Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Armchair Anonymous: News II

Episode Date: October 23, 2026

Dax and Monica talk to Armcherries! In today's episode, Armcherries tell us about a time they made the news.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 and I'm joined by Monica Padman. Hi. We are sitting in such a weird spot right now. I know. Normally I'm across from you, but right now I'm next to you and it's strange. It's really strange, but we are getting to show our profiles off a little more than normal. Oh, this is a good time to remind people that if you want to watch us, you can watch us on Armchair Anonymous now.

Yeah. It's only on us. For better or worse. Yeah. Honestly, it's for worse. But please watch. Yeah, check it out. Yeah.

Check it out. Okay, today we have fun stories about people who have been on the news. There's nothing more exciting. I'm from a small town. So being on the news was like a big deal. The biggest. I was on the news for cheerleading. Of course you were.

You're going to celebrate our state champs. Oh, you were on a billboard? Yes. Do you take a picture of yourself in front of the billboard? I did not. What? I know. How could you have not done that?

My parents just didn't care enough? They thought that was too indulgent. Yeah. You already have a fucking billboard. Now you need a picture of yourself in front of the billboard. Do you take a picture of the billboard at least? I assume it got... Photographed.

You know. All right. Well, anyways, please enjoy crazy news stories. All times. Come and go. Take them slow. I had them bow. You got to know.

I'm going to keep on shining. Hello. Can you hear us? Look at your shirt. My close friends, Dachson, Monica. Monica, I really like that you notice my shirt immediately. Yes, because I love Adam Driver. Was this made personally for you, or can you buy this off the web?

You can buy this off the web. I found a website that you can do this for ostensibly any celebrity or anyone really in general. I got it for a Halloween costume. I was going to have a cabby hat and be a designated driver. Cute. Oh, wonderful. You've seen the one Kristen has of me, right? It's very similar to this.

And the big joke was that she wore it, like, like five times and I never noticed it, but it's all these pictures of me. And they're mostly paparazzi photos. And they pick the worst ones. Incredible. They pick one where we went to the beach right when the baby was new and I'd gain like 25 pounds while Kristen was pregnant. And I just look like a slob is what I look like. Part of your life.

I guess so. That's right. That's right. It's documentation. That's all. Okay. And where are you? I am in Durham, North Carolina. Great place.

I hear about it all the time. Yeah, you're familiar with some parts of North Carolina. Well, Cedaris talks a lot about Durham because it's Raleigh Durham, right? They're neighboring. That's right. I've been here like seven years and the story takes place in Durham. Great. Okay.

Hit us. You have a news story. That's right. So I'm telling it on behalf of my roommate Beth. Okay. And I got her permission, of course, and everything. She's really the main character of this story. But myself and a former roommate Natalie, who's a good buddy of mine, we are supporting

characters. So I felt like I could tell it. Great. So this is May 2020. rough weird time. There's four of us living in a house in Durham, so not the house I'm currently in. It wasn't a bad neighborhood at all.

It was like pretty calm. Things didn't really happen too much there. We were definitely the most like controversial house on the block. We were just four friends, three girls, one guy. Like no one really knew what to do with us. But the neighborhood was mostly older folks. We watched our sweet old neighbor across the street get taken out of her house in a body bag.

Oh, okay. Fast on. Oh, okay. This is like 9.30 on a Sunday. Late for me, I was in bed. My roommate, Beth, she's very zany, quirky, fun. Love her. She's still my roommate, living together still seven years later.

Oh, good. She was sunning her plants outside all day. So they were out on the lawn, and she was taking them in because she didn't want them to, I don't know, get cold in the night or something. So she's taking all of her plants in. He comes inside. In her very typical Beth way, she goes, Kiarra, something's happening.

I was like, what does that mean? I'm probably like in bed watching friends. I have a bathroom, right? Come down the stairs. I'm like, what do you mean? Something's happening. She's like, I don't know. Something out on the street is going on.

So we open the door. We look out. 9.30, it's dark, right? There's a car on the street with headlights, tail lights. So cars running. All the doors are open. Okay, it's just like sitting, idling on the street.

Weird. Then we see small child running. up the street, crying. Oh, oh. Clearly in distress. Beth thought at first that maybe it was like a domestic violence situation. We had no idea what was going on. But low boy's crying.

