Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Armchair Anonymous: Dinner Party

Episode Date: October 2, 2026

Dax and Monica talk to Armcherries! In today's episode, Armcherries tell us about a crazy dinner party.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Badman. Today we have crazy dinner party stories. Shocking, you don't have one given how many dinner parties you love. I mean, I must. Other than stanking up your whole house with fish. Yeah, that was really, I don't want to think about that.

But probably not worthy of these are crazy. That was the whole story. That was the whole story. It's stanked. Please enjoy crazy dinner parties. I'm trying. Hi there. How are you? Hi.

Very nice to meet you guys. You're a lover of leather. Yeah. I'm pretty sure this is one of my like Halloween jacket finds, but yeah. Is it Gillian? It is Jillian, yeah. Okay, great. Where are you?

I'm in Northern New Jersey. Northern New Jersey. Is that close to New York City? Kind of. It's really where the top of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania all meet. So kind of by High Point Monument. Oh, okay, great. Are you born and raised there or have you migrated there? Nope, born and raised in New Jersey.

Okay, lovely. And how far are you from New York if you drive, New York City? Probably like an hour and a half. It's not too bad. And how frequently do you go? Not too often. I'll go to like see a show or something. I do a family who live out there. I hear this all the time, people who live like an hour away from New York. Don't you think, Monica, you would be going all the time? But then people don't. I would think that, but probably not. I mean, even when I live in Atlanta, I never went to Atlanta.

Like I lived in the suburbs and you just don't go. You don't go. Yeah, same. I lived in Jersey City for a while and even then I can count on one hand how many times I actually went into New York even when I lived in Jersey City. Yeah. Yeah. You just stay in your area. It's also not for everyone.

It's shocking. It's not for everyone. It's not for everyone. Okay, so you have a wild dinner party story. I do. So this takes place in December of 2022. It was a cousin's giving. And my cousins, my sister and I, we used to all share and host.

But this time, it was my turn. and I was really nervous because I always screw something up. So whether I say something stupid or do something stupid, something ends up happening. And everyone's like, oh, Jill. How many cousins are there? Like how many people attend? Two cousins, a cousin's wife, and my sister and I, plus my husband. Okay, six.

This is a manageable dinner party. Exactly. Like, it wasn't anything crazy. It was something that was supposed to be very simple, but it didn't turn out that way. So I can't cook to save my life. I have to preference that. Like, I could boil a mean pot of water. You know, I could be a sous chef.

But my husband does all the cooking. He's great at that. He's wonderful. So he agreed he would do the cooking and I would do the cleanup, which is perfect. That's a hard job. Yeah, exactly. I don't want to undercook the turkey. You know, and get everyone sick. So that was our deal. He goes shopping. He gets the turkey. He gets all the things for everything because we were going to do a couple of sides and everyone else was going to fill in the gaps. So he gets all of that done. I'm cleaning the house. The day before it comes and he goes, you know what, I'm going to go out with some friends. I'll come back later. I'll get the turkey all set up. You go to bed because I know you're anxious about the evening. So I'm like, all I find.

I pop a tile on LPM. I'm straight to bed. I'm basically dead to the world. I don't even hear him come to bed. So the next morning I wake up and I'm happy. I'm like, okay, today's the day. He has everything all set. I go downstairs and, whoop, immediately slip on the floor.

Oh, no. Was it wet or you just slept? Well, I'm like, what in the world's going on? So it's very slippery. So I'm like, what's going on? And I'm feeling the floor and I'm like, this isn't water. So I go to grab a paper towel and there's no paper towels. We just bought a whole bunch.

There's been an incident. He heard like the thud. And so he comes downstairs. He's just like, oh, hey. And I'm like, what's going on? Why is the floor so slippery? So when he went to the store, he saw vegetable and he saw a gallon. And he just saw the two words.

And that checked off his list. He thought he was buying vegetable broth and he bought vegetable oil. Oh. Because I don't sell vegetable broth by the gallon. Oh, my God. I don't think I even know what vegetable broth is. Vegetable broth like chicken broth. Oh, okay.

But that's not vegetables. but similar to chicken broth? And normally they come in those containers, but they don't sell them by the gallon. Yeah, like the paper thing, yes. I guess when he went to go throw in the spices, it just exploded everywhere. And even then, when he came downstairs,

I noticed he had some spots on his place, and it didn't even dawn on me when we were initially talking. Do you think he might have been tipsy when he took on this project after coming home from the, okay. Oh, yeah, because I'm like, how, how when he's pouring it out, does he not realize it's oil? Well, so I guess when he was also heating it up, He realized it wasn't bubbling and he was like, well, I guess it's ready.

And went to go through everything in and just just everywhere. So I'm like, what are we going to do? I'm like, we can't go out and buy new turkeys. Forgive me, why do we need the vegetable broth with it? How was the turkey involved with the vegetable broth? So I guess that's something that you used to brine it. Oh, okay, okay. There's multiple use of it.

You use it for the stuffing. You use it for the gravy. I guess he used it on the turkey itself. It smeared it all over the turkey. He oiled it up good. Yep. We really laughed at it. Baved it in oil. So at this point, we're like, we can't go out and buy a new turkey. So we then get it in the pan.

And we open up the oven now. To preface this, we had a very small kitchen where you couldn't really open up the fridge and the oven at the same time. The oven was relatively small. So we go to put the turkey in the pan and you put it in the oven. And now we realize that we can't even get the pan in the oven. The pan's too big. Oh, I hate this. God.

It's so hard to cook Thanksgiving and a. small kitchen. I've also done it. Yeah. And at this point, I'm just regretting all of my decisions. I'm like, should we cancel? Yeah, you're like, is there a Boston market nearby? At this point, like, let's just order pizzas and call it a day. But I remembered from when I was a kid, our oven caught on fire during a holiday. So I knew when I was a kid that we could cook the turkey on a grill. We did have a grill. So I'm like, listen, let's not panic. We'll do it on the grill. And he's like, no, I'll do it on the grill. He's just like, you don't know how to do this. So he goes outside, figured out. He goes to light it. And we have no propane. So he goes out to go get propane. As he's grabbing his car keys, he realizes now it's pouring rain now. So not only is he's going to have to go out in the rain, but now he's going to have to cook the entire turkey in the rain. Oh, boy. He's gone.

