Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Monica Monsoon, Duchess of Duluth. Wow, that's me. I rolled out a couple of oldies. Because nostalgia. Thanksgiving. Friendsgiving. Yeah. It's here. You like to say Friendsgiving. No, Monsgiving.
Well, Monsgiving is its own thing. It's different than Thanksgiving. I do a day. Yeah. Where I cook for only. Sorry. Sorry. No one's mad. Sorry, guys. I only cook for like eight people because so far in my current kitchen, that's all I can do. Right. You'll widen out the net when you have a full kitchen. Yeah, that's something for us to think about.
Because then is that just Thanksgiving again, right? Sure, yeah. So I invite eight people over pre-Thanksgiving. It's happening this year on this Friday. Oh, okay. Yeah. And, well. Tomorrow. Well, for the listeners, it was already Friday. Oh, yeah. Last Friday. Yeah, okay. Anyway, and I make Alison Roman's Thanksgiving. Right, correct. I make the whole thing. Yep. I already had a big issue with turkey. You called her in a pinch.
Oh, last year I called her in a pinch, but this year I've already had a big issue with turkey. I tried to order one from McCall's, couldn't get it in time. We had to do some pivots and squishes, and I thought maybe I was going to have to move into chicken territory. Yeah, but I didn't. I didn't. We made it work. Thank God.
Thank God, I know. I'm not even there, so I don't care what you serve. I don't make the list to Monsgiving. This year. I have to tell you, it does make me think of Mons pubis. I understand. Okay. That's Monsgiving, and then... Then we do our Thanksgiving, which is the best day of the year. This is my happiest time of year. I have Monsgiving. Then I have our pod Thanksgiving, which is the best, secret turkey. Then I have...
Black Friday with Callie. That's a tradition. Yeah. Then Saturday, I have Pig Day with Jess where we get my Christmas tree. Yeah, it's one, two, three, four. Yeah. Pace yourself. Really something. Pace yourself. I will. Okay, well, Brie and I always called it Thanksgiving. And tell me about that. We call it Christmas and Thanksgiving. That's cute. I don't know why. That's cute. Same way we had the In-N-Out theme song.
As you know, we would just isolate a part of a word and change it. And that was for whatever reason, our comedic overlap. Isn't that so funny how people. build these things in relationships and they don't transfer over right
This is the story of Aaron and I's life. Like, we're laughing so hard and everyone's annoyed out of their mind. We're just so deep now into these layers. But the things you and Aaron joke about and stuff, do you want to be doing that with everybody else and it's just not work? or you really only do that there? Probably I would like it if more people had, because I'm having the most fun.
No, I don't want to say that that's triggering. You and I have a lot of fun, things we both find to be really funny. But I'm most happy when I'm living in a comedic zone that is... unique and novel and and i don't you know yeah yeah i like i like it yeah oh i just know that i can sometimes spend hours with erin like just lap lap you know you know the stories like
My mother-in-law came in and was like, worried. She said to Chris, I'm like, what is wrong with them? They've been laughing in there for, I don't know, she got suspicious maybe we were on drugs or something. That's fair. Given the history of both of us, it's a legitimate concern. But yeah, I like it. If I could feel that way all the time, I probably would want to. Yeah, that's interesting.
Because I don't think so. I think what's born in the space between two people is very unique. I never try to like pull in what was funny over there into a different relationship. Got you. I remember it being kind of a relief. So I had a friend, still a friend, Cole Garlic. When we were young, his name was Colin. He changed it. Oh, my God. Yeah. And you're allergic to him now. Now I am. Garlack.
Oh, wow. Not garlic, but colon garlic. You could see on a playground. At any rate, I started hanging out with him in sixth grade, and we liked to be so weird. The kind of faces I was making in the mirror to embarrass myself, he and I would do for hours. And do you know who has it? Lincoln. Yeah, you've talked about that. Lincoln and I will... Half the time we look at each other, we go...
That's funny. And it just goes on and on and on. And we love making the ugliest faces we can. And not everyone likes that. And so I feel like, oh, this is so great. I got this back again because I don't see Cole. He lives in Michigan. And it's a part of me that really needs. They come out. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Okay. Thanksgiving. Tell us a crazy Thanksgiving incident. We're using the word incident now. Let's see. Oh. Oh.
If you're sensitive to meat, human meat. You were very sensitive. You can't listen to this episode for sure. I am not listening. But I don't think there's really any triggers here. It's a good episode. We are thankful for our Armchair Anonymous listeners and our Armcherries. Yes, yes. So please enjoy Crazy Thanksgiving Stories.
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to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash dax to get started today. You gotta know. I'm gonna keep on shining. Hi there. Hi, nice to meet you. What a dazzling closet you're in. Lots of stimuli.
Very much. You'll appreciate actually this shelf collapse recently. And yesterday I forced my husband to fix it because I was like, I'm talking to Dax and Monica. I got to get in the closet. Wow. So it's got to be perfect. So we're back in tip top shape here. We need a. hard deadline us husbands we'll say we're gonna do something for like a year and a half right we're the worst about that
Yeah, I won't say how long it had been down for his sake, but it was more than a day. To be fair, in my armoire, my shelf has collapsed also, and I'm also not doing anything about it. Yeah, I'm thrilled that we're back in action here because I like you, Monica. I love my clothes. I want them to have their special space. Where are you at? It's Eva, yeah?
Yeah, yeah, you got it. I am in Richmond, Virginia. Oh, wonderful. We're increasing our callers from Virginia. I like that. You're spreading the word. Absolutely. Now, does your Thanksgiving story take place in Richmond? It does. This was... Probably 2018. And actually at the time, my husband and I were living in New York. We're high school sweethearts. So our family is actually all.
live in Richmond. And so we'd always come home for the holidays and we hadn't really joined the families together yet for like a big holiday meal. So this year we actually just gotten married. And so our moms were like, Hey, we should do one big Thanksgiving. meal with everybody together and my mom offered to host which was great very generous very our parents knew each other well but it's the first time hosting the big family thing there was some pressure she wanted it to go really well
And my mom is great cook, great host. But one thing I will say about my mom, which she wouldn't. Cover your ears, mom. To admit, but she's not the best when it comes to time management. Oh, sure. It's hard in the kitchen. It's shockingly hard. People make schedules for the day of like, this goes in the oven at this time.
This come and that comes out and this goes in. You got to be organized. Yeah. Yeah. My mom's more like, I've got this. She's not writing anything down, really. Yeah. Wing it. Absolutely. She always pulls it off. The guests would never know. But my sister and I, we know. We experience it. And that hour before people arrive, it can get pretty dicey. So Monica, fun fact, I'm a Virgo too. So knowing this, I was like...
I got to keep this on track. I'm going to show up early just to help her out, make a schedule, keep things going. To my surprise and to my mom's credit, she's got it under control. We've got the turkey on track. Table is set. Things are really going well. And I stopped and was like, We're going to really pull this off without any last minute
meltdowns, any chaos. And I'm sure you can sense where this is headed. Can I ask, what was the scheduled kickoff time and when did mom start getting at it? Mom started the day before. Yeah, you got to start sometimes two days. Sometimes they're not. October. Yeah. For your stock. Yeah. I want to say we're like a 4 p.m., 5 p.m. type of Thanksgiving, like not afternoon, but not normal dinner time. So an early evening was the plan. I'm glad I asked because I think we generally are aiming more.
for a two or a three. This was, I think, maybe 4 p.m. That is definitely not the time we ate, though. Oh. Okay, okay. So about an hour before everyone arrived and my mom was like, hey, we got to take the mashed potatoes out of the fridge. She had made them the night before. Again, great preparation ahead. She took them out of the fridge, but...
the potatoes were in like a cold glass casserole dish. So she's an experienced cook. She knows like dishes like that, you can't just put them right in the hot, hot oven. So she's like, let's sit them out and let them warm up a little bit before we stick them in the oven.
