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- [00:00]
Advertiser
We've all had those nights, the ones where sleep doesn't come easy. Sleep eludes us when we're too warm, too uncomfortable, too tangled in the stories of our own lives. That's where Chilipad by Sleep Me comes in. The Chilipad works with your current mattress. It's a water based mattress topper that lets you personalize your sleep temperatures anywhere from 55 to 115 degrees. You can even program temperature shifts to trigger deep sleep phases. Everyone around me knows that I am not so nice when I haven't slept and so I love my Chilipad. Visit www.sleep.me moth to get your chili pad and save 20% with Code Moth. This special offer is available for the Moth listeners and only for a limited time. Order it today with free shipping and try it out for 30 days. You can return it for free. If you don't like it with their sleep trial, visit www.sleep.me moth because every story deserves a good night's sleep.
- [01:03]
Wayfair Advertiser
It's summer, which for me means staring longingly out of my apartment window at my neighbors backyards. They have gatherings, barbecues, general leisure to soothe my jealous non green space. Having heart, I daydream about what my backyard would look like. Browsing Wayfair's selection of outdoor furniture helps me greatly in this delusion. Patio sets, fire pits, croquet equipment, y'.
- [01:27]
Chloe Salmon
All.
- [01:27]
Wayfair Advertiser
They even have fountains. A girl can dream. Until my backyard day comes, Wayfair's selection of indoor home goods will fill the void. My TV stand and dressers are great additions to my apartment. They really have something for every style in every home, plus free and easy delivery. What's not to love about that shop? Outdoor furniture, grills, lawn games, and way more for way less. Head to Wayfair.com right now to explore a huge outdoor selection that's W A Y-F-A-I-R.com Wayfair Every style, every Home.
- [02:03]
Chloe Salmon
Welcome.
- [02:04]
To the Moth Podcast. I'm your host for this week, Chloe Salmon. Today we're talking about a true cultural icon, an object of obsession for many, immortalized in countless movies and songs, and the ultimate symbol of freedom. Any guesses? This episode is all about cars. Whether it's your pride and joy or a hunk of junk that gets you where you need to go. Or, you know, maybe it's both. The cars we spend our time in are filled with stories of close calls, sing alongs, and road trip realizations. My first car was a used green Oldsmobile that I got when I was a teenager. I was really grateful for the freedom it offered me, but it definitely wasn't winning any awards for, like, the coolest car on the road. It was a tank. I'd grit my teeth every Kansas summer when the AC blew out only hot air and roll my eyes every time I pulled up to a drive thru, only for the driver's side window to not budge down an inch. One stormy night, driving home from my job at the grocery store, I found myself in the middle of a flash flood on a pitch black back road. My car stuttered to a halt and died. And I was just completely filled with panic. I called my dad for help and sat and watched the water inch further and further up, hoping that my car would stay on the road. Not only did it stay firmly put until my dad arrived in his truck so I could jump to safety the next day. To all of our amazement, it started right back up again when I put the key in the ignition. My tank of an Oldsmobile had kept me safe and we cruised together for many more years with much more respect on my end. Our first story this week is from Oscar Saavedra. He told it at a DC Story slam where the theme of the night was intentions. Here's Oscar live at the Moth.
- [04:05]
Oscar Saavedra
How's everybody doing today? All right, I'm here because of you. You convinced me to do this. This is my first time here, so I'm a little nervous. So make some. All right, so as everybody knows, and as he mentioned, my name is Oscar. I am 100% Mexican, born and raised there. So, you know, as a teenager growing up, we all did things of which we remember hiding from our parents. You know, we all have those times where we slip up. So I'm 15 years old. Of course, I'm a 90s baby. Any 90s babies in here? Yes. So. So I'm like watching the Fast and the Furious and I'm like, I cannot wait to get my learner's permit and I'm going to do my thing. So the day comes and I get my learner's permit and I'm like, I cannot wait. My dad taught me how to drive when I was like 14 years old. So I'm like, I'm away from my mom to go to sleep and I'm going to just slip out for a little bit. So I go and I have my best friend and I'm like, listen, tonight we're going out. I'm gonna take. I'm gonna borrow my mom's car. And, you know, we're just gonna go out and cruise. So he's like, all right, I'm down. And we didn't have cell phones, so we kind of had a set time where it's like, I'm gonna pick you up at this time. I'm gonna flash the lights, just come out. So my mom goes to sleep, and of course, me being me, I go out, I take her keys. She had, like, a van. It wasn't even, like, a sports car. Like, yo, I look like a soccer mom in this van. So I'm like, whatever. I just want to drive. And so I pick him up. I'm like, I'm flashing my lights. He comes out, and of course I'm excited. It's like two in the morning, and this is, like, in Howard county in Columbia. I'm like, we good. Like, we good. You know, this is a soccer mom van. No one's gonna pull us over. We don't look suspect at all, right? So I'm like, all right, let's go. We just cruising. I'm like, and she had the ox course. So I'm like, you know, me being. I'm like, yo, put some Daddy Yankee on. Like, yo, we just gonna cruise. So I'm like, all right. So we, like jamming. We got the volume all the way up. We're cruising. We're not even going. We have no destination in mind. We're just driving. And so I'm like, all right, we cruising. We're cruising. We thinking we cool. And next thing you know, I run a stop sign, and of course, boom, we get hit from the side. So I'm like. So I'm looking at him, he's looking at me. I'm like, yo, I'm Mexican. You African American, man. Like, young dude. Like, we. If the cops pull up, we. They not playing with us. So I'm like, nah, we can't. Like, my mama's going. And if you're Mexican, I don't know about everybody else, but if you're more scared of your mom than you are of the police, like, that's just a fact. So I'm like, yo, I'm thinking of my mom. Like, yo, I'm sorry, but we gotta leave it. I mean, it felt like a Migos song. We like, skirt, skirt. And we leave. Yo, we bail. He was like, what are you doing? I'm like, nah. Like, you don't understand. Like, no. So. So we get back. My intention was to bring the car back in one piece with no scratches. And we're living in an apartment. There's no reserve Parking. There's no garages. So when I came back, the parking spot, somebody took it. And I'm like, my mama's gonna kill me. Like, nah, this not gonna work. So I park it somewhere else. I didn't sleep all night. And I'm like, my mom wakes up, she starts taking a shower. Cause she used to drop me off at school. So I'm like, I didn't sleep all night. I'm like, hey, Ma, I know you're taking a shower, but I'm gonna go get the car, you know, so that we could leave. Cause I don't wanna be late. I got an exam. So she's like, yeah, yeah, go get it. So I go, and it's like a big scratch. The headlight is all bent in. And I pull up. So I'm like. I go in the house and I have to, like, fake. Like I don't know what happened. I'm like, my. Somebody hit the car. I'm like, yo, call.