He comes back. He's getting everything situated. And I'm noticing that people are starting to show up early. Turkey's not cooked. Like, everything's kind of chaotic. And I had invited my cousin, his wife, and their dog. And the dog is very cute, but she's a little bit of a nervous pup. and I did not realize that,

but they were coming from a far distance, and I was like, no, just bring her, it would be fine. So the dog's barking, she's nipping at us, every single chance we get. This dog clearly does not want to be there. And we're still trying to get everything situated. My husband's soaking wet from the rain. He's like coming in and out.

We're leaving the door open a little bit because there's no ventilation. They come in, they say hello. And eventually my sister comes in. And I'm like, okay, well, now I want to go in the living room and join the conversation. We get in there. And when you approach a dog,

You're supposed to go the top of your hand out, not palm up. Okay, for the sniff. Yeah, so they can sniff you. I did not do that. I went palm up and the dog of me like nip me and bit me. So it wasn't a big bite, but it was enough where it was just profusely bleeding. Oh, God. Oh, wow.

Yeah, this is really going sideways. Nothing's working, really. The socializing isn't working. We got an attack dog on the scene. Yeah, it was just chaotic. So my cousin was very apologetic. He's like, I'm so sorry. Are you okay?

I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm fine. But meanwhile, I'm like, ow, and now we have no paper towels. So I have nothing to wrap it in. So we had some of those fancy Thanksgiving napkins that don't really absorb it anything. They just have the fancy turkey picture on it. Sure, sharp. So I'm trying to, like, hold up my hand so it could try to stop bleeding. But I still have these sides that I have to mix and everything.

So I'm mixing with my non-dominant left hand. We're slipping on the floor that there's blood everywhere. Like, it was just, it was chaotic. So my other cousin now comes in. She's the one that actually lives in New York. comes in and she's like, what in the hell is going on? She sees, I'm sweating because it's hot in the kitchen. She's slipping on the floor. She's wondering if there's going to be like blood in the mashed potatoes. It's too much. Now my husband comes in and he sees my hand. He's like, what happened?

So I told him, he runs upstairs to go get me a band-aid. In the meantime, again, the doors opened up a crack. And the dog, do-to-to-do just walks over and runs out the door. And I lived on a very busy street corner. Oh, Jesus. So I was like, oh my God, the dog's going to run out in the the street. It's going to die. My cousin's never going to talk to me again. This is just the worst day ever. It's not your fault. Thanksgiving's going to turn into a funeral. Now we're running after this dog, my husband and I, in the rain, bloodied up, just not feeling great at this point. Thankfully, my cousin's wife opened up the door called the dog, and the dog thankfully ran to her. But it was continuously running in between my neighbor's yard, my yard. It was just a nightmare.

And of course, I don't want to grab this dog again because I don't want my whole hand getting chopped off. So we finally get in. Everyone's now come. We thankfully have the Thanksgiving turkey and it came out beautiful. So shout out to my husband. He did a beautiful job. On the grill. That feels challenging. Yeah. Because you're using the grill as an oven kind of. Yeah. Which yeah, you can do. If anyone's ever in a pinch, use your grill. Poppe it on the grill. It had like a nice crispy crust too. Yum. All that oil. Yeah. And thankfully, no one's eyebrows has got singed off. That was a good thing. But yeah, so Thanksgiving didn't turn out to be a total disaster, but it's safe to say we, we have. We have not hosted anything since that point.

It's hard with all those restrictions. Well, I think it's very human. People get a little too ambitious on that day. They go like, I haven't really tried all this stuff, but how hard could it be? It's fun to do, but it's a lot. I have fun showing up to the event and being like, I brought a pie. Yeah, that's ideal. Safe to say we have not hosted again.

We've gone out since. Cousinsgiving, you're just going out now. Yeah, exactly. Like professionals know how to do this. Even if you had crammed that 10-pound turkey in the five-pound oven, now where are you baking all the shit? Because you got so much stuff to bake. That's the problem.

Besides, because I do Monskiving. So I cook the whole thing. I've done this now two or three years, three years, I think. And you have to have a whole system laid out time-wise. So this goes in at this time, then comes out, then this goes in. And then this comes out, sometimes you can double if there's space. Yeah. It was honestly, it was just so chaotic.

Definitely, if I do do something in the future, I have to be able to time it out a little bit better. But thankfully, it did come out. all well, and that's a huge thanks to my husband. He's actually here if I could bring him out to meet you guys. Let's meet the griller, the grill in chief. Hey, guys. Oh, you're holding a little turkey. How small.

This is our baby. Oh, how old is this baby? Eight weeks old. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. He's so cute. Hey, he's going to cry if I do that. He doesn't care about being on armchair expert.

Yes. He's the master griller. He did a fantastic job. I love that she picked this story. I swear I'm good at cooking sometimes. I mean, a lot of misses, but at the end of the day, you saved it. It flew under the radar. Nobody asked any questions.

And so I was a success. Now, how did so much oil get on the floor? I understand it exploded when you put the spices in. You got to remember, it was late at night, which was my first mistake. You know, you're supposed to boil the broth and the spices and then you throw the turkey in. It wasn't boiling. And I'm like, why isn't it boiling? because it's oil and it's super heated.

Yeah, so I started cranking it. And then I can't remember what the catalyst was, but you know, you agitate it in any way. And it wasn't, you know, like a little bit of a geyser. Nothing caught fire, but the window just had covered in oil. The surfaces covered in oil. We used, I think, like an entire Costco package of paper towels. Like, please don't wake you up, please. Please don't let her find out that I'm doing this.

Oh, that's great. Boy, well, it's delightful to meet you guys. What a sweet family. I would also like to give a quick shout out to my sister Trish, my cousins, who, you know, thankfully ate the food. And to our friends, Katie and Claire, who got us turned on to Armchair Anonymous. And Claire just recently got engaged. Congratulations. We love that.

