Armchair Anonymous: Extreme Weather

Summary

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Episode: Armchair Anonymous - Extreme Weather
Release Date: August 14, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this riveting installment of Armchair Anonymous, Dax Shepard and Monica Padman explore harrowing tales of extreme weather submitted by their listeners. From trees crashing into homes to daring escapes from tornadoes and flash floods, this episode is a cautionary, sometimes darkly humorous look at how nature’s fury impacts real people. Not just a vehicle for jaw-dropping stories, the episode reveals the resilience, quick thinking, and community bonds that emerge in crisis moments.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Extreme Weather in Listeners’ Lives (03:32–58:44)

Ella’s Story: The Tree That Nearly Changed Everything (03:46–16:26)

• Setting: New Jersey, June 2024.
• Incident: A severe windstorm causes a massive tree to fall on her mother’s house.
• The night before, the entire family had gathered on the very couch that would be crushed by the tree, sharing a Mets game together.
• Ella receives a calm call from her stepdad: “A tree fell on our house, we need you to come and grab the dogs. Me and your mom are going to the hospital.” (09:04)
• Her mother suffers a head injury but miraculously survives with only a concussion and staples.
• Reflective moment: They realize if the weather had hit one night earlier, the entire family could have been severely hurt or killed.
• Quote: “There’s a photo of all of us sitting on the couch. And then the next photo is what that same couch looked like the next night.” – Ella (15:09)
• Aftermath: The house required total rebuilding; simultaneous storms in NJ that night proved fatal for another family.
• Underlying themes: Randomness of disaster, gratitude, survivor’s guilt.

Mark’s Story: Tornado on the Lake (21:39–34:40)

• Setting: Lake of the Woods, Ontario, Canada, summer 2015.
• Incident: While boating with family and friends, the group is caught on open water as a tornado materializes and chases their crowded boat.
• “It’s hailing so bad, feels like it’s gonna smash the windows… I look, and there’s a funnel cloud coming out of the cloud. Not ideal.” – Mark (24:46–25:54)
• The tornado creates a wall of water, visibly chasing their boat, which is tossed and spun by the wind.
• Mark, piloting, imagines how he would save his young children if the boat sinks.
• Amidst panic, Mark’s calmness as a captain helps others, though in hindsight, he questions every decision leading up to the ordeal.
• No injuries, but lasting trauma and a new perspective on weather danger.
• Memorable Quote: "When we sink, I’m gonna take those little handles on the back of their life jackets. I have to remember to swim backwards so that we don’t drown because the roof’s up. That’s what I gotta do when this boat goes down." – Mark (27:53)

Janine’s Story: Hawaiian Flash Floods and Strangers’ Kindness (34:58–46:45)

• Setting: Oahu, Hawaii, 2013.
• Incident: Janine and her husband are swept off the road by a flash flood after ignoring radio warnings (“turn around, don’t drown”).
• Their car, a Mini Cooper, is disabled after being caught in rising waters. They witness other cars and even a city bus float by.
• Stranded, a stranger offers them a ride, leading to a tense sequence involving stopping at his house (“We don’t go to a second location!”) before finally being delivered safely.
• The couple later discovers the car is totaled, but insurance provides an unexpected windfall.
• Notable Quote: “That radio announcement… now we take that very seriously. Anytime I hear that, I just stop and make sure I’m not wherever that’s supposed to be.” – Janine (45:15)
• Underlying themes: The randomness of help; the ever-present suspicion and risk when crisis meets the kindness of strangers.

Samantha’s Story: The Thousand-Year Storm in the Canadian Wilderness (46:50–58:44)

• Setting: Kawarthas, Ontario, 2022.
• Incident: Samantha, her husband, five-year-old daughter, and friends are caught by a rare weather event known as a “derecho” while backcountry camping.
• They narrowly evade tragedy when a massive tree falls on her and her daughter—the daughter’s life jacket absorbs the blow.
• Injured, they make a desperate trek through a devastated forest; military helicopters are deployed for rescue.
• Aftermath: Extensive damage, harrowing hike outs, and weeks spent clearing trees to retrieve vehicles. The incident is later confirmed to have caused 22 deaths in the area.
• Quote: “The military helicopter comes, they strap me to a board, strap my daughter on top of me. She instantly passes out from, like, shock and strife.” – Samantha (54:52)
• Underlying theme: Sheer unpredictability of nature; the fragility of safety, even in moments of happiness.

2. Notable Interludes & Recurring Themes

• Canadian Listeners: Dax and Monica note the high proportion of Canadian callers for extreme weather stories, highlighting a cultural and geographic relationship with nature’s unpredictability (21:50).
• Rat Water Bottle Anecdote: A disgustingly memorable aside involving rats found in children’s water bottles and vehicles, sparking a running and comically horrifying dialogue about unexpected dangers (47:37–48:40).
• Reflections on Survival and Luck: Multiple guests express gratitude for random timing and good fortune—the split-second decisions or coincidences that marked the difference between disaster and survival.
• Shout-outs: Each caller offers heartfelt shout-outs to family members and those who inspired them to listen to the podcast, including a touching tribute to a recently lost mother and the unique experience of being a caregiver (57:20).

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Memorable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• Ella’s Realization:

  • “If we had chosen to do the baseball game the night after, we would have all been on that couch.” (14:29)

• Mark’s Tornado Logic:

  • “When we sink, I’m gonna take those little handles on the back of their life jackets. … That’s what I gotta do when this boat goes down.” (27:53)

• Janine on Disaster Response:

  • “That radio announcement… now we take that very seriously. Anytime I hear that, I just stop and make sure I’m not wherever that’s supposed to be.” (45:15)

• Samantha’s Wilderness Ordeal:

  • “A tree lands on my daughter and I. The impact from the tree catapults my daughter out of my arms.” (51:58)

• Samantha’s Gratitude through Tragedy:

  • “The military guy said… 22 people died from that storm, from trees falling on them. So we had the best of a bad situation.” (57:04)

• Cultural Reflection:

  • Dax: “You Canadians get after it, man… You’re like, yeah, it’s gonna involve some canoeing to get to where we wanna go.” (49:59)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Ella’s Story (NJ windstorm/tree): 03:46–16:26
• Mark’s Story (Ontario tornado/boating): 21:39–34:40
• Janine’s Story (Hawaii flash flood): 34:58–46:45
• Samantha’s Story (Derecho in Kawarthas): 46:50–58:44

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Episode Takeaways

• Extreme weather is often sudden, random, and far more dangerous than expected—especially when doubts or denial precede taking action.
• The kindness of strangers, quick decisions, and luck play outsized roles in surviving extreme situations.
• Lingering trauma, survivor’s guilt, and an enduring gratitude for second chances are common reactions.
• A community emerges around shared stories—whether through cautionary tales, mutual help, or dark humor.

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Notable and Unique Aspects

• Multiple listeners had stories involving trees crashing into homes, canoes, and cars—an unusually recurring motif highlighting how lightning-quick disaster can upend everyday tranquility.
• Running joke about rats in unexpected places connects the stories and adds levity to otherwise dire themes.
• Candid emotional exchanges at the end offer comfort and acknowledgment to listeners dealing with loss and grief.

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Closing Thoughts

This episode delivers a gripping mix of adrenaline, relief, and reflection, wrapped in the trademark warmth and humor of Dax and Monica. Extreme weather, as told through ordinary (but extremely lucky) people, becomes a backdrop for tales of survival and unexpected fellowship—and a reminder not to take severe weather warnings lightly.