He runs to our neighbor's house, which I'm not really sure how he made that decision, since our neighbor's house was all dark, like no lights on. You could tell no one was home. It was quite obvious. Our house, all lights open, doors open. He goes over knocking on the door, help, help, help, bringing the doorbell. How old is this little boy, do we say? Five? No, we found out after the fact he was nine. Okay. Old enough to know what was going on and to try to go get help. So he's knocking. He's ringing the doorbell. Beth dives into the meat of life, right? So she goes, hey, hey, do you need help? Come over here. I'm trustworthy. Look, I care for plants. She's a good plant mom. Yeah. She's a great plant mom. So many things about her make her so trustworthy. But she was like, no one else is. Yeah. No one else is hearing this little boy, right? So he comes over to our house. We're like, sit on the couch. Do you want to live here?

You are our child now. Clearly in distress, we're like, okay, what's going on here? We sit him down. We get him some water. We like don't really know what to do with him because we have no idea what's going on. So he has a little bit of broken English and he's obviously stressed and emotional. So his story is like not totally making sense. But we start to understand that he was with his mom.

That's his mom's car out on the street. he had fallen asleep and he had ended up on this street. By himself in the car. That's right. He has his mom's cell phone and like nothing else, right? So then like five, six, seven cop cars fly onto the street. We're like, okay, something obviously has transpired. Long story short is that this kid was in the back of his, his mom's car fell asleep.

His mom was soliciting houses for like church donations. At 930 at night? Well, I know. Okay. I know. Sounds a little flimsy, but continue. Well, yeah, and also, how did you learn that? From the cops or from the child or...

The news story. It was a little piecemeal. It was him and it was the cops telling us, like, this is the report that has come in. Okay. Is that two men had stolen this car with the little boy in the back because he'd fallen asleep. His mom was like, why don't you sleep in the car? I'll go to the door, come back. They had stolen the car thinking they were just stealing a car.

This is like that valet gone wrong. Remember the prank? Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes. It's a movie. This is a boy in the back seat. This is a movie that's like a comedy. Kids procrocious.

It's a home alone for. Oh, my version's more they fall in love with the kid and he kind of straightens out their life. No, it's not a HG. What is the type of movie? HG TV. Hallmark, thank you. It's not a Hallmark movie. It's a funny, buddy comedy.

No, Fred Claw. No, Santa Claus. The bad San. Like he's a bad boy, but then he meets this little boy, and then he kind of falls in love with them, and he does the right thing. That's the version I want to see. Totally wish that had happened. It didn't. So they discovered this boy in the backseat. As they were driving down our street, I guess they discovered this boy.

He woke up. And so he started to make noise, and they were like, we just wanted the car. We weren't in it for kidnapping. Yes. They abandoned the car entirely, jumped into a getaway car. Because Beth had said when she first came out that there was another car speeding away. Okay. They had, like, called their buddies.

They were like, get us out of here. We don't want to steal a child. He did have his mom's phone, but his mom's wallet, everything else, like, was in the car and got ultimately stolen. How far away? It was three or four streets over. They didn't get far, thankfully. Yeah, great. But, you know, because he had his mom's cell phone, he couldn't call his mom.

And she couldn't call the police. I'm sure she went into whatever house she was asking for money from and was like, my child's gone. He was able to call his sister. So sister and boyfriend came, picked him up. But obviously then in that time, multiple news fans started showing up because it was like, you know, big news. We got to talk about it. And so they asked for interviews. Beth was really the one.

She had seen the action from the get-go. Yeah. So she was the one on cameras. She was drinking out of this cup that I own. It's Harry Styles of One Direction era, just his face like boldly on the cup. You have so much. You love your boy. You are boy crazy.

And I love it. And also you just like to display it on your person. Yeah, I appreciate it. I want this. Yeah. So cameras on Beth, One Direction Cup. My roommate Natalie, voice of reason, was like, give me that.

You got to get that out of there. That's crazy. We're going to look so insane. I'm standing in the back in my bathrobe. Natalie was like, you got to get out of the shot. Like, we're looking crazy. Yeah, yeah. We're looking a mess with the One Direction Cup, the rope, whatever.

So Beth gets recorded. 30 seconds. It's like really manic. I sent Emma a clip of the actual, like the news stories you guys watch it. It's fun. It's so funny because Beth is a therapist. Oh. She had just graduated social work school.