The place that my mom chose to stick the potatoes to come to room temperature was on top of the oven, which had obviously been on all day cooking the turkey. But also we've had things on that stovetop all day. We had just taken something off. And luckily, my mom had walked to the other side of the kitchen to grab something because at least what felt like within a few seconds, the potatoes and the dish completely exploded. Explosion, yes. The glass just shattered. Fuck.
yeah i knew that could happen but i guess in my mind i thought it would crack sort of this was a full i mean essentially a bomb a detonation yeah oh wow It was so loud. My mom and I, I don't know why this was our first thought, but we both thought someone had like fired a gun in the house.
Dad's firing his gun again on Thanksgiving. Didn't take us long to realize what happened because there was glass and potatoes everywhere in the kitchen. This is a normal-sized kitchen, but I'm not exaggerating when I say there were shards of glass every square in this kitchen. Other side of the room.
in the sink. Fuck. What about the other food? In the other food? Yeah. It grenaded. We have gravy cooking on the stovetop completely filled with glass. We have just set the rolls out to rise and they're just laced with charred glass. This is devastating. It's devastating. And of course she works so hard to like do this on time and it's just a wash. And so we like. Kind of presses what happened. And then I looked at my mom and was like, are we still hosting Thanksgiving?
like we have this turkey in the oven but like that was pretty much all that was left and people were bringing a couple dishes the things you're looking forward to at Thanksgiving were pretty much ruined other than the turkey and looking back we really should have called the whole thing off I was married to my husband like
who are we trying to impress? My mom and I are borderline approval junkies. So we were like, we'll just make it work. Not really thinking through what the next couple hours are going to look like. So first things first, I call my husband and I'm like, one, you got to tell your...
parents like we're not eating at four or five or whatever it was like we got to push this whole thing back don't get into it with them on the phone just tell them there was an incident and we'll explain later and then of course I was like and then you need to get over here because I need an extra set of hands on this cleanup like this is like a
hours long job so he gets over there and then one easter egg that i forgot to mention which is we actually weren't able to get everyone together on thanksgiving day this was the day after thanksgiving black friday so Luckily, grocery stores were open. So I called my sister and was like, hey, you got to go to the store and pick some store bought potatoes and rolls and gravy up and bring it over so we have something to serve with this turkey.
Of course, my mom's listening to me like rumbling, like, I can't believe I have to store store bought food on Thanksgiving. And I was like, there's been an explosion. Yeah. We're in a bomb site right now. We got to make do with what we got. Absolutely.
Absolutely. My mom was looking around and was like, oh man, what a shame. Like I have all these extra sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts I didn't end up using, but those things take so long to actually cook and like soften up in the oven. So we just don't have time. We had 30 minutes before his family was going to show up.
It was Black Friday. I had done some shopping that morning and I had gotten my mom an air fryer and it was in my trunk. And I was like, I don't want to ruin her Christmas gift early, but. I know she wants this to go really well. She wants to serve like a full Thanksgiving meal. We didn't have any vegetables to serve. So I was like, hold on a second. I go out in the trunk.
get the air fryer and was like, Merry early Christmas. It's 2018. She's like, I don't know what an air fryer is. You're early on the curve. Yeah, I think we went 2020 with our big deep air fry dive. The Oreos wrapped in the... Oh, the croissants. Well, this was just Brussels sprouts. Oh, right. Well.
But she, of course, was like, what am I supposed to do with this? And I explained, like, we can have crispy, delicious veggies ready in, like, 20, 30 minutes. So we popped that open, we chopped up some veggies, and we had them on the table, like, by the time. Everybody was there to eat. And of course, it wasn't as good as it would have been if my mom had made it. But we have pretty much all the hits for Thanksgiving. And also it made for obviously great.
conversation over at the dinner with everybody. My mom still jokes that she finds pieces of glass in her kitchen to this day. I was going to say, you might have been able to answer the conundrum when they entered and you said, whatever you do, do not take your shoes off today. Keep your shoes.
on throughout the house oh yeah we were shoes on in that house for months my mom had to wear shoes forever it was a disaster now open question to everybody there seems to be such a distaste for anything store-bought but i'm just gonna add I've bought many of rotisserie chicken from my local grocery store. It's so much better than a human could cook in their own kitchen. Not Monica's. Rotisserie. I love rotisserie chicken, but it's not as good as when I make a full chicken.
Monica, have you gone to Lazy Acres and had the rotisserie chicken? You've obviously never had my chicken. That's fine. But I agree with you. They have good stuff, but not on Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving, you don't want to go store-bought, with the exception of some people like the cranberry in the jar. And Stouffer's stovetop stuffing, which is not a real product. Yeah, that's Mandela effect.
My mom could never. She's like using the old family recipes. Is she drying out sourdough like a few days before? Yeah, you gotta rip it up and then it dries. I'm so hungry. I would like to do a side-by-side taste test. Do you want me to make some turkey legs and bring them and see? And I guess I'll buy some from the gas station. And we'll do a... We'll do a taste test. Blindfold. I got to find a gas station that sells turkey legs.
I guess I could find a renaissance festival. Yeah. They're big. They're probably good. They're probably outrageous. Deep fried. Oh my God. Well, I'm so sorry about this horrible, horrible disaster. Did this create a tradition? Did your in-laws then host the following year? I guess we've sort of alternated who's doing it. I have somehow decided that I would host this year. I'm not sure how that's going to go. I'm like you, Monica. I love...
to cook. I'm excited, but I hope nothing like this happens. I've really learned my lesson. This is a PSA, honestly. Can I ask a Virgo question? Do you guys love cooking or do you love following directions? I think it's both. I think you like to follow the directions, but you also love creating something. And I just want to like be of service to people. So I just love serving people food that I've made. I think that's what it is. And when they say yum, I love it. I've never had anything so good.
Believe me. That's really what it is. 30% of my self-esteem is based on my spaghetti. Exactly. You get it. I get it. I cook more like jazz improv, you know? I know, but imagine you've made turkey, you've made a big cloud potatoes, you've made a sweet potato dish, you made stuffing, and you did it by yourself, and people are like... How did you do this? Can you imagine that feeling? Do you guys agree it's hard to trust the response? It's kind of like watching someone open the...
Christmas gift. They're kind of obligated. I don't know that you ever get a real sense. You'd have to mic the bathrooms or the cars home. I'm always thinking that. I'm like, well, maybe they're just saying that. So my poor husband, I'm constantly like, do you actually think it's good? And he tells me and reassures me, but I don't always buy it. That's why I always pass on.
the compliments that kristen gives to monica's food when she gets home from a girl's night at monica's house because she'll go like my god monica's becoming such a great chef and i think i better tell her that i received that third hand because In person, who knows if you can trust it. You can also tell by seconds and thirds. How much everyone's eating. Uh-huh. But what if everyone's on Ozempic this Thanksgiving?
They're like eating as much as they can, but it's just not a lot. Then they don't like it. Well, no. No, they hate it. I'm quitting. Okay. I can't even use second and third because. My family and my husband's family, they would do second and third, maybe even if it wasn't their favorite. They're just that type of family on Thanksgiving where they're really loading up. Great point. That's how the Shepherds did it too. It could have been just average, but we're going to over consume.