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If you enjoyed tales of close calls, resilience, and the quirky unpredictability of both nature and humanity, this is an unmissable episode of Armchair Anonymous.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome, welcome. Welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dax Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Padman.

[B]

Hello.

[A]

Today we have extreme weather.

[B]

It is extreme.

[A]

The weather is extreme. You're gonna hear about some extreme weather.

[B]

Yeah, I feel bad because when we first started it was gloomy here in Los Angeles and I did call it extreme.

[A]

You thought that was. Yeah. For the sun to not be out.

[B]

You're very sensitive now after hearing all

[A]

those stories, but I get this one's pretty safe to listen to. Or it's a rare one.

[B]

And it's cautionary tale.

[A]

Cautionary tale. And it's rat. Rats. Rats. Sorry. Giveaway. There's also rats. Please enjoy extreme weather. We get support from quints.

[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[B]

Oh, extreme weather. Oh, that is on brand. Ding, ding, ding. Cuz it's gloomy out because it's so

[A]

extreme out right now. Sun's not shining, which is extreme.

[B]

It's giving me sad. Hello?

[A]

Ella.

[C]

Hi.

[D]

Sorry it's so dark in here.

[A]

Yeah. Could we get a little light in there?

[D]

It was light when I could just see myself.

[B]

Oh, is it. Cause it's Lumi. Oh, better, Better.

[A]

Do you want to crack your door to the closet?

[D]

Maybe we can see her a little better now.

[A]

Okay.

[D]

Better?

[A]

Yeah, better, better.

[D]

I swear it was working. It looked perfect.

[A]

I would not think you were a liar, Ella. No way.

[D]

Thank you.

[A]

And where are you other than a closet?

[D]

Yes, I'm in a closet.

[A]

In New Jersey, you get what in New Jersey? You get tornadoes. You get some hurricanes.

[D]

No, that's the crazy thing is, like, we don't really get that much crazy weather. But I did get some crazy weather one night.

[A]

Okay. And you appear to be very young to me. Can I try to guess your age?

[D]

Ooh, please.

[A]

Okay, I'm going with 23 years old.

[D]

Ooh, 26.

[E]

Oh, wow.

[F]

Nice.

[G]

You were close.

[A]

Moni, what would you have said?

[B]

I'm really bad at that.

[A]

46?

[B]

Yeah. Probably like mid to late 40s.

[D]

Getting there.

[A]

Okay, so you're in New Jersey, and were you born and raised there?

[D]

Yes.

[A]

How far from the city?

[D]

Right now, I am living directly across from New York City. So, like, on the water, Hudson River. New York City is right there.

[F]

Nice.

[A]

You have the best view of New York.

[D]

Yes. Love to look at it. Hate to be there.

[A]

Oh, wow. Interesting.

[B]

Remember when we had Jack Antonoff and

[A]

he said a lot of people there, like, fuck that place?

[B]

Yep.

[A]

All right, so walk us through your extreme weather.

[D]

Yes. Can I say something really quickly?

[A]

Yeah, you can say 90 things really quickly.

[D]

I started listening about two years ago. And about a year in, I realized I had no idea what you guys actually looked like. And I made a promise to myself that I would never look until I made it on the podcast one day, stopping my first time.

[B]

Wait, but you didn't know what Dax looked like, so.

[D]

I'm really bad with names, celebrities, and I'm not a movie TV person.

[C]

I love that.

[A]

She's also 26, right? And the last time I was on a TV show was six years ago. She was 20.

[B]

Well, 20 is old enough to watch TV.

[A]

To watch TV. Were you allowed to watch TV when you were 20?

[D]

Yeah, I was. Chose not to, but yeah, I believe it.

[A]

I think most 26 year olds have no clue who I am.

[B]

This is so fun. What did you think we looked like?

[C]

Be honest.

[D]

You guys have dropped a lot of clues over my time listening, so I was able to put together, like, a pretty good picture. But now seeing you guys, I can't remember how I pictured you now.

[A]

Well, also, would you agree we're pretty derogatory about our own looks, so I guess you could also expect to see, like, a hunchback and a fucking troll.

[B]

That is what she's seeing.

[A]

Oh, she's like, that's even worse than you guys were saying.

[C]

It's not the opposite. You guys are more beautiful than I ever could have imagined.

[A]

Oh, well, right back at you.

[B]

Yeah. All right, let's hear extreme weather.

[A]

Yeah, let's talk about weather.

[D]

Okay, so just a really quick preface to my story is my parents have been divorced since I was very young, and my mom, she got an apartment very close to my dad's house, about like a mile down the street. And she eventually bought a house less than a mile away. So very fortunate. Me and my sister growing up, My parents are very close in proximity and they had, like, a really good relationship.

[A]

Oh, isn't that great?

[D]

So all around, very close. So now my story takes place. It was June 2024, so not that long ago.

[A]

Around the time you started listening to us?

[D]

Actually, pretty much, yes. Which is crazy to think about. So I had graduated college at the time. I was working full time, and I was living full time with my dad, hanging out with my mom, going over for dinners when I could, and my mom invited me and my sister over to watch the Subway Series. So the Mets, Yankees baseball game, it was between a Tuesday night and a Wednesday night. They were playing both nights, and we opted to go over and watch on a Tuesday night. We invited our boyfriends. All of us are really big baseball fans. So, like, Half of us are Mets fans, half are Yankees Phillies fan in there. So we had dinner, probably played some sort of card game. And then we, all six of us got onto my mom's couch and we huddled up and we watched the baseball game. I don't really remember much of the night. It was very uneventful. Fun night. Mets won. That's my team. Doesn't happen often these days, so good

[C]

to look back at.

[D]

And then the next day I'm working from home at my dad's house where I live, and I'm getting these weather alerts on my phone non stop. And I remember because anything would trigger me when I was working at my last job. Like the smallest things would kind of set me off. And my phone just kept alerting me, like, severe weather warning, severe winds. We're in New Jersey. How crazy could these winds really be?

[A]

30 miles an hour? Like what's the peak?

[D]

Actually, I don't think I even checked what the speed said. I was just like, who really cares? No rain, nothing. Just strong winds. And I was like, okay, just getting really annoyed. And I decide after work I'm going to run to the store, grab a bottle of wine, watch the second game with my dad at his house. So after work, it was about like 7 or 8pm probably when I got off work. I run out to grab the wine and I notice as I'm driving it's getting really windy. Scary, like you can feel it in the car. I'm about to blow away in the parking lot, but I still manage to get the wine and get home. And I'm telling my dad like, this is crazy. And not that long after that I get a call from my stepdad and he tells me very calmly, hey, so a tree fell on our house, we need you to come and grab the dogs. Me and your mom are going to go to the hospital. Oh my God.

[A]

Oh boy, oh boy.

[D]

He was so calm that I'm so calm, I'm like, no problem. I like packed an overnight bag. I thought I was having a sleepover. I don't know what was going through in my head. I was like, sure, packed my laptop, my phone charger, the bottle of wine's coming with me.

[A]

And Ella, is this. The game hasn't started yet or you're mid game when this phone call comes in.

[D]

I haven't even turned it on yet, so. So I get in my car and I'm still there within 10 minutes. Cause again, they're literally right down the street from each other. And I go to turn On True street. Cannot get on the street. Cop cars, ambulance, everything's blocked off. So I park a little bit down the street and I start running towards the house at this point. And a cop tries to stop me and is like, you cannot go in there. And I'm like, this is my mom's house. And she's like, great, you're here for the dogs. And I'm like, sure, whatever. Just let me through, please. So she tells me I can't go through the front door, which you can't see. You're looking at the house and it looks like a bush ate the house. It just looks like a giant bush.

