Adrienne McGillis (5:02)

Anyway.

Becky Feldman (5:05)

So in the days leading up to this encounter, I was like, freaking out about everything. I was like, what do I wear? And I'm googling Like, what's the best chapstick for kissing? And what would my mom think? And one thing that I was worrying about was how I would pay the escort, because you do have to pay in all cash. But this is like a high class escort. And I was like, well, how do high class people give someone cash? Do they just hand them for your cash? So I was just like. I decided that the classy thing for me to do is put all of this cash in a thank you card. So I found this thank you card that had a phrase on it that I thought would potentially encompass his services. It read, thank you for your awesomeness. So the night of the encounter, I meet my escort at this bar in the Sheraton. I mean, he's so good looking, brown hair, trim, great body, looks like, you know, the male escort version of like Matt Bomer from Magic Mike. And we're sitting at the Sheraton bar and we're talking a little bit. And this guy is just like everyone else in Los Angeles. He wants to be an actor and a singer, but has like a lot of side hustles, including hustling. And eventually we make our way to my hotel room and at this point I so anxious that I could have barfed. And we're like continuing this small talk and suddenly I realized like, oh, I think he's like waiting for me to be the one to initiate this. So I very awkwardly whisper, I want you to kiss me now. And he smiles so seductively. And we just start going at it and it's delightful. My body remembers what to do. And after I have two orgasms in at most a minute and a half, honestly, it felt like I was in this different reality. I felt like a woman who had a working body and I felt normal and I was just elated. So when he asked if I want to have sex, I hesitate for a second because I wanted to so bad. But this voice in the back of my head was telling me, becky, if you do this, you're going to ruin this night. So I tell him I can. And instead of blaming it on this non existent medication, I tell him all about vestibulodynia. And he gets this very inquisitive look on his face and he grabs his phone and he starts looking up the pelvic pain in this physiotherapy database. And he's like giving me suggestions because as it turns out, he has another side hustle and that's being a physical therapy assistant. So, you know, out of all of the partners that I've had it was this escort, this two hour long fake boyfriend who was the one who tried to like validate my pain. And because I finally knew what that could feel like, I started dating like right after that. So at the end of the night I handed the escort his thank you card and I'm sure when he talks shop with his peers he's probably like this fucking weirdo. Give me a thank you card. But you know what? He deserved it. Thank you for your awesomeness.

Kate Tellers (8:21)

That was Becky Feldman Becky is a Los Angeles based writer and actor who loves talking about sexy topics, whether it's on her podcast about romance novels called Too Stupid to Live or her solo show, Tight A Night of Painfully Sexy Stories and Now From Sex to Laughter My sister recently sent me a text in passing about how she was visiting one of her oldest friends and over the course of the evening she laughed so hard that her rib popped out. As her big sister, I'm arguably the first person to make her laugh. So how do you think I reacted exactly? I made it my mission to make her laugh so hard every time we see each other that her ribs are are popping. I even text her follow ups hey, how many times did you pop a rib at Christmas? A bar has been set. Fellow big sisters and chronic high achievers. You feel me? And yes, I confirmed she says the pain is worth it. All of this talk about human nature has got me thinking of another essential aspect of being human telling stories. So why not get up on stage at a moth story slam? To find one near you, visit themoth.org events. You can also pitch us your story at the Moth Pitchline. For Instructions, go to themoth.org pitchline after the break. A dangerous joke. Be back in a moment.

Mark Solinger (9:42)

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Kate Tellers (10:41)

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Adrienne McGillis (12:00)

So this is a story about a joke so bad that it was in fact quite dangerous. So my dad loves a good punch line. And when I was about 12 and my brother was 8, we were sitting around the kitchen table telling like 4th grade level jokes and all of a sudden my brother perked up because he had this really great joke he was going to tell and he said, well, I need a pad of paper. And so my mom got him a piece of paper out of the kitchen junk drawer and a pencil and he hunched over it and started drawing. And my dad watched this with interest and my brother spun the paper around and my dad peered at it and if you could imagine like an 8th grader drawing two stick figures with their hands sticking straight out like this and their legs akimbo and between them these two stick figures was a hula hoop sized circle. And in that side of that circle was another like basketball size proportionally to the people. And he said what is it? And my dad looked at it and he said, I don't know. And my brother said it's two men walking abreast. And so you know, it's Got all of the markers there. It's got boobs and badly drawn figures in a pun. So my dad starts laughing and my brother is just filled with this like little boy glee. And you know how like when you're with your loved ones and you start laughing, you can like feed off of each other. And my dad got laughing so hard he was crying, and all of a sudden he fell out of his chair onto the kitchen floor and he started to turn purple. And so my mom, who's a nurse, cleared the area and was about to form cpr. And I ran over to the phone and had dialed nine and was making ready to dial one. And he sat up and he looked at all of us in confusion and he said, why am I on the floor? And so my mom calmed everyone down and she said to him, she said, well, you need to go to the doctor because that's not okay for like a 40 year old man to faint. And so the next day or two days later, he went to his family practitioner and he told the doctor what had happened. And the doctor looked at my dad and he said, well, what was the joke? And so my dad asked for a pad of paper and he told the joke and the doctor looked at him with incredulity. And so my dad starts laughing and remembering his laughter from the night before, he gets laughing so hard that he got woozy. And so the doctor said, well, we need to run some tests because that's not normal. So they did some blood work and everything came back normal. And he called my father, who's a college professor, and he said, we think everything's okay. And so my dad, who was in his lab at the time, told his grad students the whole story. And he got to laughing so hard that he got woozy and had to sit down. And so he called the doctor back and said, it happened again. And so the doctor said, well, let's run some more tests and an MRI or CT scan or something later. They're pretty sure nothing is wrong. But my dad is just laughing so hard he's cutting off his airway. And so the doctor says, then just stop telling the joke. So my family were not allowed to tell that joke anymore. And if there could be a moral to the story, it's that while laughter is the best medicine, sometimes too much of a good thing can kill you.

Kate Tellers (16:16)

That was Adrienne McGillis. Adrienne is an architect living in Columbia, South Carolina. Unfortunately, her father, a professor of immunology, passed away on Christmas Day in 2024. When we emailed Adrienne to let her know that the story would be re airing. She told us that her dad got a huge kick out of the story the summer it was first aired. He would pull out his cell phone and play it for anyone who sat next to him for too long. He just loved that it made people laugh. Adrian hopes that you'll get a chuckle out of it too. That brings us to the end of our episode. Thanks so much for joining us. From all of us here at the Moth, have a story worthy week.

Adrienne McGillis (16:56)

Kate Tellers is a Storyteller host, Senior Director at the Moth and co author of their fourth book, how to Tell a Story. Her writing has been featured in Mick Sweeney's and the New Yorker. This episode of the Moth podcast was produced by Sarah Austin, Janess, Sarah Jane Johnson and me, Mark Solinger. The rest of the Moth leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Christina Norman, Jennifer Hickson, Marina Cluce, Suzanne Rust and Patricia Urenia. The Moth podcast is presented by Odyssey. Special thanks to their Executive producer Leah Rhys Dennis. All Moth stories are true as remembered by their storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website themoth.org.