It's a holiday, so you just have to just go for it. Oh, I'm so excited. Do you guys watch football at your house? Will you watch the Detroit Lions?
Not me so much. Maybe my husband and my brother-in-law might have it on. I've heard vaguely that they're doing better this season for 47 thanksgivings we've tuned in in detroit to watch the lions get destroyed but yeah last year they almost went to the super bowl and they're doing well this year who are they playing on thanksgiving i think the atlanta braves First time ever they're gonna play baseball bears
Oh, my God. A Civil War. An armchair. It's Rob versus Dax. How are the Bears doing this year, Rob? They got a new quarterback. That doesn't sound like a great start to the answer. Well, they got the first draft pick. Okay. They got the best quarterback, and they're four and five. What's Detroit? Eight and one. I'm obviously voting for Chicago. Yeah, I have to as a payback. I'll be okay with that.
Well, we wish you a ton of luck hosting for the first time. You're going to be great. Thank you. I need it. Let's let those glass dishes transition to room temp up on the countertop, maybe. Yeah, we're going to go ceramic, I think. Just be on the safe side. Maybe go cast iron to just really. Because that way, if it does detonate, everyone will be dead. So no one will have to deal with it.
That's cool. That's a silver lining. Yeah. Well, thank you guys so much. I know you hear this all the time, but thank you for everything you do. I am like a day one armchair. I get so much out of the show. This is surreal, but I really, really appreciate everything you guys do.
over there thank you we really appreciate you we can't really believe how much support we get yeah especially from smart cute nice virgos yeah that's really lucky we're critical you know i know i know oh my god no you guys deserve it you guys are doing awesome things
Well, thank you so much. It's great meeting you. And I'm glad that we motivated the construction project. Absolutely. We'll see if it holds. Fingers crossed. It would have been great if it collapsed in the middle, right? When she said that the dish exploded. I was nervous, actually. Thank you. Take care. Happy Thanksgiving. You too. All right. Bye-bye. I really want stuffing now. Michael Voltaggio's stuffing.
Remember one time I made it and I had to make it in a huge, I didn't have a vessel big enough. And so I used this thing I got at the flea market that. is like kind of something I guess you'd put wine bottles in or something. I cleaned it really well, but I was a little nervous because it was from the flea. You know, I was like, is it?
align it with wax paper before i put the mixtures in and mix it all up wax paper completely started disintegrating and so it was like kind of in there no it wasn't leaching it was just I thought I would just pull it out, and I couldn't. And then there were pieces of wax paper, and you ate some. Oh. Well, that explains something. Your toe. Yeah, my toe. That's where the fungus came from, I guess. I was eating with my toes that. Sure, sure, yeah. Toe licking good.
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without the ads. I'm Alice Levine and I'm Matt Ford and we're the hosts of Wondery's podcast British Scandal and in our latest series we're heading to the 80s and yes we'll be talking about perms, shell suits and enormous mobile phones. but that's alongside a scandal that is guaranteed to blow your mind. Yes, get ready for gold, greed and betrayal. We are telling the story of one of the biggest heists in this country's history. And how what started as a slick operation...
spiralled into absolute chaos. We're going to be unravelling the true story behind the Brinks-Matt heist, the double crosses, murders and the global hunt for the missing gold. And the romancing. Oh, always the romancing, Matt. Turns out there's quite a lot in London's shady underworld.
To find out the full story and why it'll make you take a long, hard look at your gold jewellery, follow British Scandal wherever you listen to podcasts. Or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus, on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. I'm Afua Hirsch. I'm Peter Frankopan. And in our podcast, Legacy, we explore the lives of some of the biggest characters in history. This season, we're looking at the life of the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.
For many people in the UK, he's our national hero. For others, he's a symbol of racist imperialism. It's fair to say he is a complex and controversial character. So almost exactly 150 years since his birth, we are exploring parts of his story you might not be so familiar with. How does his legacy hold up today? What do you think, Afwa? He is worshipped, provokes anger. I actually think it's going to be a really challenging and stimulating discussion for us to have.
I can't think of a figure who had more of a front row seat at so many different chapters of the making of the 20th century. So it's going to be fantastic. Follow Legacy now, wherever you get your podcasts. Or binge entire seasons early and ad-free. on Wondery Plus. There's two bucks going on. There's your Ohio hat, so you're a Buckeye. Correct.
And then you have Bucky's blanket behind you, right? Is that a Bucky's blanket? You're very astute and observant, yes. I didn't even make the connection between the two bucks. Are you an Ohio Buckeye living in Texas? Why do you have a Bucky's blanket? Well, I happen to travel. down there once or twice a year. And every time I go down, I got to bring the kids back something from Bucky's. Okay. The kids love Bucky's.
Yes, and if you can't tell, the kids made me a fort. Oh, they made that. Yeah, it's really sweet. They did a great job. They did. I would typically have it in our master closet, but... isn't really conducive for this type of environment. It's the bane of my wife's existence. So I was forced to come up with another option. I think it's a better option. I love it. Do you have the same thing? Now, my kids have just kind of left the fort building phase, but I have such...
conflicting feelings when i walk into the living room and the entire place is blankets because i'm proud of them and i'm ruining the fucking cleanup and i like don't want them to make them and i want them to make them Exactly. If you could see the rest of the space, it would be exactly what you're describing. Man, whoever branded Bucky's really did a great job. They weren't bucking around. They did a great, great job.
Okay, so you've got a crazy Thanksgiving story and we can't wait to hear it. It takes place back in 2011. My girlfriend at the time, we met in the spring of 2011. So... The first major holiday that we were going to be able to spend together was obviously Thanksgiving.
The relationship was blossoming and we were ready to move it forward. And she invited me over to her family's house for Thanksgiving dinner. This is a great opportunity. Show her parents that I'm an upstanding young man. I've got my act together.
and to show that I'm full of dignity and grace. Yeah, a real Michigander through and through. You can tell. I'm oozing with it. Yeah. How disappointed was your own family? Because I got to be honest, when my daughters start telling me like, yeah, I've been with this dude for six months, I'm not coming to Thanksgiving. I'm going to wait.
a little heartbroken. I'm going to be supportive, but I'm going to be a little heartbroken. Yeah, I mean, it kind of comes with the territory. You know, when your son or daughter's found that person, they're not all yours anymore. And that was kind of the first step towards that. So it was fine. They understood. Okay, they wished you well. Yes, exactly. So...
Went to their house, got there a little bit early to kind of ease the nerves a bit, enjoyed some adult beverages and kind of relaxed a bit. I guess to preface it, there's a couple different types of Thanksgiving you've got. The more relaxed Thanksgiving where it's very casual, free-flowing. You watch football all day, hang out with the family. You show up in whatever clothes you're wearing that day. Not a big deal. Then you've got the more traditional, formal.
sit down meal type Thanksgiving. That's what I was walking into. So my nerves were a little bit ratcheted up. Yeah. Had you dressed up? Of course. Yes. Okay. So sat down for dinner and it's myself. my girlfriend to my left, her mom to my right, her father across the table. So we're at opposite ends of the table, at the heads of the table. And then they've invited two friends that happen to be from out of town that...
Didn't have a place to be for Thanksgiving. Didn't really know who they were, but they were at the opposite end of the table. So I'll preface what happens next by saying that my family has a unique, I don't know if it's a genetic trait or what, but. certain types of food whether it be like chicken or steak or bread when we eat it it doesn't get stuck in our throat but it can give off that sensation that something is stuck but it happens so frequently i mean it happens
Daily. All your family members suffer from this. A number of them do. Wow. I want to go to your Thanksgiving and just be constantly panicked. I need to perform the Heimlich maneuver. Is it like, okay. Could you replicate the noise you would make?