[A]

Oh, do you immediately when he said a tree fell down, did you know what tree? Was there a huge tree in the yard? Were you like, oh, I bet it's that.

[D]

I wasn't even thinking about that. But, like, looking back on it, yes.

[A]

Like, you're just, I need my wine, I need my overnight bag.

[D]

I was like, so, no sleepover. So they let me go into the back of the house. There's like a back door. The dogs are in there and they're not barking, which is so weird for them. And they just look absolutely traumatized. It's pitch black in there and it's like really dusty and weirdly quiet. So I'm just strapping them up, putting their harnesses on collars, leashes, getting them ready. And my stepdad comes into the back room and he kind of fills me in on like a tree came through the house, which I understood by that point. There's a massive tree eating our house. And that my mom was in the ambulance that just left. He's gonna go to the hospital and he'll call me when he gets there. And he's still so calm. So I'm calm. I get the dogs back to my dad's house. We have to throw his cats. They don't get along. My dad's not thrilled about having his ex wife's daughter. I'm on the phone with my stepdad on and off all night. He's giving me more bits and pieces. Like, her head was bleeding, she got hit by the tree that came through the house.

[A]

Oh, fuck.

[D]

But he's like, stay where you are. I'll keep filling you in. So hours pass by at this point, and before I know it, he's calling me, probably four hours from when this all happened, saying they're releasing her, we're going to go sleep at my sister's house. And I asked to talk to her. I was like, I'd like to speak to my mother. So he puts her on the phone and she's very emotional, but she sounds completely fine. I'm like, I would love if you guys came to my dad's house and slept here for the night so I could see you and know what's going on. I'd feel better knowing you're here with me. So they agree. She convinces my stepdad we're gonna go sleep at my ex husband's house. I clear out my bedroom. We had no guest rooms. So they take my full size bed with their two dogs and I sleep on the couch for the night. The next day I'm waking up on my dad's couch, which I never ever slept on. I always slept in my bed. So it was already like unfamiliar. Like, where am I? And all I see is my mom sitting at my dad's kitchen table, bandage wrapped around her head, my stepdad sitting to her left, and on my right is my dad, shirtless pantless and his boxers absolutely like disheveled. Probably came down to grab a glass of water not knowing his ex wife.

[A]

Oh, he didn't even. He wasn't shy. All okay. He wasn't.

[D]

I forgot to fill everyone in. I'm like, there was a lot going on, so he was completely unaware that they were gonna be there. But he's serving them coffee and we go back to see the house the next day and everyone's kind of filling us in on what happened. So my mom's side of the story is she heard a very loud like cracking sound and immediately ducked over and shielded like her and the dog. And she doesn't really remember much other

[A]

than that she was on the couch of her living room or something.

[D]

She was on the living room couch where we were all sitting the night before. Oh, and my stepdad was in a back room and all he heard was like a really loud crash. Very scary. He didn't really know what was going on. There were no lights. All of a sudden, loud noise and he ran into the living room where she was sitting. And it was just the ceiling of the second floor was caving in on like a 45 degree angle. There were like floorboards everywhere, furniture knocked around. There's a huge tree literally slicing the house almost in half. So he had to like pull her out of like rubble is pretty much what it looked like at that point. Her head was just profusely bleeding and he had to like pull her out. He pulled her to the back where there wasn't a second floor. Cause he Was really scared. The whole house was just gonna come down on top of them. He was wrapping her head in towels, and she just kept bleeding through them.

[E]

Ooh.

[D]

Until the EMTs got there. They couldn't get into the house with the stretcher. So what they did is they did that thing at weddings where, like, you put someone on a chair and you kind of, like, lift them up to suffer again.

[A]

Like at a Jewish wedding.

[D]

Yes. So that's how they got her out of the house. And at that time, she was conscious, but she was completely unresponsive, like, not responding to anything anyone was saying. And the cop that was there at the time, like, he radioed in something along the lines of, like, we have a fatality, or, like, she's not going to make it.

[A]

Oh.

[D]

And my mom came to, I guess, in that moment and was like, just tell the girls that I love them. Get the dogs. They get her into the ambulance. Finally they get the bleeding to stop. Eventually, they're taking her to the hospital that has a trauma center. We love New Jersey. Great hospitals. New Jersey. New York City.

[A]

If you gotta get hit by a tree, that's where you want to be.

[D]

Yeah. Somewhere with a trauma center.

[B]

There's some good ones here.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

In the ambulance, they get the bleeding to stop finally, and they clean her up, and they realize her head's not split open, it's not gashed open. She has, like, some stuff coming out of it. There's clearly a gash in her head, but it's not nearly as bad as what they were expecting. They thought she was a goner until they realized, like, all she needed was some staples in her head. They cleaned her up. She had a concussion, obviously, but that was really it. And so we're very lucky and grateful that was it. But what beat up my mom the most was that if we had chosen to do the baseball game the night after, we would have all been on that couch. And if you see the photos, there's a photo of all of us sitting on the couch. And then the next photo is what that same couch looked like the next night.

[A]

Okay, so now I'm flipping over the photographs. Heavens to Betsy's.

[F]

Yeah.

[A]

It's a tall, skinny tree. Okay, so here's the family on the couch.

[B]

Literally. Yeah. Cut through the whole house. Wow.

[A]

Okay, here's everyone on the couch the healthy night, night before. Oh, my gosh.

[D]

It's just like rubble. You can't even tell what's going on in the photo of the night after.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

I don't even know how to hold it.

[A]

What was the outcome of the house? Did it have to. Was it repairable? What happened?

[D]

So the roof was completely unsalvageable and the whole house had to pretty much be redone. It took like 14 months.

[A]

In LA, it would have taken four years.

[B]

Oh, that's scary.

[A]

Yeah. Wow.

[D]

Yeah, it was really strong winds. The same night in New Jersey, another tree fell and someone else got struck and passed away. My mom's feelings of just guilt and just being so grateful.

[B]

That is incredible.

[F]

Wow.

[E]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Strong winds.

[B]

You can't take that lightly.

[A]

Who won the Subway Su series?

[D]

Oh, the Mets won.

[A]

Okay.

[D]

They won both games, actually, so I think she mentioned that too.

[C]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Oh, good.

[A]

Yeah. So a push. That sounds like a push.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Well, Ella. Wow. That's wild. Ella, we're so delighted to have you as a listener. I particularly like that you have no clue what we look like.

[E]

Yeah.

[B]

That's so fun.

[A]

That's really fun.

[D]

I know. I'm just staring at you guys now, taking pictures. Now I can follow you guys on all the socials.

[F]

Oh, okay.

[A]

Wow. You were waiting.

[B]

One follower.

[A]

This is kind of my technique to Bill Murray, right? Where I don't want to meet him unless he talks to me, like I've been around him. But I won't talk to him.

[F]

Right.

[A]

And those plans don't work, but in this case, it works.

[B]

I know. I'm shocked. It never got leaked, but this is great because now you can Watch us on YouTube.

[A]

You can do a lot of stuff.

[B]

You can do this. The world has opened up for you.

[A]

A couple million posts to go through.

[D]

I was just waiting.

[A]

Well, it was lovely meeting you, Ella.

[D]

Yes, you too. Could I just give a few really quick shout outs?

[F]

Yes.

