Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Armchair Anonymous: Stealing II

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

Dax and Monica talk to Armcherries! In today's episode, Armcherries tell us about a time they stole something.Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube or listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and add free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman. Hi. Now this prompt really hits home for you personally because you're a known thief.

No. You're a known and admitted thief. Okay, I was once a thief in my younger years, particularly age six. Yeah, I wonder what percentage of people get through their whole life without stealing. It's got to be very low, right? Everyone's done a little kleptoid. I hate that I'm about to do this. This is not my normal M.O.

Okay. I do kind of think shoplifting is, um... Cool? No. Oh, okay. Is a female... Heavy? Yeah, it leans female heavy as far as the like vices.

Well, I think that people who have the kleptomania. Yeah. We could even look it up now. But yeah, I do think it does skew. I know. It's interesting. It is. There's some kink about it.

I guess because like, you know, men murder. Yeah, that's our thing. Women... Wait, if we covered that. Women kind of... I think it's still connected to, like, and having things and squirreling away things for the babies. Well, also, evolutionarily, you would see things and you would take them and you'd bring

them back to your village. You'd see them there in nature. Yes. You'd gather them and take them. Yeah. You wouldn't pay for them. Sure. So I think it's in you.

Yeah. And like me, I have to murder. You know, people come into the village and they want to take the children and the wives who are busy taking, scurrying around. Stealing. Yeah. I want to be very, very, very, very. clear i've never shoplifted never no okay i have but i really stopped young i not think i did it as an

adult other than when it was like past 2 a.m and i had to have alcohol oh then you can't which is that doesn't count yes that counts that does not count of course that counts if it's for your survival it doesn't count and remember you tried to that's like when a poor beggar steals a loaf of bread that's 1700s london you can't put them in prison for that i give them the bread remember when you tried to steal the parking meter not try i succeed seated. I thought you couldn't get it out. No, I fucking got it out and drug it all the way up to my apartment and Brie woke up obviously before me and said, why is there a parking meet with the whole cement base? Yeah. I can't believe I didn't tear any tendons getting it up into my apartment.

And as I told you, there was just a scrape mark for a block where I drug it down the sidewalk. You didn't do a good job hiding. Barney Fife could have cracked this case wide open. Okay. Okay. Without further ado, please enjoy. Stealing. Hard times come and go. Good times. Take them slow.

My life, I had a more. You got to know, I'm going to keep on shining. Shelly? That's me. Hi. I'm so grateful for your headset.

You sound impeccable. Oh, thank you. You'll be happy to know. these are my nine-year-old's Nintendo headphones, which I ridiculed him last week about spending so much money on. Now here we are. It worked out.

And the nine-year-old has his own funds? Saved up allowance, and he's obsessed with headphones, even though he's not allowed to chat on the Nintendo. Okay, great. Oh, how cute. He just wanted to be like the other big boys who have headphones.

And what's on his list of chores that earns him this? He takes the big, rolly trash can all the way down our long driveway and back up and feeds the dog. and makes his bed. Oh, okay, these are good. Yeah. What about dishes? Too young.

Our cabinets are weirdly high, so I haven't graduated the kids to dishes yet. And nine is a little slippery. That was mine. You're dealing with a lot of broken dishes from. And where do you live, Shelly? I am in a small town about an hour north of Sacramento called Orville. And have you lived there your whole life? I moved here when I was 12, which is right about the time that the story comes into play.

Oh, wonderful. So we've set the scene. Please tell us. I grew up in the Bay Area and I moved here in seventh grade. It was a very formative year for me like you. And my junior high years, I was in with all the bad girls. It was just party time through seventh and eighth grade. And would you say that's because you were new to the school and they were the easiest group to fall into?

I guess so. One friend just saw me sitting at a table and came up and said, you're mine now and I just went with it and then drank and smoked and made out with boys and bushes. When it was time to go to high school, I had this big epiphany and decided I didn't want to be around those people anymore, and I switched to the other high school in town. So then I was with more good girlfriends. It was my freshman year of high school, and I'm hanging out with my good girlfriend, Ashley, and suddenly I see one of my old bad girlfriends come storming across campus looking for me. And she's like, Shelley, our other friend, Teresa, she thinks she's pregnant and she's grounded. She's like, DeathCon 5 grounded. she cannot leave the house.

She needs a pregnancy test. What a funny dichotomy. It is like a very childhood thing grounding versus a very adult thing pregnancy. I know. So it's up to us to get her a pregnancy test and the school I go to is down the road from the grocery store.