Oh, so much life-affirming stuff happening. Yes. Life moves on after the oil. It does. It keeps rolling on. Well, Jillian, so nice to meet you. It was so nice to meet you guys. Have a great day.

You too. Bye. Bye. Couldn't happen to a nicer person. Ew. Oh, that baby was really small. Eight weeks. How old is Fizz right now?

Nine weeks? Yeah, probably around. That could have been his bro. They're about the same age. Yeah, they could hang out. They could hang. They'd have the same nothing to say. Yeah, they get along in that way.

But they might kick each other. Well, they might get to play in soccer, given Viz's extreme aptitude. Hi there. Hi. Are you guys? Great. Is it Kat? Cat, yep.

Kat, where are you? I am in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Okay. And you're in a bit of a small little area. Our company just put in our office, these little sound booths. Oh. I'm saying just for this. Yeah.

For when employees are on podcasts. Because everyone else cubes all on top of each other. And this way, I guess you can talk on the phone without interrupting. Yeah. What line of work are you in? Insurance. Insurance. Okay.

Okay. Health, property, all of the above? Commercial property and casualty. Okay, okay. This is what our good friend Huey's line of work is. Yeah. So you have a crazy dinner party story? Yeah, ever since I got the email and then I confirmed I was second guessing myself.

I was like, oh my God, it's not crazy enough for you guys. So I don't know. Just add a dead body at the end. Just throw one in randomly. There are dead bodies. Oh, my God. Wow. Can't wait.

Yeah, I'm not shy as you got through. This was back, gosh, like 2001. It was the summer after my first year of college. And I went to stay with my aunt in Muscoca. I know you're familiar on the lake. Yeah. She was building a new cottage on the lake, kind of like between Port Carling and Bracebridge area. And is she a Canadian or she just had a vacation house?

No, she's Californian. But my great, great grandparents, they had an island. forever ago. And my mom and her grew up going at the island every summer in Muscoca. And so it's just been a whole life thing for her. And she started going back as an adult and renting a cottage. And then after, I don't know, 15 years of doing that, she decided to build her own cottage. Oh, lovely. I went to live with her that summer to help her work on her cottage and paint floors, paint walls, do all the things there. The community there, they're all really tight knit. And they're having dinner parties and events all the time. Like, it's very social and everyone hangs out all

summer together. A lot of boathouse parties. Doc parties, lots of parties in general. So the night in question, I was there. I'd only been there like a week or so at that point and was just kind of meeting some of her friends, kind of getting acquainted. And we went out to a friend of hers, we'll call her Betty. We went to Betty's Island. You have to go by boat.

And we get there and it's beautiful. It's all set up outside, you know, tables, tablecloths, very nice dinner for 15, 20 people. Everyone's chatting, talktale hour. And then we all go to sit down for dinner. And Betty comes over and she looks at me and she says, I'm going to be super tacky and leave the wine bottle on the table. You know, I was 19. And I was like, is that tacky? I don't know.

Yeah. Was that a wink, wink, like, go ahead and have some drinks. You're also in Canada where it's 19 is the law. It was legal. And everyone was drinking, but it was like, I'm just going to leave the wine bottles on the table. It's so tacky. Okay. I don't know why that would be tacky.

I think that's her wink, wink, wink, wink saying like, go ahead and, yeah, these will be out. go ahead and have a glass. That's what I'm interpreting. Is that what you thought it meant? No, I just thought it was, she thought that it was really rude. Truthfully, and she was embarrassed. She had some etiquette stuff, obviously. Okay.

We sit down, we're eating dinner. It's beautiful. Normal nature sounds. All of a sudden, Betty, says, oh, excuse me for just a minute. And she chooses herself from the table. And she walks up into the house, comes out just a minute or so later with her shotgun. You know, you know. Oh, my goodness.

Oh. That's one of your dead bodies. She turns around, fires one shot, and all the birds fly up, crows. Yeah. Fires three more shots, takes several birds out. Oh, she kills some birds. Okay. Just for fun in the middle of the party.

Yeah. And then she just walks back in the house, comes, sits down. She's just made a comment about how, oh, you know, those crows are just a constant nuisance. I'll clean that up later. Oh, God. It was on with dinner. No one says a word. I'm 19, like, I don't know what just happened.

That's that, really. Dinner goes on. Everyone eats, drinks, has fun. My aunt and I get in the boat to go home, and I just looked at her incredulous. And I was like, she said it was tacky to put the wine bottle on the table. But thought nothing then to go get her shotgun and murder birds. Yeah, murder the smartest birds on the planet. Murder the murder.

No one thought anything of it. Or at least they didn't say so out loud. My aunt just started laughing. She was like, yeah, she's a little quirky. Oh, my. And would you say that the crows had been being a nuisance at dinner or no? They're making noise, but you're eating outside. You expect noise, right? Yeah. Most people do. Whoa.

What an interesting gesture. How old was she? Sorry, I think maybe you said. I forget. It's hard to judge when you're 19, right? Yeah. Everyone looks on 100. I mean, she was in 50s or 60s. I mean, she had adult children. Okay. And was she single? No, married. Her husband was there, very quiet. Okay, he just watched her drop a couple birds. That's how they've delineated the work there at the house.

She's in charge of murdering the birds. I wonder if it is supposed to be like bad form to leave the wine on the table. I've never heard this before. I never had either. And you go to eat at restaurants and order a bottle of wine and they set it on the table, you know? I thought nothing of it. I really think she was trying to let you know you could have some wine. Like it's going to be out.

She wouldn't have to say it's tacky. Yeah, I don't know. But she's a strange bird. I guess. I never took it that way, but you might be right, because I was just like, apparently in etiquette class, they covered wine on the table, but not. Yeah, exactly. Murdering a bunch of crows. Oh, wow.