[D]

Okay. First, to my mother, obviously, who I love dearly. And now she has to start listening

[B]

to you guys because look at you.

[D]

She does. I've been begging her. And you just interviewed Brandi Carlile, who's, like, her favorite person on earth.

[B]

Oh, great interview.

[A]

Perfect gateway for her.

[D]

And then secondly, my boyfriend said he'd be really upset if I didn't give him a shout out, and he started listening to you guys on his own, apart from me, pretty recently.

[A]

What a genius.

[B]

We like that.

[A]

He's a special boy.

[D]

Very proud of him. Lastly, I just want to give a shout out to the person who showed me you guys. My friend Gia, who I haven't seen in a little over a year now, and I love dearly, and she is now pregnant with her first child.

[A]

Oh, congratulations.

[D]

Her own little arm. Cherry.

[A]

Yeah. Keep proliferating, procreating. Make more listeners. All right, well, we send our love to all those folks. And then. Lovely meeting you.

[D]

Lovely meeting you guys. Thank you so much.

[A]

Okay, take care.

[B]

Bye.

[F]

Bye.

[B]

Okay, I just thought of something.

[D]

Okay.

[B]

If you're born in the year 2000, you're so lucky for math. Yes. Because she's 26. So she was born in 2000, and two years ago was 2024. And she was 2020.

[A]

It's so easy.

[B]

She was 24.

[A]

She just has to remember the name. Or the. Rather, the.

[B]

She has to remember her name, her

[A]

name and the year it was, and she'll know exactly how old she is.

[C]

So cool.

[A]

That's so cool.

[D]

I do think that's really cool.

[A]

It's convenient.

[B]

Yeah.

[F]

And cool.

[A]

Super cool, too. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. We've talked before about Rob building our website on Squarespace, and I bring it up again because it's a perfect example of what they do. Well, Rob had all the pieces, the content, the vision, the ideas, but he needed something to actually take all that and make it public. Facing Squarespace was that bridge. Maybe you're in the same spot. You've been developing something, a business, a skill set, a body of work, and it's been private, it's been yours. But at some point, you're ready to put it out there, and that transition from private to public can feel like a huge leap. Squarespace makes it feel like a step. Beautiful templates built in. SEO, email campaigns, scheduling analytics, everything you need to go from I've been working on this to here it is, come find me all in one place. No code, no stitching together a bunch of different tools. So if you've been sitting on something and waiting for the right moment, this might be it. Head to squarespace.comdax for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code DAX to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. This episode is brought to you by SoFi, the all in one finance app, where you can bank, borrow, and invest all in one place.

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[A]

Mark, hello. Hi, how are you?

[F]

I'm doing great. How are you?

[A]

Oh, so good. I see that you're in a bedroom. Where is this bedroom located?

[F]

It's in Winnipeg, Canada.

[B]

Ooh, a Canadian.

[A]

Mark, I don't you'll care about this, but when we do Armchair Anonymous, it's almost like 50% of our callers are Canadian. I need an explanation for it because I don't think 50% of our listeners.

[F]

Have you been to Winnipeg, either of you?

[A]

Not bend to Winnipeg, but they film a bunch there, right? Is that where they film Fargo?

[F]

That might be Alberta, but they do film a bunch here for sure. A lot of friends that kind of help in the industry. And then we hear about all the celebrities coming through.

[E]

Sure.

[F]

It was big news here.

[A]

Is it mountainy where you're at?

[F]

No, it's the Prairies right in the center.

[A]

Oh, okay.

[F]

To the best of my knowledge, you've only had one Winnipeg guest on who? And it is such a small town here. I mean it's 800000 people, but that's my best friend's wife.

[B]

What?

[A]

Wait, that was Unarmchair Anonymous.

[F]

She was a full on guest. Her name's Kate Bowler. She's an author. Yeah.

[A]

Oh my gosh, it was fun.

[B]

Wow. Small world, small town.

[F]

If you have another Winnipegger, I'll probably be close friends with them too.

[B]

That's exciting.

[A]

That works. You know, every time we meet someone from Boston, which there's several million people there, Monica always says, do you know Ben and Matt. And they never do, and they don't,

[B]

but one day they will.

[A]

But you need, like, people you love from Winnipeg. That way I don't get to pick

[B]

and choose where Ben and Matt are from.

[F]

Fair enough. No, you don't.

[A]

Okay. So, Mark, you have an extreme weather story?

[F]

I do. Takes place two hours east. Place called Lake of the woods in Ontario. So we're in the Prairies, but it's Canadian Shield there. Like, it looks the same as the Muskokas. And this weekend, it was 2015, June. Lots of friends coming out for the weekend. All of them are pretty close friends. Other than one friend of ours. Andrea is bringing a guy. Jeff. Kind of plays into the story a bit.

[A]

How big of a group is the group of people?

[F]

So we are nine adults and my two children, who are three and five at the time. So Saturday morning weather's gloomy. It's supposed to be a miserable weekend. We'll make the most of it. So we have breakfast on the dock in the rain, under the roof. Weather clears up up towards the end of that. Let's go for a boat ride. Might be our only chance. The only boat that we have that works. It's my father's pride and joy, so probably has more hours like waxing it on the lift than in the water all summer. But I'm gonna take it 26 foot inboard. It'll work, but I hate driving it. I do not want to fix it if I break it. All those things. So we head out to a friend's place. Tried to just go for a boat ride. 30 minutes east of that yet huge lake goes down into Minnesota. Even you can go for hours in any direction.

[G]

Oh, wow.

[F]

So we get there. We're gonna take a scenic route back, but it starts getting a little darker, so we're just gonna go straight back the way we came. So heading back. Halfway through that, it starts raining. So it's not a big deal. We're gonna put the top up. We'll keep going. Some people even stayed in the front. We'll get wet. We'll dry off when we get back to the dock. A minute after that starts hailing worse.

[A]

That's painful.

[F]

Yeah. So they're coming in. It's fine, but it's still. We're just gonna go back. We're probably halfway there. A minute after that, it's hailing so bad. Feels like it's gonna smash the windows. Fiberglass boat. It just sounds way worse than it probably is. So we stop, and that's when I Noticed there's a cloud ahead of us. It's the whole sky. Never seen anything like it before. And ever since. But it's, like, churning like a paddle wheel.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

Like a horizontal tornado.

[F]

Exactly. And it's greenish dark blue. Not an expert in that. Doesn't sound like something I want any part of. So we're gonna turn around, we're gonna go back the way we came. Not a big deal. Everyone's in. So now the layout of the boat is, like, Jeff, this, like, new Alpha guy that's come into the group to date our friend is, like, right beside me, facing backwards. And then it's a spacious boat, but there's nine of us in there, plus two kids are at my feet. So it's like, we're pretty crammed in. No one's really looking out because everyone's trying to stay warm. Also worthy of note now temperature's dropping like crazy. And we have a friend, Amy, who has a cold allergy so her throat can close up.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

She's in the wrong country.

[F]

It's amazing. She's alive because she's from Winnipeg. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. She needs to be in Florida.

[F]

We're still just getting away from this cloud at this point. So Jeff's looking out the back, and I'm just piloting the boat. And then he, like, motions to me, and I look, and there's a funnel cloud coming out of the cloud. Okay. Not ideal. And then the. The bay that we are driving down, you can't really maneuver. So as I prepared to tell the story, it's like, why didn't I do a few things different or, like, most things different? But there's, like, islands and rocks under the water, so you're kind of stuck going channel.

[A]

Kind of.