Is that what you were asking a while ago? No, no. My friend has this thing where his throat has webbing in it. Is that what you have? Honestly, I don't know what I have. You might have webbing. That's something I maybe need to look into. But it happens so frequently. Don't think anything of it. So it's the formal dining room table. We've got the nice cutlery, the glassware.
all the foods that you expect at a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Passing the food around, I'm loading up pretty much everything. I really enjoy myself some Thanksgiving dinner. I start my meal. make a calculated move and start with an innocent, savory crescent roll just to kind of wet the palate a bit and to ease into the better things and save those for last. So I take a bite of the crescent roll.
And immediately I noticed that sensation I was mentioning where it feels like something's stuck. But like I said, I don't think anything of it. What a horrible disease. My panic meter is at a zero. oh wow you're so used to this i mean it happened at dinner last night yeah So I'm then thinking through my options like, okay, let's move on to some green bean casserole. That's more of a slimy texture to it. So surely that is going to displace the crescent roll that's currently.
sitting in my esophagus. And lubricate the esophagus. I mean, it's a logical next move. So take a nice bite of the green bean casserole. Hold on, can I pause you for one second? This is such a disaster. Like all the people are making their plates and they're chatting and they're looking over at you and the last thing they're thinking is this guy is in a deep game plan to not start choking. Exactly. I'm sure your face did not betray you. It's not like you were telegramming.
Are you able to talk? Can you talk when this is happening or no? Oh, yeah. I can talk. I can breathe like normally. It's a weird sensation. I'm a very reserved person and I kind of like to take a backseat. So nobody knows anything's going on at this point. Little do they know. The green bean casserole is ingested and it doesn't have the relief that I'm anticipating. Instead of acting as a battering ram and pushing.
The crescent roll through, it is now sitting on top. Oh, no, it's stacking. The crescent roll, it is beginning to stack. So my panic meter is now probably a 5 out of 10. Okay. Luckily, I've got my ace in the hole. It's a foolproof way to clear anything that's sitting in there. The old trusty glass of water that's sitting at the table. I go and I grab the glass of water, take a nice big swig and waiting for that relief so I can relax.
And the opposite happens instead of releasing all that food that's sitting in my esophagus. I feel it build up in the back of my throat. You've got a clogged toilet on your hands now. Yeah. Yes, I needed a plunger to get rid of it. Oh, my God. That sensation I never felt before, and I could kind of hear like a gurgling. sound like a bubbling sound in the back of my throat as if the water is trying to make its way down through some sort of gap.
Cameron, I can't tell you how much I would pay right now for video of this whole thing. If I had a camera trained on you watching all these developments. It's just like you keep putting stuff down. Also, if I'm sitting next to a guy who just built this plate and I look over and he's guzzling. a glass of water.
It was not going well for me. Oh, this is a nightmare. Now my panic meter is at a 10 out of 10 because I know I'm full-blown choking at this point. Oh, my God. So I am starting to gasp for air. And again, I'm trying to be reserved. But I really can't at this point because I'm literally choking and I can't breathe. And in between gas, I'm trying to hack up what's sitting in my throat. Oh, this is such a nightmare. And did you think like I should go to the bathroom?
deal with this or no? I was too panicked to think. I sat where I was and was trying to handle the situation at the dinner table, which was not a good move. But my girlfriend's mother came around ready to perform the Heimlich maneuver on me.
She didn't do it. And I don't know how she would have to begin with. She's five foot and I'm six two. So it's a little bit of a height differential. So I'm not sure there would have been much success with that. I'm gasping for air, trying to release the food somehow. I'm able to finally hack up what's lodged in my throat, but in doing so, I've kind of upset my stomach. Sure. Okay. And so when I dislodge all the food, I ended up vomiting all over my dinner plate. Obviously causing...
Kind of a scene. Everybody's staring at me. This is awful. You're two, three bites in. You just yak like a dog on the plate. At a fancy formal Thanksgiving. Gold trimmed plate. Yeah, it wasn't making the... impression that I had set out to make. And what are people saying like, oh boy, oh wow, is he okay? Everyone's forgotten your name at this point. Is that man okay? Is your guest okay?
There actually was some concern, thankfully, that I was okay. I didn't feel okay. I was utterly just mortified and embarrassed about what had happened. But they did their best to console me and make sure I knew that everything's okay. Just start again. I do. Start again. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. It's out of my throat. We're good to go. And the plate is then removed. And then another plate is built.
That part I don't remember specifically. All I remember is that there is a new plate that arrives. I can't believe, though, everyone's like, give it a second, go. I would have been like, why don't you lay down for a while and let's get you a protein shake. Also, someone just threw up at the table. I feel like everyone would be like, I'm going to take a minute also to eat because I'm not hungry.
There was no fear and there was an eagerness to make up for codependency. Yes. I'd given off a bad impression. I needed to make up for that. I fill up the plate again. I start to eat. And again, I feel that same sensation. Of course you do, Cameron. I don't know why you thought it was going to be different. You're like, I slammed my hand in the car door and that hurt. So I was like, I got to slam this thing again. Oh, okay. I'm sorry.
I learned from my mistake, though. I didn't try to force the situation. Instead, I just quickly excuse myself and I make a beeline to the closest restroom, which... Unfortunately, it was five feet from the dinner table. And so I take a sip from the faucet, try to dislodge it. And again, I feel it build up. So now all I think of to do is to just simply.
ram my fingers down my throat, and force myself to vomit. Yeah, let's get everything out and start all over again. Again, new plate. Over the course of probably the next 30 or so minutes, it's a battle. Between me and trying to get something to pass on through, all the while I'm five feet from the dinner table while they are listening to the gagging and the vomiting that's taking place in the bathroom next door.
What a mess. It's like she brought a fucking Rottweiler to dinner or something. Oh, I'm so embarrassed. Like, I feel the heat. Yeah, yakking that close. I wonder if they were like... Because this is so unconventional, right? This is not like something people witness. I'm learning of this condition for the first time today that has stricken your whole family. So I got to be honest, my thing would be like, oh, that guy was hammered and we didn't notice.
Now he's in there fucking puking on control. He must have been shit-faced. What other logical explanation would there be? He's sick. He's a sickie. He is a sick boy. And you brought him here and he has a stomach bug. Oh, okay. You thought he's got a bug. That's what I would go to if this was happening. All right. Okay.
the story does have a happy ending. I finally was able to get something to pass through. I don't remember how long it took, but it took an inordinate amount of time. Yeah. And later that evening, my girlfriend at the time. When I realized that she had some genuine care, that I wasn't going to die, I told her that I loved her for the first time. And then two years later...
We got married and we've been married ever since. Your children like Buc-ee's. They like Buc-ee's. They like the Buc-ee's. They like all Bucs. So, yes. They like 12-point Bucs. So, now you've been around that family a lot.