Oh, wow. You spent the whole summer there? A good portion of it, yeah. And have you been back? I think I went back once since then. I went and spent Canadian Thanksgiving with my aunt one year, but otherwise I haven't. Kids and life and craziness. It makes it hard.

Have you watched Sterling Point? No. It's a show that. lot of people are obsessed with and it takes place there. So it's very top of mind to talk about Muscoca. People love it. No, I'd love to go back. My aunt sold the enormous cottage. She built that summer because it just was ridiculously expensive and now has like a one bedroom. So I can't take my three kit. My family. It's not going to work unless I rent a place. Yeah. Although I got to say if she built in 2001, that was a dream time to do it because my trip there was in 06 in the previous

three years, like everything on that, like, had tripled or something. It had really blown up. It was amazing for sure. Really quick. Had everyone finished eating when she killed the birds? Because that could curb your appetite. No, we're right in the middle of dinner. Okay. Were you eating chicken? Smack in the middle. I wish I could remember. I don't know. Well, lovely meeting you. It's good to meet you. Can I go ahead and just shout out to my kids. Hudson, Brooks, and Patriot. Great names. They're going to freak out. I don't. I didn't tell him I was even doing this, but they listen with me all the time. We get in the car.

Can we listen to armchair? We have a shot at a future generation of listeners. I love that. How old are these three? 14, 11, and 8. It's action-packed, huh? Oh, yeah. We're busy, for sure. All right, well, good luck with everything. Thanks so much for telling us that story. Yeah, thanks, guys. Have a good day. All right. You take care. Hello. Oh, my God. This is a trippy angle. It looks like you're upside down. It looks like you're upside down, but you're not. It looks like you're lying down on your bed. That's what it is. Yeah, lying down. That would have been a good idea, actually, given my situation. Tell us about your situation. My closet is so tiny, so I have this duvet cover over my head. It's getting really warm in here.

And then I have my laundry kind of drying rack. It's a very small space. Are you getting claustrophobic? No, no, I'm good, but I just realized that this is going to be warm. Oh, yeah, toasty. It's a pretty duvet. You're in Vancouver Island? I am on Vancouver Island. I'm in the NIMO, yeah. Oh, wonderful. And is your accent from there? No. Good catch. I grew up in the UK. I'm a dual citizen, so I've lived most of my adult life here in Canada. Okay. What age did you move to Canada? Well, I was born here. That's what's complicated. Let's get complicated.

So I moved there at four. I left again at 21. So you did a good 17 years there? I did my formative years there, yeah. And do you miss it? Do you have thoughts of moving back or no? You're happy? I love to visit, but I wouldn't move back. The quality of life is a lot better here. Good to know for picking between locations. So you have a dinner party story. I do, and I've been waiting for this prompt for four years.

Oh, this is great. Okay, what patience you've exhibited. Okay, so this takes place in 2022 in a town called Qualicum Beach. It's about 40 minutes up island from where I am right now. First of all, I have to give you some context on Qualicum. It's this lovely kind of well-kept town, and it has one of the oldest average ages for a community in the whole of Canada. So it's a lot of retirees here. It's pristine. It's really pretty. It's really wholesome. There are no chain stores or chain restaurants.

Nothing is out of place. Like, it's just a very quaint town. Is it rural or is it pretty built up? It's a small coastal town. It's like a string of like communities up the coast here and then in the center of the island is more rural. So my dad's best friend had recently retired here and he brought his wife with him, of course. And we'll call them Nathan and Susan, not because they've done anything wrong, but just because respectful. And I had never met them before, but my dad was really pressuring me to get together and spend time with them, which was very nerve-wracking for me because that's just like a socially awkward situation as far as I'm concerned. Eventually, I get this text from Nathan saying, and it was a very formal text. It was written by like a letter.

It was like, Dear Sarah, we would love for you and your husband to join us for dinner on this date at this time. It was very sweet. And I was kind of obliged to accept at this point. I would never have heard the end of it from my dad if I didn't. On the day of the dinner party, my now ex-husband and I, we'll call him Simon. We're having a super stressful day. We had unexpectedly closed on a house and we had to get the deposit to the other realtor in a strangely accelerated fashion. And it was a Saturday, so the banks made it kind of hard. So we were playing a lot of Tetris with the banks. Simon took the brunt of that. By the time we left for dinner, we were just really like not in the mood at that point. To have dinner with strangers, yeah. Yeah, exactly. He had to kind of be on after this

crazy day. And so I really didn't know anything about these people, except for the fact that he was very much a gin connoisseur. So we, of course, picked up a bottle of local gin to take with us, hoping that it would break the ice, make it that first interaction a bit easier. As it turned out, Nathan and Susan, they're just lovely, lovely people, gracious hosts. They had pre-dinner G&Ts, and then we had wine. Sounds lovely. We all sat down for dinner, and the context of the room is important for this story. So if you can imagine at the back of the room is the kitchen, and then you have parallel to that, like a big oversized island. And then again, parallel to that is a big farmhouse table. And then again, parallel to that is like the back of a sofa

and that kind of delineates between the kitchen, the dining and the living room area. And beyond, that sofa is another one and massive windows out onto the street. Nathan had made dinner for himself. He was very proud of it. It was like a one pan, creamy pasta bake. You know, he'd throw the cheese in the pasta and everything in, throw it in the oven. So he put it down on the table in front of us, very proud announced what he'd made. And given that Simon had had a especially stressful day without much of a chance to sit down and eat, he loaded up his plate, which wasn't unusual because he was a big guy, but like you'd act super active, trying to get all the protein in that he could. Sure, sure. But he'd been off carbs for a while. Oh, okay.

All right. Yeah. And so this was like an epic, epic event for him. And I remember we were driving there. And he said, I'm going to eat carbs today. Oh, yeah. Yes, so exciting. He would often be testing out the latest fitness-related diet trends and he didn't drink much. So he's very kind of health conscious. Really quick. Was that annoying? I think I just got used to it after a while. It became white noise.

How was he eating this week? Okay. Yeah. Well, there would be like three months stints and then he takes some data and do some workouts and test it. He's like a scientist on his body. Yeah. After a lot of like polite chit-chat, Simon gets up and goes to the bathroom and he was a while in the bathroom. Oh, no.