[F]

That's right. It's called Ptarmigan Bay. It's fairly wide, but you can't really use all of that because there's stuff in the way. So we're going down now. I'm pinning it. Probably like, 45, 50 miles an hour for a boat full of people. It's too fast, but we're going. Tornado touches down behind us, and Jeff points back. And I don't think anyone else is really aware, which is good. My kids certainly aren't. They're just huddled underneath and tornado touchdown. And it's like wall. Like Inception, the Earth turns vertical.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[F]

I promise you, this is like my memory is the entire. It wasn't like a funnel full of water. There's a wall of water now chasing us and it's gaining because obviously we're not getting away from it. Hit it even harder. We are maxed now.

[A]

Is the water getting choppy as well?

[F]

Oh, so bad. Like, we're, like, getting air, but it's. But it does not really matter. We're cutting through it. Okay, but it's bad. We're not getting away from it. So I realized at one point, not only it's choppy, but that boat has high shoulders. But we're at a 45 degree pitch, so the water's almost swamping us on the one side, but there's a, like, granite cliff on the side. So I don't have 50 years of piloting experience, but I know it's windy. You're gonna turn into it. Can't do it because there's a cliff right there. Jeff, on the other hand, is telling me to beach the boat because he's kind of freaking out. But he doesn't know us well, and he doesn't know me at all. So he doesn't know if I'm capable of, like, sustaining his life. Like, he doesn't want to die with people he doesn't know.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[F]

So he's giving me a lot of advice, but great guy, tough when I tell it. Told it a lot of times over the last decade to, like, fully experience, again, the emotion that I was. I don't really fully remember, but I remember one thing, and that's when the boat's sideways, I don't know what to do. We're pinned. The water is almost to us. And I remember thinking, okay, my kids are at my feet when we sink. So that's how sure I was this was ending in disaster. When we sink, I'm gonna take those little handles on the back of their life jackets. I'm gonna grab them. I have to remember to swim backwards so that we don't drown because the roof's up. I remember thinking, like, that's what I gotta do when this boat goes down. Which seemed like an inevitability at that time. But I'm standing here, so I'm like, talking to you, so we're okay, but tornado hits us, it goes right over us. So I can only navigate on the gps. So it's pitch blackout. It's hailing so hard. I'm just looking at the gps and this again, seems unreal, but go to my grave swearing this happened. We're just going as fast as that boat will take us in one direction. And then on the gps, all of a sudden, we're just Like a top. Like, we're going at 150 degrees. A different. Like, it's.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[F]

So now we're going in a different direction towards where we can't go. So kind of like, wind her down a bit. Okay, let's correct. And then a second later, again, we're going in a different direction and then wound it back. I've seen the movie Twister. That's my only experience with these things. But it's like, were we, I guess, in the eye of a tornado, or is there two? Like, I don't really know what it was, but then, because I'm not very smart now I assume it's past. We realize this later, but we're, like, now chasing the tornado at 50 miles an hour because we don't know what we're doing.

[A]

Oh, you're so disoriented and you can't see.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[F]

So it's like, pitch black. And then you're worried about other boats coming in. So I'm, like, sticking my head out beside the windshield and then trying to hear something, but you can't really navigate. And then Amy, with the cold allergy, like, the blankets are off of my children. There's, like, people surrounding her, trying to keep her warm. And, like, kids are freaking. And then Amy's not doing well. Oh, Jeff's telling me to beach the boat.

[B]

What does beach the boat mean?

[A]

Just drive it to shore and slam into shore so everyone can get off.

[F]

Get off the lake by any means necessary, I guess. So we can't go to where we're gonna go because it's a dock and the storm's wild. So then we end up in kind of an area. I knew that at a beach. So just ran up, saw a cottage, everyone ran up. And then I was the last one because I tied up the boat. And then when we got in there, everyone's, like, looking at me a little strange because I was putting my head outside of the boat at 100 kilometers an hour. And then I like, welts all over my face. But storm passed, went back. Everyone survived. I've asked other people. It was a fairly common experience. Other than a few, I think it was just so hectic that people didn't lose their minds.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They knew to not make the situation worse. Instinctively.

[F]

A friend, Alec, was like. So I always thought from this comment that I was, like, a hero in this. And that's not the case because as I've reviewed to come on here, I realized, like, all the mistakes that were made are solely mine. And if it wasn't for me, we wouldn't have even been on the boat. But she's like, like, what was it? I didn't hear anything from you. And then he said, well, I just was looking at you and you, you were calm. So I thought, must not be as bad as it. It seems. So I always thought, oh man. Like, I am in charge, people are lucky to have me around. But every single decision made on that entire trip was mine solely. And we ended up under a tornado.

[A]

So obviously evaluating a captain. Yeah, if you drive your passengers into a tornado.

[C]

That's right.

[F]

Not a good deal.

[B]

Yeah, but not panicking is essential.

[A]

Although I don't know. If he was panicked, it would have gone much worse. I mean, I can't imagine. But then everyone would.

[F]

Yeah, maybe Jeff would have taken over. We'd all be dead then, so.

[E]

Oh, scary.

[B]

That is so scary.

[A]

What was the dynamic between you and Jeff, the new alpha male, after that experience? Were you closer? Were you now bonded?

[F]

Yeah, well, I still see him. Him and Andrew did not work out. I don't think you can base a relationship on that traumatic of an experience so early on. But I see him around town because it's Winnipeg, like I said, and we're all friends of friends unrelated to that. But I think it was good. Like that afternoon was the best afternoon, cuz everyone's just ready to go. It was a good party afternoon cuz we all survived, went through it and you just like tell different versions of that event. I remember calling my dad to be like, hey, save the boat. Like this is what happened and boat's on the lift and we're good. And then getting almost no reaction. And then maybe the next summer he just said, oh, hey, remember that thing that you went through last year? The tornado, like took down all the trees in my neighbors. It was verified finally. It was like real. Like it whipped through Brown's island and then came across the bay. And then I think he realized that I wasn't just in some wind.

[A]

Exaggerating. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I thought you were gonna say next summer. He texts you, hey, you owe me $6,800.

[E]

I just looked at the boat.

[F]

No, thankfully not. He's replaced a few props that I busted on his boat. Not that day. I kept it safe.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Oh, harrowing. Look, mine didn't get that extreme, but I know that feeling because we were coming up the locks. It takes a long time to come up in the locks, like maybe 25 minutes. And just watching this insane thunderstorm move over the lake that we're about to get deposited and just going. There's absolutely nothing I can do. I'm stuck in the locks. And sure enough, they open up. We're just in an insane lightning storm in the middle of the lake.

[B]

It's so bad.

[A]

Yeah, you just gotta get, like.

[B]

I guess.

[F]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And there's like a weird lake effect for weather where you can almost see the exact edge of the rain. And you're like, well, I can just zip around there, maybe. Because many times we've been stuck in rain.

[A]

I was looking out and going like, oh, thank God there's other idiots out here. I'm comforted by the fact that these people are on jet skis. And that seems more dangerous, but just barely.

[F]

There's no windshield wipers. So then when it's raining, it gets really awful out there.

[A]

Yeah. I was looking through some tiny sliver between my sunglasses and the windshield and still getting pelted. Well, Mark, thanks for that harrowing tale. Are you guys heading back out soon?

[F]

It used to be every single weekend, but we have one son that plays baseball, and so now every single weekend is baseball. And you kind of hope he doesn't make the good team so that you can actually have a summer summer. But that all ends in July. So then we'll go out literally every weekend. That's the Prairie way. You live in town during the week and then you take off for the lake if you can, if you're lucky enough to have a spot.