So she says something along the lines of, his story wasn't really linear because he had just experienced something very traumatic. Oh, man. No, she got all the therapy speaking out. Yeah. And then she's like, if you need a therapist, please call. Yes. That's right. Can you imagine the mom coming out of the house and then your car is gone with your child in it? Oh, yeah. Okay, we have some photos, Monica. This is the police in action. Just a road flooded with cops.

Yeah, and then there's some adults talking by the edge of what looks like a Volkswagen Passa. Who are those people? That's right. So I think that was Beth and I think that was either a cop or one of the news station folks. Okay, great. Oh, yeah, it appears to be mid-interested. Yeah, there's a bright light shining on her. That's right. It was crazy to me to see how the news works like behind the scenes. They really get in and get out. Yeah, they were fast.

They got to get to that next thing. Well, please tell Beth that we think she's a hero and we love her. We'll do. She is a hero and we love her too. Her nickname's Bonkey. That's another story, but we love our Bonkey. You'll write back. You'll write back.

Your bonkers for Bonkey. Maybe we'll do Origin of a nickname. Oh, that could be it. It's so nice to meet you. Yes. That was great to meet you guys, truly my close personal friends. I can't tell you how many hours of you guys I've listened to. I hope I'm in Durham. I hope I bump into you. Wonderful meeting you. Take care. Bye. Good to meet you. Bye. Hello? Hello. Are you a librarian?

I am at a school and I created a little nook in our library. So I am sitting in a library at a school that I'm. I am not a librarian. Clearly in elementary. It's actually K-12. Okay. Oh, the whole shebang. Yep, in a tiny town in Oregon.

Oh. What part of Oregon? I live in Salem and work outside of Salem. Okay, so schools out? No. I just hope everyone behaves for the next 15 minutes. Oh, good for you. This is exciting.

You've gone rogue. I love it. Okay, well, then try to make this quick for you. Erin, you have a news story? I do. So the year is 1992. I am 15 years old, and I am in a youth orchestra that has just completed a European tour. So we are flying from Denmark to Portland as our final destination.

And we're getting ready to board. Everyone's starting to line up, and I immediately tell one of the chaperones that I have to go to the bathroom. Tana'll hold it, need to go right now. And instead, I realized that at duty-free stores, I'm 15 and I can purchase alcohol. No. Really? Oh, yeah. Is that standard?

Because you're not in a country at that point? What's going on? In 1992, they let it go. Okay. So I purchased a beautiful wicker-wrapped jug, not bottle, not box, a jug of red wine. Oh. Wow. My friend and I go, and we drink a lot of it in the bathroom.

Before the flight. Yeah. Very quickly. As fast as we could, as much as we could. We had a job to do, and we get on the plane. Can I ask quickly, had you been drinking in Denmark? No. First time?

No, it was not my first time drinking, but this was like our last hurrah. Right. Like, it seemed unsupervised, and I'm an opportunist, and the stars aligned. I went for it. Yeah, good for you. Thank you. We all of a sudden hear our names over the intercom. Like, you need to board this plane right now.

So we get there, the chaperone's standing, arms crossed, fingers pointing, you know, like, we were going to leave you. And I was thinking, no. Quickly, had you ditched a wine bottle in the bathroom or is it on your person? Yeah, it's gone. It was too big. So we get on the plane, we take off, and I just feel something in my stomach. Oh. And I hold my hand over.

I am in a window seat and I bolt to the bathroom and just throw up. Oh. Too much Kianti too fast. Yeah, it was way too. There was no pacing in the bathroom moment. And so I go back to my seat and I'm still not feeling well. So I grab a barf bag, you know, the one they give you in front. And my partner in crime had to grab her barf bag.

Okay. So both of you are falling apart. The complimentary barfay. And the person next to her who had nothing to do with the situation also had to use their barf bay. All three of you are yacking in one row. Is it because of the contagion effect? Like because you were. You smell it?

Yeah. I don't know how it happened. I just know it continued to happen for multiple people. What? You started a vomit wave. Get an arena. Or was there bad food? Let's keep going.

Okay, okay, okay. There's vomit. There are the beepers for more bags. Oh, this is horrifying. It's smelly. Oh, my God. Pandemonium at 30,000 feet. Like people aren't making it into their bags.

Yeah, filling them up. They get on the intercom and ask us if we could share barf bags. No. They did. Oh, my gosh. Sure. I mean, guys, this is just going to accelerate the barfing. There's no way if you hand me a half bag full of barb.