Oh, no. Sure. But he came back and fully loaded his plate up again with another full plate full of pastas. Things are getting a little messy. There's a lot of stuff to consume. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And that's when things started to go off the rails, I have to be honest.

I hadn't noticed yet, but Susan turned to Simon and was like, are you feeling okay? And to be fair, he was looking a bit gray. Oh. Okay. He was like swaying a little bit, you know, like in a circular fashion and we're like, oh, no. So she suggested he just go sit on the sofa. Right there and we could all chat until you feel better kind of thing. Well, he's a child.

Yeah. Yeah. And he did. He like went over there. And he kind of, his head kind of just went back against the back of the sofa. And he had his arms out, you know, like stretched out along the back of the sofa. And his head just like starts rolling back and forth. And I'm just like, what's going on?

And then suddenly he shouts, oh, no. He finally like lurches forward and like projectile vomits. across himself The coffee table It even hits the sofa beyond Oh boy He's a big boy and he exploded Oh God

It just kept coming like wide angle violently spewing everywhere Oh no What terrible dinner guests you guys are I have never seen so much sick in my entire life Ew. Regurgitated pasta was like everywhere. Oh, boy.

Boy, boy. It was just in shock. We just like stood there watching in horror as this unfolded in front of us. And he eventually like rocked back into the back of the sofa, kind of moaning. And I just started, my first instinct was to apologize profusely. Simon was covered. The sofa he was on was covered. Oh.

The silk rug in front of it was covered. No. He kind of is a. baby a little bit. Yeah. This is horrible. It was horrible. So Susan rushes over with a dustpan and like two like cake slices, you know, that

you slide a piece of cake out of a cake. And so she and I started like scraping the vomit off the carpet into the dustpan. Oh boy. Oh boy. This is. And Simon just sitting on the couch watching all this? He's like barely, barely conscious at this point. Meanwhile, Nathan had grabbed a bowl and he's pushing the vomit off the coffee table into the bowl.

Jesus Christ. It's like I just can't over-emphasize how much of it there was. The sheer volume, yeah. The sheer volume. And then came the problem of like how Simon was going to leave the house without spreading this any further. Yeah, he's got to kind of get his clothes off. And so Nathan was just like very sweet and he said, how about I'm going to go upstairs and get some workout gear. You can leave your clothes here.

We'll wash them. Then we'll do a swisheroo later. Oh, wow. So nice. Yeah. Lovely people. So he does that. I don't know what happened, but I turned around.

And Nathan's there holding the clothes and not far away from him is Simon facing the window, like completely naked. Oh. Oh my God. He's like on a peyote trip. Does he get like roofy? Yeah. What's going on? And like his pile of like vomit covered clothes are on the floor next day.

him. And Susan's suddenly like, oh my God. And she like turns around to give him his quote, unquote, privacy. The lights are on. It's dark outside. The curtains are not closed. And there's this wholesome community beyond. Oh, God. So he gets dressed. Because it was so dramatic, it was just like, what is going on? We ended up all piling into their minivan and like driving 40 minutes down the road to emerge. We probably didn't need to. But there was nothing. serious going on. When you had a debrief with Simon the next day and you said, what happened in the trip to the bathroom? Do we know what happened in the trip to the bathroom? I think he just realized he wasn't feeling very well and he had considered like trying to make himself be sick, which doesn't

really make sense because he came back and got more food. That's the real confusing part of the story is the reload. What? He just was so hungry for carbs. He was like, fuck it. I don't care. I still want to eat all these carbs. And then the next day did he theorize what? That it was. Was alcohol-related, pasta-related, or did he think he had an illness? So what I think happened is that he'd had such a stressful day and he hadn't had a chance to eat much or even drink much. So he's really dehydrated. He only had literally a couple of drinks and then he ate all this food. He's like a puppy.

Yeah. His body was like, no. We don't do this. Yeah. Save it. Get rid of it. Oh, fuck. Were you ever invited back other than to swap the clothes?

They came to us. Oh, that's nice. I hope to God Nathan took a shit in the middle of your living room. I mean, we deserved it. But then every time after that that he looked like he was going to burp or something, I was just like, oh, no. You know, like when you have a cat that's kind of heaving and you try and direct them off the carpet. Yeah, or a child. That's sick.

Yeah. It was very traumatizing. Yeah. The thing makes me think of all the times you have your kid in the bed. They're sick. You've got a trash can next to the bed. And for some reason, even that is just not enough. Too hard to get in there. Wow. That's a disaster. Simon. I mean, then you just like handed him the papers. You're like, you know what? This is, nah, I can't do this. I can't do these double dates anymore with you. We'll have no friends left at this right. Yeah, exactly. Oh, well, Sarah, you're so much fun and you're so articulate and you have a really one of vocabulary and I enjoy all those things. Yeah. Well, it's so nice to meet you, Sarah.

Thanks for chatting with us. Yeah, you too. Thank you so much. This has been really exciting. And can I just give a quick shout out. Oh, you can give many. My friend Summer helped me last night. I was panicked a bit with a tech. We did a practice call and tested these headphones that I grabbed from work. So I just want to say, thanks, Summer. Thank you, Summer. Thank you, Summer. Thank you, Summer. You did perfect. You sound great. No technical problems whatsoever. Which is rare. We generally deal with a good six, seven minutes of technical issues before each. That's what you're spared in editing. Perfect. Yeah. All right, we'll be well.

Take care. Thank you, you too. Bye. Bye. I liked her duvet. Yeah, I liked her whole. She had a good vibe. They kind of matched my pants.

Are you getting more and more intrigued by Vancouver Island? I am. Like, everyone we interview from there raves about it. Yeah, I bet it's great. And if she's saying it's preferable to the UK, I certainly like the UK. I do too. But that feels personal. Hey.

You're so cute. Is it Sarah? Yes. Yes, Sarah, where are you? I'm calling from Massachusetts, Central Massachusetts. Are we in the Berkshires there? What's happening in Central? Not that far left.