And God forbid a bunch of 14-year-old girls actually buy a pregnancy test so we decide that we're going to steal it. I bet that and condoms are the number one stolen thing. There's a reason that they store them right in the same area together right underneath the big window. where the manager can see, which you don't think about when you're 14. The three of us, my good

girlfriend, Ashley, and my bad girl friend, Jenny, we head on down to the grocery store and we're devising our big plan. We walk in the door, they're going to do recon, and I divert off to go to the deli to get a big pickle out of the big pickle jar, because what else am I going to do? I love the big pickles. Yeah. And this was back when you'd just get it in a bag and pay for it at the checkout. So we go to the aisle with the personal care goods and we have this big elaborate plan where we lean in and we get it and walk down the whole little

way and there's a pet display and we make this big show of like leaning in to pretend to look at how cute a dog on a label is to something like, oh, how cute while she's shoving it in her back to 50. Yeah, yeah. This is an elaborate plan.

We barely make it halfway down another aisle and we get stopped by a manager, you know, you stole, you come with me right now taken back up to the back office, the three of us. Because there were cameras? I realized this later in hindsight. Literally, the back of the store had a second story with the offices and those double-mirrered walls. So they were looking straight at us.

Oh, no. Yeah, yeah. So we're in the office, and they've full-blown call the cops. This would have been 2001. Zero tolerance policy over there. Yes. A cop shows up, and we're in this office. We're all sitting down.

and there's the manager and there's the cop. And I had a rough childhood I saw a lot. So when this cop gets there, I can just smell the bullshit a little bit. They're kind of acting like Keenan from the scared straight skits on SNL. They think they're going to really put one to us. And I'm just kind of like, really? Yeah. So they put the three of us in handcuffs.

This is the only grocery store in our small town. So everybody there probably knows who we are or our parents. We're walking down. And I don't know what. got into me, but I decided to tell this cop that's leading me, I go, I haven't paid for my pickle yet. Yeah.

Nasty. I see his face, that dichotomy between, let's get this shit over with and I can't let her steal a pickle when I'm trying to arrest her for stealing. So he has to divert me off to the checkout. He was just so pissed while we're waiting in line for me to buy my 59-set pickle.

We get through the checkout register and all go in and get in the cop car and get taken down to the station. Oh, my God. This is insane. For three little girls still in a pregnancy test. They didn't put the sirens on or anything. They didn't go that far. No, no, no.

But I was very surprised to learn there's no cushions in the backseat. It's just that hard plastic, which makes sense. Because so many men are soiling themselves as they get put in there. Oh, true. So we go to the station and all they're doing is calling our parents. We're not actually being booked or charged or anything. So good girl friend Ashley's parents show up And they are horrified

Poor Ashley herself is horrified She can't believe what she's gotten herself into Her parents forbid her from ever speaking to me again Jenny being the one who actually shoved it in her backpack May have gotten a little charge and had to stay longer And then they call my parents And my mom and my older brother Who had gotten out of prison a week prior for robbing a bank

No, oh my God Oh, no. They show up and they're just laughing. And I'm laughing because I can't take this serious enough. And we all just laugh our way home. And that was my first and last encounter with the law because I tried to steal a pregnancy test from a grocery store. But a fun little PS, the friend that we thought was pregnant, she was pregnant, had that baby. And then the daddy left her and had a baby with Jenny, the one who's

stole the test. What a twisty turning. What a fertile guy this guy was. He was not as good at the pullout method as he thought he was. Most people aren't as good as they think they are. We should have been stealing condoms instead. Yes, yes. They need to be free. We're going to save a lot more money downriver. Exactly. I think they are now. You know, you go to the health clinics or Planned Parenthood and they just give you a handfuls of them. Can we go back to your brother? What age was he when he tried to knock off this bank. He was in his 20s, and he was a pretty major meth addict slash drug dealer. And one day was bored and walked into a bank with an empty Funnion's bag and had no weapon

and just went up and asked for the money. I swear to God, I wish I would have found a news article and sent it to Emma. They loaded the Funnions bag full of cash. He went outside and sat on a bench and ordered a pizza and waited for the cops to come and get him. And he spent like three years in prison. Oh, for being a dumbass. Because he was just so high. Nothing was making sense. It wasn't his first offense. But we still, to this day, make fun of him by calling him the funnions bandit.