I'm not going to barb. So this is also 1992 when they gave you pillows and pillow cases. So they were ripping the pillow cases off the pillows and also using those. Okay. Can you estimate how many active barfers there were? Everyone around me was throwing up. And the news articles later said there were like 40. No, no, no.

Oh, my God. There started to be talk of an emergency landing in Greenland. They're running out of containers suitable for vomit. We decided to power through, and we land in Seattle. I look out the window, and it is total chaos. There are fire trucks, ambulances, news cameras, and a giant blue tarp. The whole community is out to see what is coming into Seattle. Well, they got to wonder if you're bringing in some pathogen at this point.

From another country, for sure. Everyone's hazmat-ed. So they don't let any of us out of the plane. They let us all go down the, like, ramp, the, like, ladder ramp. And I was on the news being wheeled out of the airplane on this ladder. And they put us all on a tarp. This youth orchestra, like they had counted how many kids, you know, you're in a large group. There was like 70 of us.

They're constantly like, do we have everyone? Do you have your group? So we're all spread out on a blue tarp. And they, for identification purposes, they write numbers on our forehead. with Sharpies. Oh, my gosh. So they can decide you number seven, you number three, you're going to Seattle West. They're triaging you.

Yes. So I end up in an ambulance with another barfer. And we end up at some St. Francis, St. Anne, some hospital. They give me an IV. I'm in the room getting checked out. And I see on the news the exact scene of me being hairy. It's not a good angle. Okay.

And I have to call my dad and my parents and say, you know, I'm actually in Seattle and he said, I know, we saw the news. So they don't find anything out, you know, they just let us go. So these musicians that have been together that have been headcounted a gazillion times are now spread out over Seattle. And now we're all trickling back into the Seattle airport because our final destination is Portland. Oh, my God, they're going to put you on another flight. Jesus. By the way, at this point, let's drive to Portland. We're talking three hours.

So I go home. No issues on that flight, though, down to Portland, no one yaks again? I am solid. And everyone is. Everyone's back to being good. Well, we're not together anymore. There are various stages of illness and, you know, whatever hospital, however they want to handle it. So the hospital I was at put me in a cab and I just was off to the airport.

My dad picks me up and he was like, what happened? And I said, your guess is as good as mine. Like, I don't know. And for the next three years, it was forever. I was getting surveys. You know, what did you eat? Who did you eat with? All these things.

The expense of this. I know. Yeah. So they just went in the garbage. They diagnosed us all with food poisoning. However, I know for a fact, I did not eat the same food. And I don't know if it was a combination. I just know that I was shit-based at 15 on an area.

airplane ride from Copenhagen to Seattle. There was a lot of our thing. You had kicked off that chain reaction too. Yeah. You were puker zero. You were, but there's no, something else was also had. This is a mystery. I just think if you smell, dude, if two people are puking next to you, you're puking. And then now if the whole row in front of you or behind you's puking and you're smelling it, you're puking. For that long. And then some of these people are in the hospital for a long Like, this is crazy. That's a cash grab. They're just trying to get a little.

I don't. This is wild. Wow. This is like a very interesting psychology. Wow. And how long before you admitted to your parents that you had drank some Kianti? Way too soon. Way too soon.

The statute of limitation. We were in it. It was three years and I decided to do it on a family vacation. And my mom, she's not a drinker. She got up and left. She was like, this is insane, not funny. And because I'm telling it like, ha ha, guess what? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And she was like, new. And my dad was kind of smirking and you could tell he was trying to hold laughing, but he also had to support my mom. So he was like struggling with that balance. Like, this is fucking funny. But my wife's going to kill her. So I need to maintain the peace. Dads are often in that role, I think.

Yeah. Oh, I love that. What a memorable flight. Yeah. Good story. I mean, as I get older, I think about it more because you just think about the ramifications, like, what happened to that plane? How long was that? Oh, my God.