[A]

Oh, I'm happy for your kids. That's the best kind of summer.

[F]

It is. Great.

[A]

Well, Mark, great meeting you, brother.

[B]

Thanks for chatting.

[F]

Yeah, you guys too.

[E]

All right.

[A]

We look forward to our third Winnipegian. This has been 2 for 2 success.

[F]

That's right. We're nailing it. Bye, bye, Bye.

[A]

Day.

[B]

Hi.

[A]

Hi. Is this Janine? You're in a kids bunk bed.

[E]

I am in a kids bunk bed, minimally.

[A]

You have two, I would imagine.

[E]

I do have two kids. This is true. And I didn't have a closet and I try to follow the rules.

[B]

This is great. It sounds great.

[A]

Yeah. You've done an excellent job. And where are you, Janine?

[E]

I am in the Pacific Northwest. I was gonna make you guess, but I didn't have any context clues to be more specific of where I am, I'm actually on the Oregon coast. I live in Tillamook.

[F]

Oh, wow.

[A]

Home of Tillamook cheese.

[B]

Love the cheese.

[A]

Is that an enormous operation? Because I always think. Because In N Out famously uses Tillamook cheese. God, Bless them. That's half the reason that place is so delicious.

[F]

Yeah.

[A]

And I do wonder, how big is the Tillamook cheese plant?

[E]

It's pretty big. But it's not the only place they make the cheese now. But it is fairly good size and it's our largest employer here in Tillamook county is the cheese factory there. We have a couple others. And like right now, this is peak season for us. So we as people who live here, do not frequent the cheese factory from about April to October because tourists are there. Oh, busy. And if you do commit to it, I tell every tourist that comes through, just be okay with ice cream at 10:00am when they open, because, like I'm not going at 2:00 clock in the

[A]

afternoon so you can get ice cream. Do they also give out cheese samples?

[E]

They do. Since COVID It's now the little like wrapped cheese.

[D]

Oh yeah.

[E]

They have a full service restaurant and you can get all sorts of stuff in there.

[A]

Oh, do they make a great grilled cheese there?

[E]

I hear that they do. I have the unfortunate affliction of not being able to eat dairy, so I don't know.

[A]

Same girl. I mean, I can. I'm just miserable when I do.

[E]

Correct. Sometimes you commit to the misery if you know you're gonna be home.

[F]

Oh, great.

[A]

So yours is more a little lower gi. Mine's congestion. Yeah, it just fucks me up. Okay, so you have an extreme weather story.

[E]

I do have an extreme weather story to set the stage. It is 2013 and my parents at the time are retired, living in Hawaii. We had our son, who was just about 8 months old. And this would be the first time on an airplane for him where he was was awake and conscious of that as well as to see grandparents in their living space. So we flew to Hawaii for a trip. And you probably know this, Dax. Once you have kids, you as the child are just nothing. They just want the grandkids. My parents sent my husband and I off for a whole day of adventure while they watched our 8 month old. They lived on the side of the island.

[A]

Wait, what island are you on?

[E]

Oahu.

[A]

Oahu, okay.

[E]

The Cocoa trailhead. It's like a super steep mountain. They live kind of in that neighborhood. And it's what, where Bruno Mars had a house. Bounty Hunter supposedly had a house.

[A]

So it's upscale.

[E]

Yes, it was super upscale, fancy schmancy. So that day we took the mopeds out and we rode the mopeds and then we went into Oahu and my husband surfed and I sat on the beach. And then we had had reservations at Turtle Bay on the north part of the island. So just for reference, that's like an hour away. So we head up north, and we stopped along the way. We went to all, like, cutesy little places up there.

[A]

We know that car ride well, Monica. We've done where that fun burger shop was in front of the surf competition or whatever.

[B]

That was cute.

[E]

It's a super fun place. And so Turtle Bay is amazing. We had a great meal on Turtle Bay, right on the waters.

[A]

For people who have seen Sarah Marshall, that's where forgetting Sarah Marshall was shot.

[E]

I forgot about that. We finished dinner. It's sometime in the evening. It's now dark. And we take off to head home, back to the other side of the island. It rains every day in Hawaii. No big deal.

[A]

Did you ride mopeds up there?

[E]

We didn't. We were in a Mini Cooper. Is my cousin's Mini Cooper. She lived with my parents at the time. And we're driving. It starts to rain pretty significantly at one point. And we're just listening to the radio. And then the emergency broadcast alarm comes on.

[A]

Oh, boy.

[E]

And it's listing off all of these counties, towns. I don't know.

[C]

It's all Hawaiian names.

[E]

I don't even know where we are on the island at this point. Listing all these counties and names to be aware of. Flash flood warnings. And we're like, okay, but that's not gonna be us. So we keep driving. And Dave's like, man, these puddles are getting legit in this Mini Cooper. I am hydroplaning kind of a lot. And I go, okay, babe, should we just pull over for a while, like, and just wait this storm out? He's like, I don't think so. I bet we're gonna out drive it. I feel like we don't need to keep driving, but sure, we'll keep going. We keep going.

[B]

Oh, no.

[E]

And it's just. Just pouring. I mean, rain that I've never experienced before in my life. Just torrential downpour. The windshield wipers. I mean, you might as well just not even have him going.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[E]

And he's just two hands on the wheel forward. And all of a sudden, I feel this, like, rush of something hit the side of the car. And I think we've hit a guardrail. I'm like, what are you doing? Stay on the road. I'm not in control of this car anymore. Oh, God, we are literally floating O. What we didn't know was that there was, like, a Creek or a river of some kind on this side. Like, the ocean's on the left side of us. Some type of waterway is over here. Whether it's just a ditch that's overflowing, no idea. But it had crested over at that moment that we drove by, and it started to carry us off.

[A]

Oh, but towards the ocean.

[E]

Correct. I screamed, and he was, like, cranking the wheel and somehow got enough footing or maybe it was not deep water. Whatever. We were able to get off at, like, a side maintenance road. And unfortunately, as soon as we get 20ft, not even maybe 10ft up this road, the car just dies.

[B]

Oh, sure, it's had enough.

[E]

Well, he was like, I screwed up. I, in a panic, hit the gas, not realizing that I was not in control of the car, that we were in water. He's like, I didn't comprehend that. So, as you know, when you hit the gas, you intake all the water and boost the motor. So. So we get up this road, and we find that we are accompanied by about, like, six or seven other cars, other groups of people that are up on this road just kind of hanging out. I immediately burst into tears, because that's my response, because I'm thinking, oh, my God, what if our son had been with us? He's eight months old. What would we be doing? This is so crazy. And Dave, my husband, the calm, cool, collected one, is like, but he's not with us. We're gonna be fine. So I feel like 20, 30 minutes goes by during that time. We turn around, and a Honda Civic just floats right on by. Out to the ocean, out to the ocean, out to the ocean. It's gone. And I'm like, is anyone concerned about those people? We see a city bus, and this is the funniest part. They float through. And you could tell the moment where the bus driver probably goes, yeah, I can't float through. So then he tries to back up, up the city bus.

[C]

That did not work either.