Did he end up finding sobriety? Not yet. Okay. Fingers crossed. Was this all in the 90s? Yeah, it was late 90s that he robbed the bank. And it was 2001 when my brush with stealing. When I was little and cops would come and raid our house, I remember.

I remember yelling at the cops once to stay out of my underwear drawer. But look at this. Now you have kids and your kids do chores and save their money. How beautiful. I always say I grew up with the very best bad example. And I went the other way. Yeah. Congratulations.

That's hard to do. Thanks. And last follow up. Did you and Ashley abide by the Edict or were you friends anyways? It's a small school. So we certainly saw each other a lot. But it definitely stopped the sleepovers. I looked her up on Facebook a while back, and she seems to be happy, married kids doing good as well.

Jenny went to prison for beating up her mom. Oh. Okay. You shouldn't beat up your mom. Well, I don't know. We don't know maybe those mom asked for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had a buddy in junior high, Nick Havostick, and his father did not want Nick to be friends and told him he couldn't be.

And I've always thought this was so poetic. He looked his dad in the eyes and he said a wall of fire couldn't stand in between me and Dax. Oh, isn't that incredible? That is sweet. That is sweet. Oh, well, it's a delight meeting you, Shelly. Thanks for telling us that story. Thank you so much, guys.

And you really did ruin the stainless bottle industry with the mouse story. Because this morning, I'm like, I just can't. I haven't forgotten about it. I think about it every day. She lost us that as a category of advertisers. And the mouse advertisers have not come in to fill the void. Yeah, you got to hit the Nalgene's. or whatever the glass ones are now.

That's right. Oh, thank you, guys. I love the show. I'm a big fan. Thanks. Bye-bye. Hello. Hi.

How are you? What name do we want to use? I kind of went back and forth. Where's I used my real name or a fake name? Let's go to Jack. Jack? Yeah, your shirt says Jackalope. Yeah.

So that was easy for us. I was just in Nashville in July, visiting some buddies of mine. Jackaloke Brewing. Oh. Where are you at in the world? I'm in the Hudson Valley, New York. Oh, lovely. And are you happy that people are moving there?

Are you upset? Because that seems to be the hottest spot in the country right now. It's a mixed bag. It's cool because there's better restaurants. There's better things to do. But I'm just outside of Beacon. A lot of people are moving up here and have been the last 10 years from Brooklyn, mostly. I did.

I moved up here 20 years ago from Brooklyn. And we did all kinds of really fun street art projects and projection mappings and live events. And that gets everybody interested in moving here. and the money comes in here and then it can no longer afford to live there. Yeah. Yeah.

That's the catch 22. Have you been to First Bloom, Alison Roman's store? I think it's in Hudson Valley. No. Oh, you got to check it out. The Hudson Valley is pretty big. Yeah.

Okay. My last question, and we'll get into stealing. Are you close at all to John D. Rockefeller's house? Do you know where that was at on the Hudson? I'm kind of obsessed with going there.

I imagine it's up north of the Kipsey up by the Roosevelt Mansion in that area. by the CIA, the Culinary Institute. Yeah, that sounds right. It's right by First Bloom. I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure.

Okay, so you have a stealing story. I'm going to call this the greatest beer run ever. You wouldn't have to say part two because I think that's a movie. It is? Yeah, the greatest beer run. Oh. Jack. Efron.

Oh, didn't know. Jack Ephron. My buddy, we'll call him Mack. Got into all kinds of nonsense in high school and never got caught. and had this charmed existence of doing all kinds of after-hours madness, sneaking around, breaking into places, never really doing anything bad, but just getting into some adventures and driving around until we got lost and finding our way back kind of thing. This takes place in North Jersey, where we grew up. It was the summer of 92 or 93, just graduated or about to graduate

high school. We were both waiting tables at night at different restaurants, and during the day, we were working as sort of a gatekeeper badge checker guys at this private swim lake. Families could come. It's a lake on the beach with slides and tennis courts and there's a YMCA camp. But we were the kids at the gate like, hey, what's up? Cards would drive up. Do you have any guests that's $2? We collect their $2.

We're basically sitting on a picnic table getting sun and a really easy, cushy job. We became friends with the lifeguards at the beach, and we always hung out with them after hours, jumping up to the diving platforms, playing with the scuba gear, and just getting into all kinds of fun after hours, nonsense. This one particular night, we had a few beers, campfire, hanging out. We're winding down, and the lifeguards went home, and it was just me and my buddy Mac. We decided to break it into the snack bar.