Yes, and every time they pass me the green bean casserole, it is a running joke every single year. You're going to live with that until you're dead. Unfortunately, but they were able to overcome it. Well, I have one follow-up question. After you were in there yakking for a long, long time,
time so close to the dinner table did you give up on eating that day does it ever get to the point where you're like well fuck it oh we're gonna try this again tomorrow let's answer that and then i have a last follow-up question I just threw in the towel. I said, I'm not even going to make a third attempt at eating because the first two were such a disaster. Let's just drink.
today now my last question is have any of the members of your family or yourself gone to the doctor and explained this whole thing and have they ever gandered in your throat yes so it took two more instances of this happening one was at a fancy dinner with the same my in-laws oh my god which was a whole nother story but i actually did go to the hospital to have it checked out they do what's called an esophagram where you
drink the barium, and then they see if there's any obstruction in your esophagus. And they found nothing. So I am left completely and utterly clueless to what causes this, but it is a genetic thing in my family. I think you should try a new doctor and tell him about the webbing. I think you have that. There's almost like little, not spikes, but sort of that grow in. So a lot of food gets caught. Ooh.
Do you ever get pills lodged in your throat when you take medication? Actually, no. It's typically like the first bite I take of bread or a meat. And then after that, the muscles relax and it's not an issue. So I have no idea what causes it. Now I almost want to think it's like OCD, like you're so afraid it's going to happen. I think that did play into it. So immediately after that Thanksgiving incident, I did have a couple other of those instances, but I have not had that.
since but when it does happen my wife and kids know what's happening dad just excuse himself to go throw up in the bathroom So awful. Oh, my God. I can see this very much being the system in my house, too. This makes a lot of sense to me, even though it shouldn't.
Silently leave and everybody knows what's happening. Well, Cameron, that was a great story. Yeah, really good. I really enjoyed that. I'm glad to share it with you guys. I listen every Friday and I love the Armchair Anonymous. It's a lot of fun. Hopefully somebody can relate to it.
it i guess yeah there might be a legion of people that are like i pulled that at a birthday party last month i think there's a big group of you these stories make me feel normal yes that's the goal i'm not alone well great meeting you brother this was so much fun Nice meeting you, too. You guys take care. All right. You, too.
I'm Indra Vama, and in the latest season of The Spy Who, we open the file on Daphne Park, the spy who killed the Prime Minister. As the Belgian Congo gains its independence... MI6 dispatches Officer Park to build a spy network. Its aim? To thwart a communist land grab, promote African democracy and prevent nuclear war. Along with field officer Larry Devlin, they work to be a part of what would be one of the darkest operations in MI6 and CIA history.
In order for Park to succeed, she needs to win the trust of Congo's first Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, or remove him. Follow The Spy Who on the Wondery app or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can binge the full season of The Spy Who Killed a Prime Minister early and ad-free with Wondery+.
I'm Colin Murray. And I'm Ellis James. And if you thought we'd already covered the wildest sporting stories on everything to play for, well, think again. Yes, we're bringing you weekly bonus episodes where we dive into the sporting stories that really connect.
at least one of us. So expect brilliant sporting stories and also tangents that nobody asked for. That's right. The things that we were reading about when we were very young that we've continued to read about. The stuff that really motivates at least 50% of it. partnership. If you want more laughs, stories and more of us going on script, be sure to follow Everything To Play For wherever you get your podcasts. Are yours going to be all about Wales? Yes.
Hello, ladies and germs, boys and girls. The Grinch is back again to ruin your Christmas season with Tis the Grinch Holiday Podcast. After last year, he's learned a thing or two about hosting, and he's ready to rant against Christmas cheer and roast his celebrity guests.
like chestnuts on an open fire. You can listen with the whole family as guest stars like Jon Hamm, Brittany Broski, and Danny DeVito try to persuade the mean old Grinch that there's a lot to love about the insufferable holiday season. But that's not all. Somebody stole all the children of Whoville's letters to Santa, and everybody thinks the Grinch is responsible. It's a real Whoville whodunit. Can Cindy Lou and Max help clear the Grinch's name? Grab your hot cocoa and cozy slippers to find out.
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Okay, I'm going to ask my friend what the name of that disease is. Okay, and I'm going to tell you a story because it reminded me of it while he was talking. Or do you want me to wait till the end? Maybe I should wait till the end and we'll talk to John. It's up to you. Well, let me tell it right now. It's very short. So Thanksgiving...
Growing up for me was always at my Pippi and Grandma's house, my mom's parents, at that roadside motel you know about, the Colonial Motoring, because they had a big conference room and we would have Thanksgiving in there. And my grandfather, my Pippi, he had polio as a kid.
individual effect of that polio was his throat was paralyzed so when he ate it was the most grotesque thing imaginable he would chew his food forever then he'd take a big gulp of water and then monica he would swish the food around in his mouth Ew, ew, why are you doing it? Because you need to know every bite was like, you'd hear him at the head of the table. And he'd have to kind of throw his head back. And then the result of all that was it took him.
like an hour and 40 minutes to eat and we all had to hang that was like the respectful thing to do oh my god you can't imagine how slow my sweet pippy ate and the noises that were coming out and every now and then he'd be swishing and you'd hear There'd be some of that going on. There was...
So much action going on at the end of the table. Could he drink? Did he drink alcohol? No, no. It was fluids. That's what I'm saying. He would have to take a big gulp of water after he'd been chewing forever, then swish it around in his mouth and swallow. I'm asking, was he able to.
to just like drink water normally that seemed to go fine maybe some swishing before he would swallow i should have stuck with like slim fast or something right but he wanted those tasty morsels and all the trimmings wow that was disgusting It was a good opportunity for me to do my favorite person. Oh. This Thanksgiving, when you get your bird and all the trimmings, remember to hit your knees and thank the man upstairs. Take two, three hours and say your prayers.
Say him good and say him loud. Take a couple bites. Hello. Oh. Thank God. Hello, John. Thank God for you, John. Good to see you. Monica just said, thank God, John, because you. Stop me from doing Wilford Brimley longer. Oh, dear. He was in one of those things where it was not going to stop. No. Lest you appear. Need someone to step in. And where are you? I'm in Uniontown, Ohio. So Northeast Ohio.
Home of our favorite place. Cedar Point. Okay. America's roller coast. You know it well. We just spoke to a Buckeye who's down in Cincy. This story takes place in Cincinnati. Oh, my. What if John was at this Thanksgiving? My sister brought home this guy. Yep. Okay. No, but not to leave Monica out. The in-laws in this story. He actually lived in Swanee, Georgia. No way!
Got us all. Got to cover everybody. Six Flags over Georgia meets Cedar Point. Six Flags doesn't meet, it buys. Okay, well, okay, let's not talk about that. It's not kind and it's not polite. Okay, what year, what happened? Walk us through it, John. 2018, we're in Cincinnati, Ohio. My wife and I got married in 2008, so we had been married for about 10 years at this time. We had children. We had been traveling back and forth between families. My family's in Northeast Ohio. I'm about...
fourth generation from a small town. So they're all located up there. And my wife's family had moved around quite a bit growing up from her father in sales. So they were in Georgia and my sister-in-law was in Cincinnati. had no kids it was no big deal going back and forth to georgia from ohio throw kids in the mix that becomes no fun we start saying everybody meet in cincinnati and
Everybody's happy. It's a neutral ground. Thanksgiving one year with her family. Christmas that year with my family. Flip flop the next year. Nice and clean. Yes. So I have two sons. My sister-in-law had one son at the time. Keeping the kids entertained during the preparation of Thanksgiving is not always an easy task. So we tried to find something fun for everybody to do. My brother-in-law is pretty active.