We were just supposed to stop in Seattle and then continue on, like, all the people on there. You feel bad later. Well, and then the CDC was probably alerted. I mean, people might have flown in from D.C. to Washington. Yes. I guess this was probably like a $10 million. Yeah, it was a lot. Lots of surveys, lots of different agencies, all really, I think, trying to figure out who do we point the

finger out. Who's responsible? Oh, well, Aaron, this was a delight. Yeah, what a fun story. It was so lovely to meet you all. All right, take care. Bye. Have a good day. Bye. Bye. Ben, can you hear us? I can. So the story takes place in Virginia. So I grew up in Northern Virginia. Are you in the D.C. area? Yeah, so it's very different now than it was then. My grandfather worked at the Pentagon, so they lived in Springfield, and then my mom eventually moved further out to the sticks at the time. And now it is super developed and super data center driven. Loudoun County is the data center hub of the country, I guess. And that's where the story takes place. But at the time, it was just like small town. It takes place in 1999. I was in eighth

grade. Started off really when I was in sixth grade. And it was like first crush, middle school, first time like having a friend that I like talk to all the time, pass notes and just like had nicknames for each other. Also kind of like future alert for listeners that there is some self-harm talk, but things are okay. The person is okay. We met sixth grade and we're super tight and best friends. I always want to be like boyfriend, girlfriend. She was like, no, we're just, we're just friends. I'm like, okay. I'll take what I can get. Good enough for me. And she played guitar. I learned guitar because of her. We play like Blackbird from the Beatles and things like that. But had a lot of issues. She was a twin. and her and her twin would fight all the time, always competitive.

And she would have, like, dramatic episodes and run away from home and 2 a.m. call my house because we didn't have cell phones. It was 1998, 1999. You know, I'd have to wake up my mom and be like, my friends at the park, can we go pick her up? And so, like, my mom had a rapport with her parents and just kind of understood a little bit of the pressure and mental health issues. My mom was also a nurse, and so she could see the bigger picture of things and was helpful during that time. Cut to eighth grade. School had just started. It was October.

First period. My friend hands me a note, and she had had some cry for help situations before, taking too many pills, or just dramatically talking about hurting herself. And in this note, it describes that she was done with the school year, couldn't do it anymore. Her parents had sent her away before to like a, you know, some sort of mental. situation where she would be getting diagnosed or taking care of at that time. I'm not sure of the details, but she said she was tired of that and they wouldn't actually acknowledge that she had issues. She said she was going to take her life and had a pairing knife with her. Oh my goodness. I was in my first period class as biology and I asked if I could use the restroom. I walked around,

tried to find her. Found her in the library area and she had her binder out in front of her. And I just didn't even say anything. I looked and I pointed down at the binder and she like looked away and I said, in here, and she kind of nodded, took the binder, went in third in my locker, and went to my class, went about my day. And the end of the day, the dean knocks on the door, which is odd, because normally they would just page through the speaker. They would say, oh, can you send Ben down to class? So no, the dean showed up and asked if I could go with her and walk down the hall and we're walking. I was like, am I in trouble? And she's like, I hope not. And I was like, oh, this is not good. So we get to her office and she said, I hear that you are under possession of a weapon.

And I said, potentially, I don't know for sure. I have a friend that has mental health issues and there's been cry for help situations in the past, but I want to take it seriously. Tell her she can talk to my friend's mom and continue the conversation. If nothing's in there, fine. But the dean said, okay, go get the binder. So I went by myself, got the binder from my locker, brought it to the dean. She opened it. Lo and behold, there's a knife in the binder. It was post-columbine. So there was a lot of zero-tolerance stuff going on.

So immediately suspended for 10 days. You? Yes, immediately. No question. Really quick, was it not obvious? It was her binder? It was very obvious. Her twin sister was the one that told on us.

Her sister and her had a fight earlier that day. She would actually competitively try to set me up with her friends to make my friend jealous or even one time to be like, you know, we should just date and just make her jealous It was that kind of thing. Not a healthy vibe. No. And so she actually was the one that somehow gotten it to the administration that my friend had this knife and it may had gotten passed off to me.

I also had the note that had all the information in there about how she was feeling. So they sent her home on the bus. They called her mom into school. And so they sent a potentially suicidal girl home. I had to stay there. And my mom was like, what are you doing? Somebody needs to be with her. A few days later, because of the pressure of all this, did try to commit suicide.

She was on the phone with one of my friends at the time. He put his mom on the phone. She called 911. Ambulance shows up. Parents are downstairs cooking dinner. And they're like, no, everything's fine. She's fine. We don't need to do a check.