Of where you work. I was texting with Mac yesterday, actually. I wasn't sure of the year, because we worked there for a year or two, and I think this was the year after. Oh, okay. So we didn't work there. anymore but we're still friends and go there after hours and there were no security cameras or anything so you could just go there go swimming have a good time everybody's gone it's just me and mac we're like

let's get some snacks so we climb sort of over the door it's just sort of like a shack with a padlock but there's a gap so you could climb over the wall and then get into the snack bar stole some Swedish fish and I'm like wow you know we're out of beer it's late nothing's open and he's like I know where I can get some beer I'm right where he's like let's get in your car we'll go Hey, basketball fans, Steve Nash here. Ready to elevate your basketball IQ? I'm teaming up with Bron James to bring you the latest season of Mind the Game. And we're about to take you deeper into basketball than you've ever gone before.

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Watch Mind the Game Now on YouTube, Prime Video, or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, Arm Cherries. Guess what? It's Mel Robbins. I'm popping in here, taking out my own ad. Holy cow. Dax, Monica and I, I don't want this conversation to end, and I'm so glad you're here with us. And the other thing, I can't believe, Dax loves the Let Them Theory. He can't stop talking about it. I hope you're loving listening as much as I love having you here. And I also know, since you love listening to Armchair Expert, you know what you're going to love listening to? The Let Them Theory audiobook. And guess who reads it? Me. And even if you've read the book, Guess what? The audiobook is different. I tell different stories. I riff. I cry. You're going to love it because it's going to feel like I'm right there next to you. We're in this together as we learn to stop controlling other people. So thanks again for listening to this episode of Armchair Expert and check out the audiobook version of the Let Them Theory read by yours truly. Available now on Audible. You can even try it out for free with an audible trial. Download the Audible app today. Mom and Dad, Mom and Mom, Dad and Dad, whatever, parents. Are you about to spend five hours in the car with your beloved kids this holiday season? Driving old Granny's house? I'm setting the scene, I'm picturing, screaming, fighting, back-to-back hours of the K-pop Demon Hunter's soundtrack on repeat. Well, when your ears start to bleed, I have the perfect thing to keep you from rolling out of that moving vehicle.

Something for the whole family! He's filled with laughs, he's filled with rage, the OG Green Grump, give it up for, me James Austin Johnson as The Grinch. And like any insufferable influencer these days, I'm bringing my crew of lesser talented friends along for the ride with A-list guests like Gronk,

Mark Hamill, and the Jonas brothers, whoever they are. There's a little bit of something for everyone. Listen to Tis the Grinch holiday podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We get in the caravan, we have an 84 Dodge Caravan. This is my hand-me-down vehicle, white with the wood paneling on the side. We called it the doghouse.

This thing wouldn't die. You would get close to it with the key, and it would just start. We get in the doghouse, and he's like, okay, there's a racket and swim club. A couple towns over. My parents play there, and sometimes they have tournaments. And when they have tournaments, by the tennis courts, they have a beer tent sort of set up with a keg. I'm like, a keg? He's like, yeah, we go in there.

It's after midnight. Country road winding. I'd never been there before. We see the tennis courts coming up in the darkness. I'm like, okay, so where is it? He's on the other side of the tennis courts, and the road kind of winds around the tennis courts to the main building. So he gets out right by the tennis courts,

and he's like, go around the corner and meet me on the other side. So I get out, he runs off into the darkness. I don't know where I'm going. I'm just following the road around. And I see him coming out of the darkness, He's carrying the keg. Oh, you got a jackpot. But there's more.

What are you talking about? There's more. It's like, come with me. I need help. Stop the car. We put the keg in the car. Follow him over to the tennis courts. And there's one of those CO2 or nitrous or whatever the tank is that pressurizes the keg.

And there's a cooler sitting there with a tap. And inside the cooler is those copper cooling coils that go in there. You fill it with ice and it chills the beer as it goes through the thing. He's like, let's take it all. I'm like, okay, let's go. You can't just take the keg. Somebody's going to notice. So we have to take everything.

So we take everything, run back to the car, throw it in the car, casually drive the back roads back to my house. I forgot to mention my parents, my brother and my sister are all gone for a week or two. They left me home by myself. What a blessing. What a blessing. I was the middle kid. I watched my brother get in trouble.

