

[Monica Padman]

I guess it kind of did.

[Dax Shepard]

It kind of did.

[Andrew]

I did end up getting a few more larvae in my shoulder a few rotations later. I tried to bring them home because I wanted to freak out all my friends. But the pain does get pretty bad.

[Dax Shepard]

I wanted to bring them home, bring.

[Monica Padman]

Back to America larva.

[Andrew]

They would freeze so fast they couldn't handle. Maybe in Atlanta they'd be all right.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, no.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, gross. And I love it.

[Monica Padman]

That was really quite a story. I hated that. And it was great.

[Andrew]

Well, it's so great. Beauty. You're both huge fan. But listen to guys forever.

[Monica Padman]

You have a great day.

[Sophie]

Bye bye.

[Dax Shepard]

Take care. You'd have no idea looking at his eye that he had was a host.

[Monica Padman]

I can't believe he wanted to bring those guys back to America.

[Dax Shepard]

That show us, bro.

[Monica Padman]

Unethical. Look at this oh, boy.

[Dax Shepard]

All right, all right. Love you.

[Andrew]

Do you want to sing a tune or something? We know a theme song.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay, great. We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go. We're gonna ask some random questions and with the help of Armcheries, we'll get some suggestions on the Fly Rhyme Dish. On the Fly rhyme dish.

[Andrew]

Enjoy.

[Dax Shepard]

Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcast. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wonder app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short [e-mail] survey.

[Mel Robbins]

Hey there, armchairies. Guess what? It's Mel Robbins. I'm popping in here, taking out my own ad. Holy cow. Dax, Monica and I, I don't want this conversation to end. And I'm so glad you're here. We with us. And the other thing, I can't believe Dax loves the Let Them theory. He can't stop talking about it. I hope you're loving listening as much as I love having you here. And I also know since you love listening to Armchair Expert, you know who you're going to love listening to? The Let Them Theory audiobook. And guess who reads it?

[Monica Padman]

Me.

[Mel Robbins]

And even if you've read the book, guess what? The audiobook is different. I tell different stories. I riff, I cry. You're going to love it because it's going to feel like I'm right there next to you.

[Stacy]

We're.

[Mel Robbins]

We're in this together as we learn to stop controlling other people. So thanks again for listening to this episode of Armchair Expert. And check out the audiobook version of the Let Them Theory read by yours truly, available now on Audible. You can even try it out for free with an Audible trial. Download the Audible app today.