[E]

Thankfully, he was heavy enough to just float forward instead of floating sideways. So I don't know how many people were on said city bus. And then all of a sudden, thankfully, we see sirens. We can see the flashing lights, and the water's receded enough that the fire truck can get through. And all these people who probably are locals are starting to, like, leave. And they know all these other back roads where our car is dead. And I think another group also has a dead vehicle. So we all the fire truck, and they back us out. It's great. We think, perfect. Problem solved. They're going to take us to a fire station so we can figure out where we are to call for help. Because that's the other problem. Cell service wasn't great where we were and we're not from here, so I don't even know how to call a ride. I don't even know where to tell my dad to come and pick us up. Right. We've now called him to say, hey, we're safe, but car is dead. We need to figure out how to get home. The fire department just says, glad we could help you today. And they move on about their day. And so we're just stranded on the side of the road, no idea what to do, how to home. And then Q, random guy in his 50s in a Buick and he's like, are you guys stuck? You know, I kind of heard you talking. I have to turn around. I'm headed to work on the other side of the island. But I'm happy to give you a ride wherever you need.

[C]

Okay.

[E]

It's 8 o' clock at night, it's dark, it's a 50 something year old white male. And my girl feelers are like, no, we don't get in cars with people we don't know. This is a bad choice, we should not do this. And my husband's just like, sure, yeah, yeah. And for some reason he sits in the front seat.

[A]

Well, I think that's the right move in case the guy gets wily, he's gotta be able to attack him.

[E]

So funny. That's exactly what Dave said that you might say, Dax.

[A]

Yeah, it's the logical that are directly behind him so he can strangle him.

[E]

We get in and we head down the road and he says, oh, you know, I'm so sorry I have to stop at home because I have to go all the way around. I was gonna pick up my lunch on my way and now I won't have time because it's gonna take us longer the way we're going. So I need to stop at my house. We don't go to a second location. Like, this is terrible. I can't say anything to Dave in the car. So we get to this man's house and Dave's like, I really need to pee. I'm going to go inside. Oh my God.

[A]

Dave's going to grab a shower and a meal.

[E]

What is happening? Can you just pee in the yard? Yeah, I'm going in this house. He's like, it's going to be fine. You're going to go in with me. And I was like, absolutely not in my mind. I didn't go in. And he was like, no, you went into the foyer and just stood there like a creeper in the foyer of the house. And you wouldn't go anywhere else. And there's like a random foreign exchange student, a random 20 something year old girl hanging out in his house. It was the oddest situation. And he came out and Dave was like, yeah, that was pretty weird. I'm not sure the vibe in that house, but I'm pretty sure she was there because she wanted to be.

[B]

Oh, boy.

[E]

It also could have been that maybe she was forced to be there. We don't know. And I was just like, dear God, why are we in this car? But we get back in the car and he drives us back and all go swimmingly. My dad picks us up wherever. I don't even remember where we rendezvoused at that point. And that was it. But that radio announcement that comes on, it says at the very end, turn around, don't drown.

[A]

Oh, it does.

[E]

Oh, now we take that very seriously. Anytime I hear that, I just stop and make sure I'm not wherever that's supposed to be.

[F]

And.

[E]

And now any rain that we have. Oh, babe, this was turnaround, don't drown rain.

[A]

Right?

[E]

We use that for everything now. That is our marker for how bad things are.

[B]

Scary.

[A]

Well, I'm glad that you guys are safe and that should be my priority. But all I can think about is, was the Mini Cooper salvageable? Did they get it back running?

[E]

No, they did not. So the next day, my dad and Dave went out to go find it and look for it. And what's really funny about that is they're waiting for the tow truck to come to pick that up. Up the tow truck comes and the guys are like, oh, man, I'm really surprised that this still has all the wheels on it. And Dave's like, why do you surprise? Because they're like, this is a really rough neighborhood. I can't believe that the car is not in pieces in the morning. Yeah, but the only silver lining to that is he got that car for like $2,000. They had to total it and insurance gave him eight. So he made money.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

Oh, well, good. He should have given you guys 3,000, split the pro. Janine, it's lovely meeting you.

[B]

Yeah, thanks for calling.

[E]

I want to say one thing. My shout out is to my kids. They listen to this all the time. And my daughter, her name is Camille. And the fun story about that is she was 100% named from watching Parenthood.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[E]

And then my son Archer, who was featured in the said story.

[B]

We're lucky to have you guys as listeners.

[A]

Yeah. Enjoy that Oregon coast. Take care.

[F]

Bye.

[B]

Hi.

[C]

This is crazy. Hold on, let me make sure I'm recording.

[A]

Okay. Where are you at, Samantha?

[C]

I am in Bradford, Ontario, about an hour north of Toronto.

[A]

Oh, lovely. We've had a lot this week of folks from that same area in Ontario.

[B]

It's true.

[A]

I always ask, how close to Muskoka are you?

[C]

About an hour and a half, depending on which part of Muskoka.

[G]

Yeah.

[A]

And do you get up to the lake a lot in the summer?

[C]

As much as possible.

[A]

It's so dreamy.

[C]

It is. It's the best.

[A]

Where does your extreme weather story take place?

[C]

It actually happens in the Kawarthas. So more to the west, but also a very beautiful area of Ontario.

[B]

Oh, nice.

[A]

Kawartha. Say that again.

[C]

Kawartha.

[A]

Never heard of the Kawarthas.

[C]

Before I jump into this story, can I tell you a crazy sidebar story?

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

Monica, you're gonna hate this.

[B]

Uh, oh, is it like a vagina

[A]

mouse or vagina relations or a mouse

[B]

in a water bottle?

[C]

A few weeks ago, I get a call from my sister in law and her and my three nieces. My youngest niece likes to play in their van. And so all the three of them are in there and all of a sudden my middle niece says, mom, why is that cup moving? Because her little sister was playing with this reusable mug. Any guesses what was inside the mug?

[B]

Rat water bottle.

[C]

No, a rat water bottle.

[A]

Oh. Oh, my God. I was joking.

[B]

Number two. This is crazy.

[A]

This is pandemic level.

[B]

This is. You guys check your water bottles. The lid was on. I guess if she was playing with it.

[D]

The lid was on.

[C]

The lid was on.

[A]

What did they do? They turn into squids and liquefy and pour themselves in and reconstitute.

[B]

They can remove their ribs and stuff and like, ugh, that's so disgusting.

[C]

I know. And also, I thought that was like a one in a million story when I heard that.

[D]

That.

[C]

And now I'm like, oh, these rats are just infiltrating our vehicles.

[B]

Oh, dude.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[F]

Disgusting.

[B]

All right, well, now everyone can resume.

[A]

Yeah, y. Resume their terror.

[C]

Okay, so my story takes place back in 2022. It was the May 24long weekend, which is the first long weekend of the summer in Ontario. So tons of people go out, camp, go up north, go to Muskoka. You're opening your cottages. And so my husband And I decide that we are going to go backcountry camping and we're going to bring our five year old daughter with us on this adventure. So we're meeting two of our friends there. So we drive to the Kawarthas. We drive on this very long logging road. So in the middle of nowhere, we park our cars and we start to portage. So we have our canoes, we have all our camping stuff and we have to do this one hour trek to the lake where we're gonna launch our canoes and go and find a camping spot somewhere.

[A]

You Canadians get after it, man. Because the other person we talked to had a lot of portaging. We've heard a lot of portaging lately. You Canadians are like, yeah, it's gonna involve some canoeing to get to where we wanna go.