I'm more outside of Worcester. Oh, Worcester. Okay, wonderful. And are you from there or have you moved there? Moved here after college, found the love of my life. Now we live here. You followed a boy there. No, we met when we both were already here.

Great correction. Is he from there, though? No. Nope. We both just went to college here. Nice. And this is where all of our people are. Yeah.

Oh, that's so fun. Where are you from originally? I'm originally from Illinois, which is where this story takes place. Okay. Do you want to tell Rob where? Because it's fun for him to hear. I'm from Geneva, Illinois. Lake Geneva?

No. That's Wisconsin. That's Wisconsin. You're stupid. But that's what everyone asks. Everyone asks if it's Lake Geneva. It's just straight up Geneva. Yep.

Is it the place Princess Diaries? Sometimes I also get Genovia. Genovia. Oh, wow. She's the princess of Genovia. Who is? A girl from? Princess Diaries.

Oh, okay. But she's from this town in Illinois? No, she's from Genovia. Oh, okay. She's a princess of Genovia. Okay, so sorry. I did one time have my husband tell someone very confidently that I was from Genovia. That's nice.

And what did you major in at this college? So I actually went to University of Vermont and then kind of everybody, leaves there and goes to Boston, which is where the love story started. But I'm a special educator, so I study education. Oh, okay, wonderful. Okay, so you have a dinner party story. I do have a dinner party story. Again, I'm going to say it again. It might be annoying. You're just terribly cute. It's like I'm like looking at five Omalskowitz or something. You could be a cartoon character. Thank you so much. I work on a college campus and I get mistaken for a college student all the time. Yes, I would bet that. Congratulations.

Yeah. Thank you. You look 19 or 20. I don't know how old you actually are. I'm 30. 30. You're going to look at standing when you're my age. Yeah. Yeah.

So this took place in Illinois, in Geneva, Illinois, which is a very small town. I like to say it's the last stop on the train from the city of Chicago before you hit just total cornfields. I was 10 years old, which brings us to December of 2005 when this story happens. And the other key player in this is my sister. Her name is Emily, and she's two years younger than me. So she's eight and you're 10. Yes, exactly. And is it snowy there in the winter in December?

It is snowy. This was, I'll feel like a little more icy. The snow usually hits in January, but it's definitely cold. You don't want to be outside in December, which also factors into this story because my parents are having a dinner party in this story. And so my dad's job brought us to Illinois, but he was originally from Connecticut. and my mom was originally from Virginia. So all of our family is up and down the East Coast.

And so we moved to Illinois and we don't know that many people. But my mom, being Southern, loves to be a hostess, loves to have people over to our house and show hospitality to the Mack, Southern Charm, all of that. And so my parents had a lot of dinner parties when I was growing up. And I remember me feeling like a kid, they are going to have such a fun night. I'll get to hear them from either upstairs or downstairs because they usually would hire a

babysitter to just keep an eye on us while they had all their couple friends over. Sure. Party, let's be honest. Exactly. It was a party. We lived on this square of a neighborhood that there was a park in the middle and then houses lining the square. And almost, I would say, 50% of the houses around the square were adults, my parents' age with kids roughly around my sister and I's age. How fun.

Yeah, it was a lot of people to invite over to these dinner parties. Usually they would have babysitters, but now I was 10 years old. This is the first dinner party. I remember that my parents said, we don't need to hire a babysitter. You and your sister, you've got it handled. We'll be upstairs. You guys can go hang out in the basement while we're having our dinner party. And by basement, I mean it was fully finished.

There was a bathroom, a little kitchenette, and like our playroom was down there. Wood paneled walls? Yep, wood paneled walls, blue patterned carpet. It was very like Midwest. It was kind of like a circle. So you would go down the stairs in the middle. And on one side was the playroom where we had all our toys, bathroom on the back side. And then the other side was we called it the man cave for our dad.

But I don't know that it was really ever used as that. But it had like a TV and a leather couch and a pool table. God, guys are so predictable. They've got to have a leather couch. Why do we have to have a leather couch? Not comfortable. No, none of them are. If you try to lay down and put your face on it and you're like, oh, it's terrible.

And they get cold. They don't get warm. Yeah. They're either sticky in the summer or freezing in the winter. We never really used the pool table because it came with the house. The last owners had it. And I guess it was going to be so much trouble getting it out of the basement. They asked my parents if they wanted to keep it.

And they said, sure. But we didn't really use it. It was like a prop for my sister and I's games sometimes, but we didn't play pool. This is the story of all pool tables, which is fun. Yeah, they don't get used. It just kind of sits there and collects dust. And every guy wants one. So my parents are having to be.

this dinner party and they say one of the couples that we're inviting is Matthew and William's parents who were our neighbors down the street, these two young boys that were the same exact age as my sister and I. So William was 10 and Matthew was 8 and we would hang out a lot at the park in the middle of our houses like tag, hide and seek. They had a trampoline, fun stuff outside. So my parents were like, well, what if we let those two come over? That way, that's kind of entertainment for the party. parents are upstairs, nothing could really go wrong. We're on cloud nine. Our parents order us pizza.

We hear all the other couples coming in upstairs and get through like the tour of our playroom. And we come to the realization that we don't really have a lot of toys for boys. We have dress up and Barbies and crafts and all of that stuff. We're a girl house. So we're kind of like, what should we do? We've already eaten our pizza. So we don't really want to watch a movie just yet.

It's too early in the night. So what should we do? And the boys are like, we want to play pool. Of course. It's in their genetic code. It's on the 46 chromosome. Yep. And my mom taught my sister and I to be very good hostesses, you know, whoever's coming into the house, you have to do what they want to do.