guy he's in law enforcement so he's like hey they're putting in this new bicycle park in a nearby town i think it'd be great we get all the boys loaded up take the bikes over keep everybody entertained before thanksgiving dinner we'll come home everybody will be hungry
Great. We've decided on this about a week prior to Thanksgiving. So I'm thinking, all right, this is my chance. Bring up my childhood roots. You know, I grew up riding BMX and hitting jumps and doing all this stuff. So I'm like, dad's going to rule this Thanksgiving. 30 years ago, I used to be able to do this great thing. I stopped riding, but I was 13 years old. So, you know, no big deal. I still got it. So I look on my favorite place, Facebook Marketplace. I'm going to go pick up a cheap bike.
take it down. I'm going to rule Thanksgiving. I find this nondescript bite for 50 bucks and I'm like, oh, this is a no brainer. And is it a BMX bike? Oh, yeah. It's actually a pretty nice bike, which should have raised some flags at the time. But I was like, this dude wants to get rid of it. And I'm pumped. I'm ready to, you know, get out there. And these kids don't know what's in for me.
it so we get down to cincinnati and we have an easygoing evening that night wake up the next morning bikes and everything get loaded in my brother-in-law's honda pilot and we head over to the bike park so we get there and as i mentioned this is a new bike park at the time. So new that everything is muddy. There's no grass. There's no nothing. It is pure swampy mud with beautiful asphalt blacktop.
track so it's a pump track yep half of the area is like a real mellow pump track for kids and my young nephew at the time was on one of those strider bikes where you're pushing with the feet ever no pedals i'm like oh this will be perfect and then over to
side is like the x games factor that's like the jumps and all the stuff so we start off on the pump track and the adults are kind of standing around it's my father-in-law and i and my brother-in-law and the three kids and there's a couple people coming in
going, but it's pretty mellow. There's not a lot of people there. My oldest son at the time was about seven and he tires quickly of the pump track. He's like, this is lame. So we go over to the real jumps and I'm like, get ready. It's coming. And the kids are.
Kind of moseying around the track. And I'm thinking to myself, now I know when I was young and coming around jumps, people would go over the tabletops and they were getting air. Yeah, hit the doubles, hit the triples. You gotta show off. That's right. That's why you're there. I'm like, hey. Let's back up. Let's let dad step in here. So I'm thinking this is my time to shine. So I roll up to the first jump. So I push off and go down this.
incline and it immediately goes to a tabletop jump. And I'm like, all right, I start pumping. Well, when I was 13, I was 115 pounds soaking wet. Now I'm a full grown man on a child sized bicycle. There's a lot of momentum. Your center of gravity has changed greatly. I go down the track and I immediately realized I've got too much speed. This is not going to go well. So I hit the jump and... Attempt to adjust in air. And for whatever reason, I overcorrect. The handlebars go in a 90 degree angle.
I hit the ground and the front tire smashes the ground and the handlebar goes into my left thigh and crash into the muddy ground grass next to us. Luckily, I had a helmet on, thank God. I'm shocked. My brother-in-law kind of wanders over and he's like, oh man, you ate it hard, didn't you? And I was like, it's not good. So I go to stand up and immediately feel blood rushing down my leg. And I sit down and in an attempt of self-preservation, jam my thumb into this gaping hole that's in my thigh.
Really quick, so you have a puncture the diameter of the end of the handlebar? Yes. Holy fuck. So for the listener who's not been on a bike recently, that's like a half dollar. Yep. And I was so kind as to send some photographs. Oh, shit. Oh, it's all those. Okay. Should we wait to look at them or?
Should we look at them now? You can look at them now. It's going to be graphic now or later. Okay, so I'm looking at a handlebar with some gore, some fucking literal meat. First of all, okay, John, this mic doesn't even have grips on it, does it?
It's just got tape. It has grips. The distance you're seeing is how far into my leg it was. Oh, my God. There's so much meat on the handle. Stop saying... me stop saying well what else would you describe that as it looks like fucking ground beef oh my god there was a bruise on my butt it went so deep wait it went through your thigh and pushed out your butt cheek It did not go all the way through. Wow, holy shit. There was discoloration. How close were you to your femoral artery? I know.
That's where we get to in the story. Oh my God. I'm going to stop you for half a second and say, John, I'm so proud of your bravery because to humiliate yourself in front of your children, it's a unique low point in embarrassment. It's really. hard to ever discuss again. So I just applaud you so far. So I am there laying in a heap on the ground with my thumb in my thigh and trying to get everything under control. And my children have run up to me in tears. Dad's on the ground. He's hurt.
Oh, no. Dad's going to die. Dad's dead. And I'm like, everything's fine. Stop crying. Stop being a baby. I'm not crying. There was a lot of things going on. And luckily, my brother-in-law being in the law enforcement, had been in a tourniquet training about two weeks prior to this. So he immediately comes John Rambo over, rips his belt off, throws it around my leg and start cinching up the tourniquet. I'm going to call 911.
Tells my father-in-law, keep pressure on it. Are you feeling woozy? Are you feeling like you're starting to lose it? I was 100% in shock. I don't remember feeling much pain. I was just trying to tell the kids to quit crying and be like, it's fine.
It's no big deal. And being further emasculated by your already cool cop brother-in-law who's now saving you on top of everything. Of course. I'm a traveling salesman living on an expense account with a belt line to show it, and he's coming to save the day, so yeah. He requested to use an anonymous name since he isn't in law enforcement. And to reference our childhood BMX favorite movie was Crew Jones. Is that from Rad? Oh, yeah. With the preposterous.
Ending set piece. Yeah, with cereal bowls and spoons. How about the loving dance scene, Monica? Oh, it's all Monica. The bicycle dance scene is my favorite. This movie, the studio was like, okay, there's this huge rage among kids. It's BMX. They need a movie. And pause. It's Aunt Becky. Lori Loughlin Mossimo. Yes. So they're like, we got to serve.
them up a bmx movie but it's got also be a movie so they fall in love and there's this romantic dance bike scene in a dance studio and the song is send me an angel It's terrible. Send me an angel. It was in their high school gym. Oh, it was in the gym? I thought it was, she was doing like ballet and he wheelied in. It was so corny. But we still watched it and loved it, yeah. We love it. So.
Brother-in-law comes up with the belt. We cinch it off. Everything's great. Father-in-law has his hands on it, and I'm noticing his hands are shaking. To which I'm like, this probably is a little worse than I'm letting on. What if you go, kids, resume crying? You were right. Didn't mean to gaslight you. This is very serious. This might be my last time with you. Let's hug and cry. It's calling 911. The ambulance shows up and they have to install a proper tourniquet when they arrive and get me.
suitable to move. And they get me on this portable, kind of like a wheelchair, kind of like a gurney. Yeah, it looks like a gurney-ish on this picture. And that was kind of their off-road thing. And right in that picture, I'm getting ready to transfer onto the gurney.
that goes in the ambulance. So they throw me in the ambulance and that other picture is me from inside. I have the wherewithal to pull out my phone and think, well, I need to message my parents and tell them, hey, happy Thanksgiving. So EMT looks at me and she goes, how's the pain? And I was like, fine. And she's like, I'm going to give you some fentanyl. This is 2018.
All you hear about fentanyl is everybody's dying. Especially in Ohio, yeah. Exactly. And I'm like, well, don't give me too much. Yeah. Is this really necessary? We were so similar in this story until now. No, I like this part that you're aware like, oh boy. When she asked me... I would have said 11 out of 10. Let's go.
So we head off to the hospital and I'm coherent the whole time. And to the side, my brother-in-law loads us all in and calls my wife and says, hey, we're coming back from the bike park. I've got all the kids. John is on his way. to the hospital, you and your sister should go and meet him there. And that's it. My wife immediately goes white off to the hospital. I arrive at the hospital the same time she's arriving. And in her recollection, when I arrived.