I figured out how to not get in trouble. The parents just trusted me. I never got caught, so it's okay. So we get back to my house and we set it up in the very. backyard by the pool. You feel like kings at this point, I bet. It was the best. We're eating Swedish fish, drinking free beer by the pool. We go upstairs. It's late and we fall asleep in the living room, which has a window that kind of looks over the backyard. Wake up in the morning to this hot. We just hear hissing and a big bang. So we go to the window. We look and the lines had

warmed up in the sun and we never turned off the pressure to the keg from the pressure tank. and there's just beer spraying everywhere. Oh, gosh. So we run down there, we're trying to grab the wines. It's like fire hose just going crazy, spraying beer everywhere. We turn everything off. We get everything fixed and hooked back up. And that's most of the story.

The rest of it is, what are we going to do with the rest of this beer? So we had a party that day. That's fun. So you got away with it? Absolutely. Totally got away with it. Boy, that just made me so nostalgic. I know.

What a time. I know. I wish you were 93. And Aaron and I could go get in a little. You brought back. This is a bad one. This isn't good. But Aaron and I one time, we were on a bit of a bender. We were probably 22. And we were up now. It was like day two. No drugs yet involved. But it was four in the morning. We were out of booze. And we were like, what are we going to do? And we just were like, well, let's go to Meyer. There's a bunch of booze there. But after 2 a.m., you can't get it. And so we just went to Meyer. And then we just strolled through the cowboy doors into the back warehouse. And then we just wandered around the warehouse, found a half gallon of Jack Daniels, put that in the winter coat. And then just strolled out of the cowboy doors and went back to the car. It was closed at the time.

No, it's a 24-hour store. But you can't buy booze after 2 a.m. So we just went into the fucking storage room and just sniffed around until we found a pallet of Jack Daniels. I remember that sort of thing. I went to school in Northwest Ohio at Bowling Green. And they would put the big chains across the coolers and stuff in the stores right at night or something. Right, but they can't lock the stockroom door because people got to be in and out of there. So just help yourself. You just go back there like, you know what you're doing.

Don't help yourself. Don't do this. That's an amends I probably should make. I should just randomly send Meyer. $40,000. Well, no, I don't think it was that expensive. I think there's an emotional cost. Yeah, pain and suffering. Yeah. Well, Jack, it's wonderful to meet you. I love listening to guys shows and brings back a lot of memories. And the banter and the relationship you two have is awesome. I am not a day one listener, but I've listened for a couple of years now. And always when I'm in the car, I'm by myself. First thing I do, what's new. And I'm almost through all the back catalog. Wow. We appreciate that. We thank you. Yeah. Listen to the catalog, even if it's for one minute. All right. Well, great meeting you, brother. Be well.

guys. Kelly, can you hear us? I can hear you. You're in a closet. I did my best to do right by Monica. Thank you. It sounds beautiful. Is it tilted?

Or is the camera tilted? The camera's tilted. Oh, okay. Because it could have been a cool closet situation where it's like, you know. Like a Dr. Sue's closet? Yes. But don't you think all the garments would have been leaning gravity?

They're in little pockets. Sure, sure. That could happen. the garments themselves would not be perpendicular to the top. I wasn't good at physics. Kelly, where are you? I'm in my daughter's closet outside Nashville in Nolensville. Where's that?

In relation to Mount Juliet, the only place I know. So you hit Mount Juliet, you go a little bit south and hit Antioch area. Oh, okay. And we're on down. So we're south of Brentwood next to Franklin. South of Piercy Lake. What is it? Percy Priest.

Yeah. And you like it there? How long have you lived there? I moved here in 08. My husband's from here. I like it. It's one of those things where it's, like, hard because it's changing a lot because everybody's finding out about it. Sorry. It's okay. It happens with good things. I don't think I started it. I think I was a late adopter. Well, we're happy to have you. Oh, okay. You're an exception of the rule. Okay. And what's getting better? More food options and stuff? Yeah, more food options and like more stuff that's close by. So we don't have to go as far. into town to get access to things.

And what's the downside? More traffic. Prices are higher. It's the mesh of the culture. I've lived in a lot of different places, moved around a lot. So I'm used to taking a step back and seeing how things kind of unfold, how people interact, and then kind of fitting into that. And I feel like sometimes people in any situation that don't have a lot of self-awareness

come in. And you don't do things fast in the South. I think you're tip towing around what I already learned while I was there is that there's a lot of Californians coming and the people can't stand it. And I love California. I love L.A. in particular. So I love the fact that people drive fast there with intention, get out of my way, you know, where you're going. So I can see both sides of that, but also here, they're very much relationship building people. So you can't bulldoze that.