And then they go upstairs, and lo and behold, she had tried. And so ended up getting taken to psychiatric help there. And then eventually going to a private school from what I heard. But for me, I got immediately 10-day suspension, turned into an expulsion. because zero tolerance laws. What the hell? You got expelled? So my mom immediately was trying to figure out what to do, and we got connected with what

turned out to be a crazy conservative group later. But early on, they were very much just a civil liberties type of group called the Ruths Rutherland Institute. And they took on our case, and it went all the way up to the fourth court of appeals in Alexandria, Virginia, which is one underneath the Supreme Court. Wow. During that time frame, though, there was such a backlash. There were teachers that wanted me back in school.

There were 37 teachers that signed a petition that I should not be allowed back in school. Oh, my. Wow. So that was October-ish, and they turned it from an expulsion because of the backlash to a long-term suspension. That was the secondary option, and the school board deemed that would be adequate. it. So from October until January, 25th, I was out of school on my own. My mom had to go to the school and pick up my school papers and bring it home for me to do my schoolwork. And so through all of that, the news picked up on it. I was on 2020. I was on Dateline. Oh, my gosh. ABC World News.

Can I look at the photos now? Yeah, yes. John Stossel gives me a break. And then we actually recorded in the same studio. Oh, Connie Chung. Come on. Heavy. fucking hitters. He was finishing an interview and we were getting ready with ours and we had lunch together in between. Oh my goodness. She was so nice. Oh, wow. The news pieces, it's like a 13 year old student, you fits it to the local library alone. Go to the local diner alone. Like all this stuff and they're like, why isn't this student in school? And then one of the pictures I wanted to send was Barbara Walters was introducing the story. Has zero tolerance gone too far? Oh, wow. It ends up, if you Google it, is one of the most cited cases for the zero tolerance policies.

Zero tolerance, yeah. Wow. Wow. And they've got a great photo of you looking, especially studious. I'm at the library trying to teach myself Spanish. Teach yourself. My Spanish teacher actually was really supportive. Whenever I went back to school, I had a teacher.

Somebody's birthday and I had birthday cake. And they cut the cake and they're like, oh, it better not have a knife near Ben. And I was like, what the hell? So definitely had to deal with that kind of stuff. going back. Eventually, we moved, and that's why I live in Ohio now. We moved to Western Pennsylvania. I actually put two prompts in for this. One is for East Palestine, so that's where we had the train derailment. I was on the news a lot for that. Oh, wow. Wow. That was way more, way more recent. I wanted to save this picture for Alaska, because this is clearly your beautiful family. I wanted to make

sure that was one of the pictures. Oh, beautiful. Congrats. All their initials are the name of our business. So we have Lily, Isabel, Brody, and Simon. What's the name of your coffee shop? We're in Salem, Ohio. We're getting ready to open another one in East Palestine. It's part of the redevelopment after the derailment is we need a town cafe we don't have. And our business has grown to the point where I need a larger coffee roaster and a roastery. And so we're going to put that closer to where I live. And so this whole situation in eighth grade from talking to my therapist, we talked about the community that was lost.

And now our whole mission, when we started in 2015, is creating community through coffee. And so she kind of was the one that helped me draw the peril. is like you're creating the things that you were lacking or wanting. It was just a crazy situation. I know people in administration were doing the best they could, but it was a bureaucratic nightmare. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Congrats on your beautiful family. It's very nice to meet you, Ben. Thank you. Have a great day. Take care. Bye. Oh, my gosh, we did it. Oh, you go.

But I won't be able to record on quick time, like the rules say. Well, we're going to have to. break the rules today, Lydia. Are you an outdoors woman? Are you a camper? No, but these are my children's sleeping bags for when we all go camping. I'm at work, so y'all are going to think I'm crazy, too, because I messed up and thought I was supposed to meet you guys at 240. My time, not your time. Sure. I like move patients around. Oh, no. Oh my gosh. Okay. Are you a nurse? No, I'm a dental hygienist. Dental hygienist. How's your body? I hear that's incredibly hard. on your body. Yeah, I lift weights and try to keep healthy and strong and stuff. But yes, you're

right. It's really hard, especially in your neck and back. I met a hygienist who had a couple ribs removed. Oh, what? Yeah. That sounds a little intense. I don't think I'd do that. Yeah, lift weights is probably a better option. Yeah, I think so. I think so. Okay, so Lydia, how did you end up on the news? The story starts in 2005. I had worked at a local restaurant, a commercial-style restaurant. You guys have them in all the cities. I had worked there for many years. I had decided to leave there and go to a more finer dining establishment, which was better hours, better pay, all the good stuff.