I was gray. She said I looked like wet cardboard. The doctor's like, so how much blood did you lose? And I was like, I've failed to measure how many cups of blood I lost. And he looked at the other doctor and she said, yeah, the EMT said he's kind of a comedian. Their first concern is the femoral artery. And they're like, holy cow, we take this tourniquet.
Are we going to lose them? And, you know, so they send me off to CT scan. The guy said it couldn't have been more perfectly placed. Silver lining. So it went in. missed my femoral artery, missed my femur bone, basically just hit all meat. Oh, there's that word again. And then basically the guy comes back and said, we're in good shape. All we got to do is stitch you up, staple you up. We're good to go.
Oh, and we get back to the house from what everybody tells me. I basically came in, said happy Thanksgiving to everybody, went on the couch and passed out, missed all of Thanksgiving dinner. Wake up the next morning in here. Way to go. My wife kind of giving me the. hey, thanks for scaring me to death and sorry. And we're swearing off athletic activities from here on. Sure. Repairing the relationship with the children. Doing my best to try to say, hey, our kids won't need therapy forever.
I'll be okay. My thought the next day is I cheated death. I'm a hero. Oh, wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. You really flipped the coin. I am going to take these handlebars. And I'm going to have to mount them in some place and be like, you know, look at these. And my wife's like, I want nothing to do with this bike. I want this bike out of here. I don't want to ever see it again. On the way home, I list the bike for sale on Marketplace. And two days later, I get a message.
The guy's like, that bike looks a lot like my bike. And he's identifying some of the key components of the bike. Come to find out this flipping bike is stolen. Oh, no. Cursed from the jump. Been inside my body. And I'm like, dude, I don't even want any money for it. Take it. And my brother-in-law called him right away when I got off the phone with this guy and gave him his bike back. And he's like. well, did you tell him what happened? And I was like,
No, no, I left that part out. Sure, he doesn't really need to know that. He doesn't need to know it's full of meat. It had been through a lot in the time when it was out of his possession. He probably was like, this is so weird. This guy was clearly keeping the bike in his kitchen and he was making hamburgers and the bike fell off. over into the ground round and he didn't clean it up. What a jerk.
That's probably what he thought. When I got back to work after Thanksgiving, I was sharing the photos and the story with everybody at work. And I gained the kind nickname of meat plug from all the loving coworkers. You'd think you'd hear more meat stories on Thanksgiving, but... Well, I guess in that way it is on Rant. Wow, John, what a great dad story. That's a real dad story. Classic dad.
Moms aren't ever going like, I'm going to show them how good I was at 15 at this thing. No. Doesn't really happen. They're a little too wise, I think. Do you have a moment for me to invite my better half to say hello? Of course. This is my wife, Lindsay. Hi, Lindsay.
Hi, nice to meet you. Did you find that retelling of the story, to be honest? Did you agree with most of what you heard? 100%. Every time he retells it, I automatically get sick to my stomach and want to cry. Because it was literally the... worst day ever oh yeah i'm sorry you went through that yeah that's not the ideal thanksgiving no no not at all so now we just take it easy on thanksgiving we don't go anywhere lesson learned we chill ride the couch eat some food
Watch the football. Not a time to be a hero. Nope. Not at all. That's 4th of July in fireworks. Oh, God. No, no, no. That's when a dad should get into hero mode. Don't pass that along. Well, thank you guys so much. Nice to meet you. Lovely meeting you. Nice to meet you too. All right. Take care. Happy Thanksgiving. Thanks. You too.
Well, thank you, John. That was great. Thanks for chatting with us. We appreciate it. Long time listener. Happy to be here. Okay, wonderful. Well, have a great Thanksgiving and take it nice and slow and back it down from there. Will do. All right, take care. Thanks, guys. Bye. Wow, wow, wowie, wow. Your dad never pulled any of that kind of shit. No, no. That's why I think saying dads in general, maybe not men. Men, sure, but dads.
They're trying to impress their kids. Back to Pip and my Thanksgiving. The other thing that would happen is we would play football on Thanksgiving. Sure, that's a big tradition for people, yeah. Yeah, the Roadside Motel had a huge field in back. And we would all play. It was generally snowing and it was cold. And yeah, uncles and grandparents, they went too hard. There was generally injuries. Wow. Because you're trying to be your 20-year-old self.
where you played football every day and now you play once a year on thanksgiving when there's snow on the ground it's like when you guys play volleyball yeah volleyball very similar or roller skating you guys are all like really limping around yep takes us out for a bit okay let's talk to nicole
Hi there. Hi, how are you guys? It's so good to see you. Well, it's wonderful to see you. Where are you? I am... on a ship in the middle of the pacific ocean right now no way you're on a cruise or no this looks more like a military situation i'm on a research ship what this is so cool
What if we saw a whale leap out of the water? We're like really far away from everything. We are 1,500 miles from Hawaii Southeast, basically right on the equator. Oh my gosh. This is so exciting. What are you researching? So we're all physical oceanographers. So we study currents and internal waves and mixing in the ocean. On this trip, there's something called tropical instability waves at the equator. If you Google image it.
You can see these swirly features right at the equator. Do you want to know how they work? Yeah. Does it have something to do with the hemispheres? Tell me. I'm not going to guess. At the equator, there's currents that are going in different directions. So right at the equator in the Pacific, you've got water that's moving westward, so towards Indonesia. But then right north of it, and then also below it, like deep, the water is going the opposite direction towards.
south america but also right at the equator you get this thing called upwelling where there's like cold water that comes to the surface. So now imagine you've got a jet of cold water going one way and warm water on the sides. And so it creates this shear and it makes all these cool big eddy features. And we're basically interested in what...
that does to the ocean and mixing and the climate. Wow. Does El Nino come from there? It's kind of everywhere. But yeah, you often hear about the equatorial Pacific and these features show up during. La Nina years more than we happen to be in a La Nina year. Your life is so cool. How long will you be on this boat? And do you ever freak out at all that you're so far from land?
Sometimes I freak out a little. On this particular cruise, I had to get an emergency root canal the day before. So I was a little freaked out that something would get infected and we're six days from land. God. That's scary. Six days from later. I hated that sentence. But generally, I have the utmost confidence in the crew and everyone knows what they're doing. And then last question about this. How long will you be out on this particular research project? About a month.
We left on election day, November 5th. We'll be back December 8th. Wow. So you'll be having Thanksgiving at sea. I will be having Thanksgiving at sea. Okay. All right. So hit us with your crazy Thanksgiving story. Okay, so this Thanksgiving was back in 2007. I'm a senior. in college at UC Santa Barbara. Oh, IV, DP, Halloween. Living in Isla Vista, exactly. The day before Thanksgiving. So ordinarily I'd be driving up to my parents' house in the Bay Area.
like a five-hour drive, but I had a physics lab in the afternoon. Oh, on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving? That's rude. Yeah, that is rude. It was so rude. I was like, okay, I'll just wake up super early the next morning, get on the road at 5 a.m. It was kind of weird because the whole... town is shut down isla vista is a college town right so everybody is gone for thanksgiving the 24-hour burrito place is closed but i was like whatever this is great it's been a long
quarter. I'm exhausted. It'll be so nice to like have an early night. So I packed my car ahead of time. I set the coffee maker. I set my alarm clock on my flip phone and stuck it outside my bedroom. hallway. So I'd have to get up and get going the next morning.