[C]

We're gluttons for punishment, you know, it's all part of the fun. So we, the lake, everything is great. The weather is beautiful. We launched the canoes. My beautiful daughter is leaned back in the canoe, her five year old self. And she says, mom, this is just the best day ever. And so we're canoeing along and all of a sudden we hear thunder. So we're like, okay, we have to get off the lake. We start counting because that's an indication of how far away the storm is. And we figure we have about 12 minutes. Minutes. So we're paddling along, trying to get to the first bit of land that we see. Our canoe lands on the land. Within two minutes, it is raining aggressively and the winds are insane. So I grab a tarp and I put it over mine and my daughter's head and she's understandably terrified. And I'm like, no, this happens all the time. It's going to blow over quickly and we're going to be on our way and everything's okay.

[D]

Okay.

[C]

The storm came on so quickly that she didn't even have time to like take off her life jacket. So we're under this tarp and all of a sudden I hear a tree snap. And in my head I'm like widowmaker, because that's what they call trees who fall on campers in the middle of the night and kill you.

[A]

Oh boy.

[C]

But I don't hear my husband or my two friends like screaming, saying like, get out of the way or anything like that. So I'm like, it's probably fine. I grab my daughter and kind of tuck her under me as much as I can. And within the same second, bam. A tree lands on my daughter and I. So the impact from the tree catapults my daughter out of my arms.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[C]

Wow.

[A]

Like a loose football.

[E]

Yeah.

[C]

So in my head, I'm like, my daughter is dead. And I brought her on this trip, and now she's gone. I can hear my best friend screaming my daughter's name at the top of her lungs. And so I whip the tarp off of me. And by the grace of God, I hear my daughter say, mom. And I just look at her and I say, run. And I look over, and my friend's husband was coming around, and the look of terror in his eye, I was like, oh, this is bad. And so my daughter runs to him. I, like, hulk this tree off me, get up and start running. Realize that the wind has been knocked out of me. So I'm like, you know that feeling?

[A]

Yeah, you're gonna die.

[C]

And I'm screaming, get under the canoe. Cause now I'm like, this whole forest is coming down on top of us. And my friend's like, sam, we can't get under the canoe. Because when Alex, her husband, was trying to pull it in, the wind was so bad that it lifted him off the ground.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[C]

We again are just hiding under a tarp. And I'm like, this is it for us. Like, we're done. Nice knowing you. So when the tree fell on me, my ankle popped out of the socket and then popped back in. So I'm injured at this point. Luckily, I think, because my daughter was wearing her life jacket, it absorbed the impact of the tree falling on her and saved her life because it, like, protected her.

[F]

Wow.

[C]

Basically from beginning to end, it's five minutes after this storm passes. I'm like, get me the heck outta here. We're going back to our car. This weekend is done before it started. I'm traumatized. You're pulling the ripper. We're done. And so we get back to the portage trail, and in my head, I have this, like, third degree leg sprain. I have no idea what just happened. I'm terrified. And I'm like, I just need to get to my car and go home. No. When we get back to the portage trail, it's literally like a giant stomped through the forest. The trail is completely gone. The forest is completely torn up. We have to, like, hike over and under trees to get back to our vehicles.

[A]

Dragging this canoe the whole time.

[C]

No, we left the canoes there. We were like, we'll deal with that after. Like, let's just get to our home base. We get back to the vehicles, it took us, like, two hours to hike back to them. We get back to the cars, and there's no way we can drive it out. The logging trail is. Is gone. The forest is destroyed. There's nothing. And I'm injured. So luckily, I had a tiny bit of Service. I call 91 1, and they're like, yep, you're not the only one out there. We're sending a military helicopter to come pick you up. Wow.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Oh.

[C]

The military helicopter comes, they strap me to a board, strap my daughter on top of me. She instantly passes out from, like, shock and strife. What happened? It's called, like, a Drenchero. I always say it wrong, but it's essentially like a tornado, but it's a huge gust of air that's more like an arrow. Travels really far, really fast. And the radars can't really pick up on it the same way they do a normal thunderstorm or a normal tornado. And that's why there was no warning.

[F]

Whoa.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[C]

Luckily, right before I get strapped into the. A bodyboard thing, I text my mom and I say, we're going to this hospital, bless her soul. She drives four hours, one way to pick me and my daughter and my husband up from the hospital. Her two friends had to stay there and hike out over, like, three days.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[C]

Because again, the vehicles couldn't get out. Luckily, all I had was a sprain. My daughter didn't even have a screen scratch on her body. And then my husband and a group of his friends and our friends who were there with us spent the next three weeks chainsawing out the logging road so they could get our vehicles.

[A]

Oh, my gosh. This is nuts.

[B]

Why didn't the military helicopters take the others? I mean, I know.

[A]

Limited space.

[B]

Yeah, but three days?

[A]

Okay.

[B]

He could have died also.

[A]

All right, so we have some photos.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Okay, I'm looking at one. Someone in a blue jacket standing next to a tree that's fallen over. Is that the specific tree? No. Or just one of them?

[F]

Bazillion.

[A]

Yeah. This whole forest is leveled.

[G]

Whoa.

[C]

So there is one picture with a canoe and, like, a hat in it.

[A]

Yes, I'm looking at it now.

[C]

That's the tree that fell on us.

[F]

Oh, boy.

[C]

So we were under that.

[A]

Oh, wow. And a tree fell in someone's car.

[C]

Yep. My friend's vehicle.

[B]

Oh, my.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[F]

No shit.

[A]

Three weeks. Yeah. There's covered in three fallen trees.

[F]

Oh, my God.

[A]

Yeah, you don't really hear about that kind of. You hear about tornadoes and Cyclones. That's wild.

[C]

Yeah. The military guy said to my husband, we're going back out because I think 22 people died from that storm, from trees falling on them. So we had the best of a bad situation.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh, well. Samantha. Okay.

[F]

Yeah.

[E]

Yes.

[C]

Lovely meeting you too. Doc's. I have to say, my mom passed away March of 2025 at the age of 62.

[A]

Oh, I'm sorry.

[C]

From a rare and aggressive type of breast cancer called metaplastic carcinoma. Less than 1% of people get this type of cancer, but I was her caregiver, just like you were with your dad. And your description of, like, the immediate aftermath of grief and feeling that, that moment of relief and your talk you had with Anderson Cooper, it just captures that specific experience of being a caregiver for a sick and dying parent so well. So I just appreciate you sharing and writing, and grief is very lonely, even if you're in it with siblings or other family members, it's so lonely. And you just capture the experience so well. So I appreciate that.

[A]

Oh, yeah, My pleasure. Thank you. And I'm so sorry.

[C]

Yeah, thank you. She was the best. And, Monica, please make another. Beth's dead.

[B]

We just might.

[C]

I also have to shout out my son, Mason. He was very upset that this story involves his sister and not him, so.

[D]

Oh, sure.

[C]

Mason, Lilah, I love you both.

[B]

Thanks for chatting with us.

[A]

Yeah. Lovely meeting you. Have a great summer.

[B]

Bye.

[C]

Yes, you too.

[E]

Bye.

[F]

Bye.

[B]

High. These trees are falling on people.

[A]

The rats are in the.

[B]

The rats are in the water.

[A]

The rats are in the drinking containers. The trees are falling. Happy summer.

[B]

Happy summer.

[A]

I never worry about trees. And here we go. I mean, they're coming down left and right.

[B]

They really are. It's time to worry.

[A]

I got to think about this, because, as you know, every time we do one of these camping prompts. I want to go camping, but now I really got. I got to eye the surrounding. Do some core samples. All right.

[B]

Love you.

[A]

Love you.

[F]

Do you want to sing a tune

[E]

or something with a theme song?

[A]

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 armchairs, we'll get some suggestions on the fly rhyme. Fish on the fire rhyme dish.

[E]

Enjoy.

[A]

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