I was just sharing about this. I hope to think I'm like you, which is like, okay, I'm there. I'm going to follow how they do things. In my little town, I drive normally like an asshole. I mean, I drive fast and I want to get places. And in L.A., everyone does, and you're anonymous and you're never going to see these people against who gives a fuck. And then pretty quickly, I was like,

oh, I'm going to see all these people I'm passing at the fucking tasty freeze tonight, and they're going to hate me. And I got to straighten it up. They're going to get to know your car. Oh, yeah. I feel the same thing. So my kid's in band, and I'm, like, very involved in volunteering for that.

So I'm very aware of not driving like an asshole around specific areas because I don't want them to think negatively of her based on my actions. I also drive a wood paneled station wagon that's seven on horse power. So I don't think it's hard to really memorize what car I'm in. Okay, so you have a stealing story. I do have a stealing story. It takes place in Vegas as many great stealing stories too. If you're ever going to steal, that's a great place to do it. Ocean's 11.

I mean, one of the best stealing movies. It's so good. So it was 92. I was 13, and I'd already moved around a lot as a kid. I had a lot of instability, not a lot of constants. I think I was already in upper teens, low 20s, and the numbers of schools that I'd attended. And I've been a victim of an assault. So just a lot of turmoil.

I was showing everyone my lack of tools to deal with coping with said situations. I was already like getting drunk, going to school, and a lot of trouble. So I had somehow, I think lack of opportunity had strung together a couple weeks of not getting in trouble. And so my parents were kind of easing back on the restrictions. They were like seeing some hope. So they decided to go out to dinner. And I don't know if it happened before they went out or after they went out, but I got in my head like, I'm leaving. I'm not sticking around as long as I'm back before they get home.

It's okay. They go out. I start making calls. And one of my guy friends is like, hey, you should come over. My parents won't be here all evening. Come hang out. Bring your friends with you. He lived about 25 minutes from me. And somewhere in that conversation, I look over and I see the keys to my stepdad's car. Perfect. I mean, it's the perfect opportunity. And I'm like, as long as I'm back before they get home, it's fine. Oh, my God. And you're 13. And I'm 13. I've already had a couple of driving lessons. So I feel just overconfident enough to tackle this. So I call a friend, first friends, like, absolutely not. This is a bad idea. I'm not going with you. With a 13-year-old.

What kind of vehicle did he have? A 1987 Chrysler-Liberin. By the way, great car to steal because it's so boring a cop's not even going to look at that car. It sounds fun, Tudor. Well, they tried to make it sporty. What color was it? It was silver. Okay.

It's a grandpa car. I knew Monica when we got into the car piece that she was going to be bored. But in my defense, at least it's not a cedar point story. We'll see. Yeah, we'll see where this goes. My second friend that I call is like, I am so down. I'll be ready in five. Come get me.

The aquanets coming out, we're ready to go. I pick her up. So the only thing I remember from that drive, and it is one of those things where, when you look back at the situations you put yourself in, it's a miracle that you didn't get hurt. It was like a street that was maybe 40 or 50 miles an hour. And remember coming up on the street and going, oh, I need to turn right here, but I was in the center lane.

Okay. And I know that I barely slowed down and made that right turn from the center lane. It was just amazing that there wasn't a car in the right lane next to me. But we make it to my friend's house. We're hanging out. And a little while into it, he's like, you should let me drive. How old is he?

He's my age. So he's 13 or 14. Right. Okay. And so I have this dilemma because I don't really have the ability or the understanding to weigh out decisions and see the potential consequences. But in this moment, I know that this isn't a good idea. But, and Dax, I know that you will empathize with this feeling. I have a facade that I have to put up in order to protect myself.

And I cannot act like I doubt his ability or that I'm in any way afraid of what could potentially happen or that I'm concerned in any way. I'm going to go out on a limb too. Yeah, so there's a vulnerability piece. But then my hunches you've already seen when men get embarrassed or feel emasculated, they get dangerous. Yes. So we want to avoid all of that. So I'm going to choose this second option. And I tell him, you can drive around the block.

It was a neighborhood area. It wasn't on a major street. The way that I parked, the driver's side. was facing the front of his house. So it was a line of houses on the driver's side, the left side of the street. The right side's dirt. It's desert. It hasn't been developed.