- [08:34]
Chloe Salmon
Like.
- [08:36]
Oscar Saavedra
I'm like, ma, come. Like, she's like, what happened? And she comes out and she's just, like, mad. And to this day, like, she does not know. She does not know what happened. But the funny part is, like, when I signed up for this, they were like, you can either have this on record or you can keep it. Soon I was like, let me put it on record. And then in a few days, I'm going to tell my mom, hey, you ever heard of the Moth? I got a story there I want you to hear.
- [09:17]
Chloe Salmon
That was Oscar Seavedra. Oscar, if you're listening and you haven't gotten around to telling your mom about the car, now's your chance. Let us know how it goes. Up next is Nina Slowinski. Nina told this story at a story slam produced by the Moth Education program at Skidmore College. The theme of the night was Transformations. Here's Nina live at the Moth.
- [09:46]
Oscar Saavedra
Great.
- [09:46]
Chloe Salmon
Thank you. Okay. My parents have been divorced since I was, like, a little kid, which is fine. But with that came, like, a lot of associations. My dad kept the house. My mom moved out. My dad got a new car, which was, like, so cool at the time because it was a red Honda crv. And he was very particular on that choice. He was like, you'll always know it's me when I come to pick you up at school. That way he wouldn't fit in with all, or he would stand out of, like, the silver cars and the black cars and the white cars and the mundane cars, he thought. But he. He was really into his car and himself. And my mom moved on pretty quickly, and she is great, and my dad is great, too. But it took him a long time. I mean, he grew out his hair really long. He went through a lot of different, like, glasses styles. He had his car, like, littered with, like, CDs on, like, the folding mirror of, like, Mary Gaucher and. And Lucinda Williams and Greg Brown. And I didn't know that the radio existed until I would drive with my mom, because my dad would just play CDs all the time. And, I mean, his car had, like, a snack compartment. It was decked out. He had, like, an eyeball in his antenna. And he was kind of like this artist growing up. So it kind of stuck with him, I guess. And so he grew up with the car a little bit, and I grew up with the car a little bit. And by the time high school came, I liked spending nights in with my dad doing not weird things. I think I just dressed weird. Like, it would be winter, and I would wear a sundress and a bandana and Converse, and none of it matched. Not that it has to, but it didn't. And my dad never questioned it once. He just. We would go grocery shopping at night. We would take the groceries, put them in the car. That'd be it. We'd come home, we'd go out to Barnes and Nobles. I'd get a bad teen romance book, like Sarah Dessen or, like, from the Pretty Little Liars series. I feel really guilty admitting that, but it's true. And then we would go to five guys, and he's a vegetarian, so I would get a burger, and he would get the sandwich with, like, every vegetable on it, which didn't taste really good. But he would go in. I would see him go in, like, through the glass, get our order, come out, and we would eat it in the car listening to Mary Gaucher or Lucinda Williams, as though we were eating in five guys, but the music was slightly better. And we'd drive home and we would turn the car off and sit in the silence in the car, just the two of us, even though we were home. That was really important that we just spent a few more minutes there. We really lived in the car together at times. But the car got older and I got older. And it was my junior year in high school, and my dad was driving me to my mom's house, as he always did, since I would switch between their houses really often. And he'd gotten a new car and I'd noticed, and I, of course, I complained. And we got in the car and he's driving to Mom's house and he pulls into a gas station where his car is his dead car. And we look at it and he says, I just wanted you to have the chance to say goodbye to it, which was really sweet. And it kind of hit me then that we were in a silver Toyota Camry, the car that he'd never wanted, and we were saying goodbye to this red, boxy, oversized car that he'd really wanted for. I think since he was like a kid. And I think in that moment we kind of both grew up a little bit. Thank you.
- [13:59]
That was Nina's Nina is a storyteller, theater director and playwright. She's grateful to have graduated from Skidmore College in 2019, just before COVID hit with a Bachelor of Science in Theater. To see a photo of Nina, her dad, and the car, head to our website themoth.org Extras thank you to both of our storytellers this week for sharing their stories with us and to you for listening. Until next time, from all of us here at the Moth, have a story worthy week.
- [14:36]
Julia Purcell
Chloe Salmon is a producer on the Moth's mainstage and Story Slam teams, a director on the main stage, and a member of the Pitch Line team. Her favorite Moth moments come on show days when the cardio is done, the house lights go down, and the magic settles in. This episode of the Moth podcast was produced by me, Julia Purcell with Sarah Austin, Janess, Sarah Jane Johnson and Chloe Salmon. The rest of the Moth's leadership team includes Katherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Clouche, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Gladowski, and Aldi Kaza. Moth stories are true as remembered and affirmed by Storyteller. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your story and everything else, go to our website themoth.org.