Oh, God. And so my sister and I like, okay, we don't know how to play pool, but fine. So I don't remember why, but I was the last to grab a pool cue from the one. wall. We had like a little rack of pool cues. And we had adult-sized pool cues and then we had kid-sized pool cues. And I was a kid, so I usually used the kid-sized pool cue. But just to put it into perspective, at age 10, this pool cue probably came. If it was up on the floor, right about to my belly button. Oh, it's a tiny little guy. Yes, it's tiny. But it gives me more control because I really don't know how to play this game. And so the boys set it up and they put the balls on the table and they

break it and they're trying to teach us how to play pool. And my sister and I are just like not getting the hang of it. And after a few rounds, we're like, we really don't want to be playing this game. And so it starts to get that like kind of rambunctious. We're chatting on the side. We're like, how do we get these boys to stop wanting to play pool? We want to have a fun night. We're kind of over this game. And so I had this brilliant idea and I just said, I bet that I could jump over this pool queue and clear it. Oh, well. Well, it's standing upright.

Okay. So you're committing to jumping at the height of your belly button, basically. Yep, with a little. Yep. And if I clear it, we don't have to play this game anymore. Oh. We don't have to play pool. I get to pick what we're going to play.

And, of course, boys love a bet. Ugh, they do. Death's a fine challenge. They love that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So now my sister and the two boys are like watching me and waiting for me to jump over this pool queue. Is your sister going to hold it up vertical? Someone's got to hold it, right?

That would have been really smart. But I'm 10. I think I can hold it myself while I jump over it. Oh, that feels literally impossible. It sounds more like a pole vaulting situation with too small of a pole. Yeah. So they're all looking at me and I'm holding this pool queue upright and I jump. Oh.

And I land on it. No. I'm kind of impressed you get that high. What are you wearing? I'm wearing sweatpants. Oh, cool. And a T-shirt. Yeah.

Goes right through the pants. Oh. And I'm on the ground. All I feel is the worst pain of my entire life. Oh, my God. My hands do exactly what yours are, Monica. And they go straight to my crotch. And I am grabbing for.

dear life and I'm laying on the ground. And it kind of knocked the wind out of me. So for about 30 seconds, there's just me on the ground not making much noise and the three other kids staring at me in horror because there's blood pooling everywhere. Okay, I have to ask a hard question. The pool cue is it in you or is it on the ground beside you? It's on the ground beside me. There was a quick In and after. Oh, fuck. And after about 30 seconds of, like, catching my breath and in pain, I get out the words, get mom.

And I make dead eye contact with my sister because the boys are just like. They're already planning how they're going to say they don't know what happened. Exactly. We had nothing to do with it. She totally did it on her own. I mean, in this case, they would be right. Yeah, unfortunately. Mom comes downstairs.

She's thinking that, like, it's going to be something silly. you know? Yeah. Bunkerhead. You're ruining the dinner party for nothing. And so she says she just comes down and sees blood and that was enough for her to be like, okay, jump into action. So she went back upstairs and she got my dad and said, you need to carry Sarah upstairs to the bathroom. We're going to lay down some towels. Something happened. There's a lot of blood. Get her up to the upstairs bathroom. So they get me up so they can like look and see what's going on and quickly realize. we got to go to the emergency room. The blood is not stopping. And my mom says I was white as a ghost and I'm already a very pale little kid. Oh, God. She was like, I knew something was wrong, but there's guests downstairs. Well, they got to go.

Yes, step one is getting the guests out of the house. So I remember my parents going down there and very finely and calmly and calmly trying to be like, this was so great. We got to cut this early. Sarah's not feeling so. Well, she has a hyper-extended anus. Oh, anus? Well, I don't know.

No, vagina, right? Well, we don't know. Yeah, we don't know. Oh, we're going to find out. Could have been either. So she is like rushing people out of the door. And I'm just laying on the bathroom floor. Not sure how much time has passed, but hearing people leave.

And then I think I remember my mom grabbing like a bag of a few like essentials, just depending how long we were going to be at the emergency room. Now I'm in the car, still on a towel. Feeling a little better. still bleeding, not as profusely. Luckily, this is where being from small town, Illinois, comes in handy because we get to the emergency room. And it's about, I would say, two weeks before Christmas. So people are trying to be safe for the holidays, trying to make it through the holidays. So the emergency room was like dead empty. There was maybe like one or two other people. But I was

walking into an empty emergency room and I'm the only kid. I do remember getting brought to a room first and then asking me to recount what I did and first off, feeling so embarrassed. Like, there's no amount of explaining this. The stupidity of your actions now occurring to you as you say it out loud. Yes, yes. Why did I think I was going to be able to jump over a pool queue that I was holding? I don't really know. But I'm explaining this. And she's asking me questions about it, but she's also kind of asking questions like, are you safe? Are you okay? Oh, right. Yeah. Of course. This sounds like an insane story someone told you to say. Luckily, there were witnesses and that was fine. They get me into my room pretty quick, but the second issue is that

the doctor that can operate on children, he's gone home. He's like, it's late at night. It's the holidays. They were probably like, yeah, we're not going to see any action go home. So now I have to wait for the doctor to get there. And I don't remember much in that time, but I do remember watching Disney Channel and hearing those commercials like, and you're watching Disney Channel. Oh, 100%. So I remember that. And I remember my mom. pulling the doctor into the hallway and asking, like, really upset. I know she's only 10, but will she ever be able to have children? Sure, sure.

So it is the vagina. Catastrophizing. He tells her she's going to be able to have children, but basically she gave herself an epistem. Oh. It's a nice tear between the vagina and the butthole to get a baby out. You know, you're having a hard time. And I'm 10, and I gave myself one of those. So wait, wait, because it's like, stitches.

Because it just didn't go in. It caught the edge, presumably. God. Yeah. And then kept going. I have to say, though, I am impressed that you even got that high on the jump. Okay. Yeah, there is some things to feel proud of in the story.