And it was a Friday night and me and one of my friends were like, you know, we're off. Let's go. Let's go see our old friends who still work there and maybe rub it in their face a little that we were already off. Later, you'll find out that karma will smack you in the face if you're not careful. Yeah, she's vindictive, karma. Yeah, that's right.

So we're sitting there. We order a beer waiting for some wings. And all of a sudden, oh, I should tell you guys that it was a Friday night. It was a rival football game night. So the big football teams in the area for high school had just had their huge game. Those nights were always really busy at that restaurant. So we knew what to expect. It didn't bother us at all. So we're sitting there. We're waiting for our beer. And then all of a sudden, we hear fireworks. And, you know, people start running inside. And it's a little crazy. And I kind of get up out of my booth and I turn towards the window. And I'm trying to tell everybody, just chill out. It's just fireworks. It's fine. And all of a sudden, I am on the ground. No. My teeth had carpet in them, like on the ground, so, so hard.

And my friend's under the table and she's like, Lydia, those are gunshots get under the table. And then all of a sudden, I feel release from my arm. No. And I look down and I'm covered in blood. Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're at one of our neighborhood favorite national restaurants. You are ordering a beer that you hear fireworks. You're about to say calm down and then you hit the deck.

And now you realize you have been shot. I have been shot. Yes. In my arm. Oh, my God. Crazy, crazy, crazy. So my friend tries to help me up. At that point, I don't know what my body was doing, but it wasn't wanting to walk.

That's for sure. So I'm taking a few steps. I'm kind of falling to the ground. I'm taking a few steps. I'm falling to the ground. She gets me to the back of the restaurant because we knew that there were no windows or anything back there. And a young woman runs to the back and she tells me she is in nursing school. Thank God for nurses.

And she proceeds to take off her belt or someone else's belt. I can't quite remember that detail. But she wraps it around my arm. She stops the blood flow, which was incredibly important because once they took me to the hospital, they found out that my brachial artery had been severed. So that's the artery that like, you know, runs your whole arm. And then, of course, you know, you can bleed out really easily. Oh, my God.

Yeah, it was pretty crazy. Yeah, so. Yeah, so that's that. No, that's not that. Okay, so they take you to the hospital. They take me to the hospital. They had to transfer me to a bigger hospital up here in Greenville. They just were better equipped for the kind of surgery I was going to have to have.

They had to take artery from my leg to replace the one of my arms. So I have crazy scars all over my body. And it works. I think that is magic. The fact that they can transfer parts of your artery. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. It's incredible. The healing process was intense because it had broken my humorous as well.

So the bullet went into my arm and hit my bone, basically. And then the bullet itself kind of like shattered because I guess it had gone through a window before it hit me. So I had like bunches of pieces of bullet in my arm too. So they had to like remove some of that. as well. But during the healing process, my arm was black and blue and purple and green and all sorts of crazy colors. But at the time I was living with my husband, we weren't married yet. And he was taking such good care of me. He had to shave my nasty black arm and, you know, take care of my bullet hole and pack it and all sorts of great stuff. Bullet hole. How old were you? I was 22.

You've got an incredible attitude about this. Did you find out what the fuck had happened in the parking lot? Yeah, unfortunately, it was some sort of stupid gang thing, which is crazy because we live in a relatively small town. So like when I'm talking to the police about all this, I was like, gangs, we can not have gangs. And they were like, no, there's gangs everywhere. It doesn't matter where you live, apparently. But I was at the wrong place at the wrong time, I guess. Did anyone else get shot? Are we the only person in the restaurant?

No, I was really the only person who got injured. But, I mean, I think it was like over 40 shots were fired and very, very lucky. that no one else got hurt. It feels impossible. Arrests were made, I imagine. Yes, there was like five different people that were arrested. And I didn't go to any of that stuff because I was, you know, just trying to be on the mend a little. I had just started dental hygiene school.

And so my professors were like, you can just defer for a year. And I was like, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to keep going. So I learned how to clean people's teeth with my left hand. Wow. But don't worry, everybody. I clean with my right hand now. Nobody wants me doing that on my left hand.

I'm so worried. Yeah. When did the news come in? Do they arrive at the hospital? When do you interface with the news? That's a good question. I don't really remember all that. I sent you guys some pictures.