We'll switch perspectives to my parents' point of view. My dad wakes up at 6 or 6.30 and hasn't heard from me yet, but he's like, whatever. She just either didn't text or she's still sleeping because he knows that it can take me like... a minute to wake up it takes me a while to become a human in the morning very recently i'd say in the last year or two he's finally learned that he shouldn't approach me before
metabolize some coffee in the morning because he's just setting himself up for rejection i live with you so yeah i'm very familiar with this but once i've had my coffee And I like sat for a while, then you can come in and you'll get a nice reciprocated hug. It'll be great. My mom wakes up at eight and she's like, did you hear from Nick? Is she on the road? And he's like, no, I haven't heard from her. And she's like, what? She was supposed to start driving.
three hours ago. That's kind of weird. It's Thanksgiving. She was excited to come start cooking and she starts calling me and I don't answer and she texts and I don't answer. And then she's like freaking out because she was not really happy with the fact that I was going to be totally alone the night before. She was a little freaked out that it was going to be this ghost town. And she starts tracking down some of my housemates' phone numbers to see if she can get in touch with me.
And through talking to them, they find out that one of my next door neighbors stayed in town the night before too. So give her a call. And she comes over and knocks on my door to see if I'm there and doesn't hear anything. So now my mom's really freaking out. Your car was still there, I assume. Car was parked in the back. She decides to call campus police. And she's like...
I know it's way too soon to be putting out a missing persons report, but I'm just wondering. And I think because they're campus police and I live a block from campus. and there's nothing happening on campus, they agree to go check on me. And they start asking my mom all these questions like, what kind of car does she drive? Has she been depressed?
or just like not really herself lately? Has she started seeing anybody new? Anything out of the ordinary? And my mom's just coming up with all these scenarios in her head, like what happened? So they come over. And start pounding on the door. Nothing. Start like shouting my name. Nothing. And eventually I open the living room window. I live on the second floor. They have to like go over the rail. open the window and they come in and find my bedroom and
This is where I reenter the story because I just woke up to two cops standing in my doorway. Nicole, are you Nicole? Oh my God. My initial reaction is the house is on fire. And I look over and I see that it's 930 in the morning. And I'm just like, shit. Four and a half hours past your life. Four and a half hours. Whoa. And I just immediately know as they're saying, your mom's really worried about you. I'm just like, yeah, I bet.
I specifically remember this feeling of trying to be respectful and fit up because these guys have gone out of their way to wake me up. which is not part of their job description, I don't think. But I was like wearing this shirt that I knew just totally fell and exposed me. So I was just like, I can't get up. So I'm just lying there like, thank you. I'm so sorry. And they just kind of like shuffle out.
And I go and pick up my phone and there are 37 missed calls and texts. And so I immediately call my mom and she tells me this whole story. And at first I'm like, my phone like must not have been on. But then I'm like, no, but that doesn't explain the banging and yelling. of my name. I just am a really excellent sleeper. I'll say. Wow. Yeah. I couldn't even go two hours past a known wake-up time.
Much less four and then people banging. And then presumably was your alarm going off in the hallway? It wasn't going off. No, I think it was one of those things where it just goes off for a minute and then you're on your own. Okay. It gave up at some point. It was a flippy. I think so. It was 2007. technology i would have guessed you maybe you set it for pm that's a
Mistake I make occasionally. I make that as well. Yeah, it's an easy mistake. That's why my phone's always on military time. Oh, yeah. Oh, to prevent that. That's a smart move. So did you get in the car at 930 all panicked and then race home? Did you make it?
yeah and I'm so anxious the whole time yeah I made it for Thanksgiving but I felt so bad because I was like I was supposed to help hook not just like roll in when you got there did they go nick are you using drugs were they perplexed by this enormous sleeping my mom did say when i called her on the road i was like mom they looked
really mad and she's like well they probably thought you were on drugs like nobody can do that but no they know me i've never consumed any drugs in my life i was just really good at sleeping did you have a flu shot the day before I'm thinking that it was like you know when you're at the end of the semester and you're like in finals week
And you're just pushing through, pushing through. And then the second your last final ends and you're so excited to go on break, you just get sick. Yes. Yeah. I'm thinking it was that phenomenon. I think it was that. Plus, this is the fault of the physics lab. Is that what it was?
Although I'm going to now say I resisted the urge to tell you at the beginning of this story, but you and I are so opposite. So I would never choose to wake up super early to do a drive. I'd way rather drive at night. I would have definitely left the night. before so I could wake up at home and all this? I'm definitely morning. My brain kind of stops working at some point in the evening.
doesn't make sense for me to push on. I'd rather wake up at 3 a.m. Which means 7.30 with your conversion. Exactly.
mother thanksgiving she had four hours of thinking you were well no scary no she only had an hour they will give a 9 30 that's a long hour and a half she was clearly mad but you can't really be mad at somebody for being unconscious so there's like nothing to really do about you just gotta be mad at your husband at that point that's the time to turn it transfer oh my god oh well nicole i'm glad uh I'm glad you survived that. You survived your nap.
I guess. Thank you so much. That's really kind. You needed the sleep. Come on, guys. Everyone get off my back. Women need a lot of sleep. That's the thing is you guys are acting like 930 so crazy. Well, it's not crazy unless you've set your alarm for five. That's true, that's true. And you went to bed at nine. Remember one time though, the night I got my COVID.
booster at like 11 30 i woke up to banging and you were at my door do you remember that you don't remember but a bunch of people bunch of people were calling was this when you also the broken TV on your ground. That was a different time. Jesus Christ. Another false alarm. Everyone was panicked. But eventually, I guess I heard the door banging.
But I probably wouldn't have if I wasn't already coming out of sleep. Like maybe you were coming out of it at 930. When you're in that deep sleep REM cycle, maybe Dax, you just never reached. I think that is the case. Yeah, I don't think I'm ever there. I'm waiting to be attacked.
Oh, well, Nicole, thanks for telling us that story. And I wish you guys a wonderful, is there a good Thanksgiving plan for the ship? There's three cooks on board that keep us very happy every day. And I'm sure they'll have something special. Oh, how about drinky poo? Is there drinky poo on the boat?
There's none on the boat, none on U.S. research vessels. I worked on a British vessel a couple of years ago, and you were allowed two units per day, which were like the equivalent of like a three or four. percent beer probably all right cool well nicole thank you so much for telling us that story it was great to meet you yeah you too take care wow man we just talked to somebody on a research that was cool very
Her internet was banging too. I know. We talked to a lot of home dwellers. For all these people who act like their internet's bad, it's like our boat lady had great internet. She's 1,200 miles from land. She had stellar internet. No more excuses, guys. Okay. Happy Thanksgiving!
Oh yeah. Happy Thanksgiving. Do you want to say anything else? No, it's more of a downer. I was thinking I've missed a couple of things, but it wasn't because of sleeping in, you know, it was because of addiction. I showed up way too late to Christmas Eve one year and I missed my birthday one year. At least it was your birthday. Yeah, but it was rough because the messages were like, happy birthday, buddy. And then the next message. What do you mean you slept through the whole day? Yeah.
Yeah, I probably went to bed at like nine in the morning on the morning of my birthday at Aaron's house. And then the messages went from happy birthday to where are you? Yeah, it was bad. I'm glad you're sober. Me too. Happy birthday. Happy. Thanks for your birthday. I love you. Bye. I love you. Do you want to sing a tune or something with a theme song? Oh. Okay, great.
have a thing song for this new show so here I go go go we're gonna ask some random questions and with the help of our cherries we'll get some suggestions Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
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