Yeah. Like, that's pretty high. I'd have to jump to even clip it. Well, kind of not, though, also, Monica, because you could just run and not even come off the ground. She was holding it. Yeah, but if she's trying to position it so she clears herself, I mean, she also wouldn't even need to jump. No. Imagine, like, you're holding, and then you're jumping from,

holding, there's a lot going on. I'm impressed. But she is holding it to her bottom so that she's clearing it. I probably let it right there. Yeah, I think your instinct. I got to clear this with my bottom, so I'm going to position it right at my bottom, and then I'm going to fall onto it. I think you did a great job. I think you should have been an Olympian. I was a high jumper and another life, maybe, but not this one. And the benefit was that since I was the only kid there, I remember getting so much like attention in the emergency room. Like, I got a little stuffed animal teddy bear and a little reindeer and some candy. So I was in pain, but feeling pretty pampered. Yeah.

Well, my mom is like really stressed out. And the teddy bear definitely was covered in. What's that super bug? Oh, Marsa. Mercer. He's probably slathered in Mercer. Big absorbent teddy bear that's getting passed around all the children at all. Did you receive stitches?

I did. I underwent a surgery in the middle of the night that was pretty in and out, like an hour of stitches all the way up and then they dissolved. Do you know how many they gave you? I do think it was around a dozen. How was peeing after that? Bad. Yeah.

And so was just like being in any position other than laying down. Well, I also think when it's time to go duty, you're in trouble because that whole area is expand. The pressure. Oh, no. Oh, goodness. This is horrible. Kids do the darndest thing. Wait, boys.

These boys, they want to play pool, and they're not listening to the girls saying they don't want to play pool. I don't know if we can credit the boys in this one. Hey, I'd never been to the emergency room after playing Barbies. That's right. That's right. Although we did have that guy who got the Barbie stuck up his butt. Yes, I do remember that. I can also go wrong.

Oh, that's awful. That's really terrible. And were you then forbade from babysitting, or did they let you go right back at it? I think my parents waited a good year before they hosted another dinner party. They were like, let other people be the host, not here. Yeah, that's fair. And then the boys, now did you go to school with them, I assume? Yep.

And did they tell everyone? Luckily, no. Their mom and my mom were really good friends. So I think my mom probably was like, Sarah's so embarrassed. She feels so bad. And their mom probably said, if you say anything. Because she was also a pretty stern southern lady. Oh, good for her.

Back to the Lizzo episode, this could become an urban legend. No one would be just satisfied with the real story. They'd have to augment it to make it crazy. You're right. I did, after the fact, have a lot of nightmares that I would fall off of cliffs into a, like, pit of pool cues. Oh, that's so sad. Yeah. I would imagine you had a little vaginal PTSD. Definitely.

I don't almost be afraid for anyone to ever touch it after that. Yeah, like, have you had children? Not yet, but I did have to. see a pelvic floor therapist for that exact reason. Okay, yeah. That's wise. Should I see one? If you want.

And I think you do want. It was a painful story, but it was also very adorable. Yeah. We're glad you survived. I'm glad I survived too. I always tell the story. My friends all know it, so it's a classic. It's a classic.

Classic Sarah. But my husband does want to say hi. Yes, of course. We'd love to meet him. He showed me your podcast, and we've gotten in arguments about when he watches this show without me on car rides. Oh, that's nice. Hey, guys.

Hi. How are you? Wow, how are we doing? So good. I didn't realize you guys are in the seats for the anonymous, too. Yeah. Like where you guys are for the regular interviews. We're in our special seats.

Yeah, where the guests normally sits, we pop a camera in the monitor. And when I say we, I mean, Rob does. And how are you liking your Massachusetts life? It's a great life. I'm from Northern California. I've been out here for a while now, though, so I'm a little bit more used to the cold, kind of. I feel like my hands get like purple every winter.

Sure, swell up a little bit. Just part of the lifestyle out here. And do you work at the university as well? I don't. I'm an IT recruiter, but she's a saint. Like, she does incredible work with the universities. So we all know the term IT tech, and we were watching Silo with the family the other day. And the girls asked, like, what IT stands for?

What is IT? I'm like, well, it's the people that fix the computers and shit at work. And then I'm like, what does that? what does it stand for? And my guess, and hopefully you'll know, is I was like, is it something to do with telephones because it's that old of an occupation? Like, is it instruments and telephones? What is it?

Information technology. Yeah. Information technology. Great. That one's going to make me sound great. Yeah. Really good clip for you. You are a master at this.

Do you watch the Mission Impossible? Absolutely. Classics. Right. And you know they work for the IMF. but do you know what that stands for? Something cool. Impossible Mission Force.

That's made up, right? Well, yeah, there's no such thing as the IMF. But the whole movie are all eight of them. You keep hearing IMF. And I'm like, what does IMF actually stands for? And it's so on the nose. Impossible Mission Force. Well, yeah, they made that up in like the 90s.

It was a different time then. They were just throwing acronyms out there. Sure, see what would stick. Just put Tom Cruise in front of it. Yeah, it's fine. No one will ask. Now, we think Sarah's among the cutest human beings we've ever met in our lives. And do you feel that way? Do you feel like, wow, I really got a unicorn. Are you kidding me? Of course. Absolutely.

And she's smart as hell too. Oh, you got it all. Like she's working on getting her doctorate in education right now. Sarah. What a champ. She's a beast. You know the second you saw her. Oh, yeah. We met on good old hinge. Nice. Oh, lovely. I love to hear those good stories. Success story on Hinge. I hear a lot of them actually. Oh, you guys are cute. Yeah, we like you guys. All right. Well, so nice meeting you. It's a pleasure meeting you guys. I'm a OG fan. Oh, thank you. Nice to be you both. Well, stay super cute, you guys. Oh, well, all right. You too. All right. You too. Bye. Oh, God, I love them. That used to be something you'd write in like your books like, stay cute. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Or we would do the number two, too cute plus to be forgotten or too sweet to be forgotten.

There was always, yeah, stay sweet. Thank you. Good night, sweetie. No one wrote that. Okay. All right. Well, that was wonderful. Love you.

Do you want to sing a tune or something? We know a theme song. Oh. Okay, great. We don't have a thing song for this new show. So here I go, go, go. We're going to ask some random questions. And with the help of our Jerry's book, it's suggestions.

I'm a fire rhyme dish I'm a flyer rhyme dish Enjoy