Let's luck. It was a huge story, obviously, in our small little town. Shooting Rattles Restaurant. One injured at popular post-game hangout. Oh. Okay, that's one. Oh, sure, I'm seeing little shards of everything around your humorous here. Yeah, it's great.

Crazy. Ooh. Okay. So, yeah, lower, lower humorous. Right above your elbow, huh? Yeah, right above my elbow. I have a little scar back, well, a pretty large scar that's kind of the opening where it went in. This was in 2005.

Yeah, 2005. I would have been, I'm surprised I didn't. Yeah, I'm not, where I'm about an hour and a half away from Atlanta. I would have been in college, and this was a college. I'm reading. Football game? The college. Yeah.

Is it your college? No, but in the realm. The bullet hole is cute. I can see why your husband wanted to treat it. Oh, my God. Well, the last picture you guys have is actually, so this past year, they had to leave a piece of bullet in there

because it was too close to something they were trying to fix. They were like, one day it'll work its way out. Well, it's been in there for 20 years. I could see the little black dot, basically, on my arm. And this year, it's decided to want to start coming out. So that last picture is the picture of the bullet.

It's making it way out. You know what I would have done. Yeah, we know. I would have got some tweezers out. Yeah, I work in the dental field. We'd numb that bad boy up and tried to pull it out. Yeah. It did not come out.

Really? It wouldn't come out. No, I had to go to the dermatologist. They had to cut it out. It's like my tissue had kind of grown all around it. But they were able to get it out at the germ. Yeah. With a high factor 2000?

No. No, probably not. Did you get to keep the little bit of bullet? I kept it, but it was. This is really gross, so I ended up throwing her weight. You should have sent it to me or David Sedaris. Well, that's what I was going to tell you. I had threw it away.

I could have meld it to him. He could have fed it to a squirrel or something. A squirrel. Oh, wow. Monica, I got to tell you, your dad or the sim or something was in my favor that night or an angel or God or whatever you believe, because had I been still sitting in the booth, the bullet would have gone into like this area, like my neck. our upper chest region.

So because I thought it was fireworks, I guess that saved my life. Yeah. It's the hillbilly gene that I also have. If there's fireworks, I'm going to jump up and take a look out the window and then tell everyone else to stay calm. I do love a firework. Lydia, you're a major party. So fun.

Your husband's so lucky. Well, thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much for calling in and listening to us. I feel flattered. I do too. Also, it's the most fun I've ever heard about someone getting shocked. You do have a great attitude.

Well, you don't really hear that many stories about that, I guess. Yeah. Never something I thought I would have to ever say to anyone, obviously. Wow. Yeah. Well, I'm so glad you're okay. Yeah. Look forward to Malcolm Gladwell. He's coming in.

His episode's going to end up blowing your mind. The notion that this is kind of standard business in our country and we're all just like, oh, yeah, people get shot. I know many people have been shocked, which is insane to anywhere else in the world. Assault rifles. That's what it was. It was a SKS, which is similar to an AK-47, and it went through a window before it knocked me to the ground. So I'm pretty fortunate there, too. Yeah, it's just bonkers.

You'd be at a restaurant and you got to consider. Oh, yeah, one day might be at my local national chain restaurant and fucking catch astray. It's bonkers. It is crazy. Oh, well, you're a delight. Oh, thank you guys so much for having me. I was so stoked. So happy to have you.

All right. Be well. Have fun with your girls on Halloween. Awesome. You guys are the best. I really appreciate it. Have a wonderful day. You too.

All right. Take care. All right. Thanks. Bye. Bye. Oh, man. I love her.

I really wish she didn't get shot. No, but if anyone in the restaurant had to get shot, she was the right person. Well, we don't know that other people in a restaurant. I can't imagine anyone there would have taken it as stride the way she did. I would have been digging in that thing. Me too. You would have made it so much worse. But I would have got it.

I'm going to got an infection along the way. Yeah, exactly. They think they're going to have to amputate your arm after that. Which I would also do. Okay. Well, wow. All right. The news.

The news. All right. Love you. Love you. Do you want to sing a tune or something? We don't have a theme song. Oh. We don't have a thing song for this new show.

So here I go, go. We're going to ask some random questions. And with the help of our Jerry's book, it's suggestions. On a flyer rhyme dish Enjoy