And the street ends a couple of houses down from him and then it else. So you have to turn left. That's the only way that you can go. So I'm in the backseat. My friend that came with me is in the passenger seat and he's driving. We pull out from the house. Everything's good. He makes that left turn.

and like any 13 or 14-year-old boy with two girls in the car, what are we going to do? We're going to floor. No. Yeah, we got to see what this thing's got under the hood. So it was enough. So it was enough. to lose control.

Oh, no. And of course, he can't lose control into the dirt lot on the right. He's got to lose control into the houses on the left. Oh, fuck. And so the front yards aren't very big. There's not a lot of distance between the road and the front of someone's house. So we violently jump the curb, go through the front yard, and we hit a decorative retaining wall, and that is what keeps us feet away from going through the front of this stranger's

house. Oh, my God. Did you imagine if you're in your kitchen and you saw a barren burst through the door? Remember we did have a story? A bunch of the guy that the car crashed into the house. Yes, yes. He sent pictures to, yeah, right into the kitchen. He's sitting.

He thought there was an earthquake or something. He was sleeping through it. My, like, relief at not going through the house is immediately met by, Seeing the smoke coming out from the engine and going, there is no way that I'm getting out of this. They're going to know. So I'm like resigned to that feeling. The cops show up a few minutes later. I get arrested.

They take me to Juvie. Oh, my God. I'm an affording cell for a few hours until they can get a hold of my parents because this is pre-cell phone. So they have to wait for my parents to come home from dinner in order to let them know what's happened for them to come get me. And so I was used to the yelling and the like, why would you do that? Or that was like an awful decision and all those things that parents say. This time it was met with silence, which to me is like even worse. It was kind of like that, the drive home the next couple of days, and then they sit me down and they say,

we think it would be best and safest for you if you go live with your dad in Venezuela. So what kind of trouble you can get into down there? Oh, my God. I had lived there before. When my mom and dad were still married, I moved down there in the third grade. He was an engineer in the coal business, and so he was trying to develop some minds down there. So it wasn't completely foreign to me, but within a couple of weeks, I'm on a plane by myself. Oh, my God.

And you're 13. Yes. Oh, yeah, yeah. So hang out with my dad for a couple of days, and the closest English school is a school for Christian missionaries kids that were stationed anywhere in South America. So he drops me off at school. Everything's good for like a week, week and a half. And he comes to see me for lunch a couple of days. Is it a boarding school? Yes. Why couldn't they just do a boarding school in America? Why they'd have to send you all the way to Venezuela for that? Money. Who knows? So everything's fine

for a week or two. And he comes to see me and we're good and I'm navigating this completely new very Christian, very regulated. He comes to lunch with me, says, hey, I'll be back on Saturday to see you. I've got to go into Columbia for a few days to do some business, to do some meetings. He was trying to get a mine established there. This was totally normal for him.

Not normal for a lot of people, Monica, because I see your face, but very normal for him. Okay. This is who he was. So Saturday comes, and he doesn't show up. That is not like him. It is very much like him to stand up his wives or do something different with the many franchise families that he sets up all over.

It is not normal for him to not show up for one of his kids. I'm talking to my mom and my mom's calling his business partner that's down there trying to like figure out. He goes a couple of weeks and no one knows where he is. Oh, boy. Yeah, this is my fear. And this is in the early 90s in Columbia. This is Pablo Escobar era. When you had the DEA agents on, it gave me a lot of validation of how I remember the situation

and how crazy it actually was to be down there at the time. So my mom calls his business partner, who I had known since I was a kid, who was also down there, and said, hey, we don't know what's going on and I can't get a hold of her dad. You need to put her on a plane. I'm not comfortable with her being at that school by herself. So he comes to get me. I go to my dad's apartment, which he has a key to pack up the rest of my stuff. And while, While I'm packing up my stuff, he's going through my dad's office and filing through all the paperwork and going through trying to find something. And that didn't seem very abnormal to me at the time because I didn't know the background of what was happening. Takes me to the airport, has to pay a bribe because my visa has expired and they don't want to let me on the flight.

You go back, I'm in Vegas for a couple of days, and the FBI comes to my house. Oh my goodness. And starts asking questions, when did you see him? What was your last interaction like? Apparently, my older sister from him was doing some background work. She was working for a senator in D.C. trying to figure out if anyone had been heard, if there was any accidents involving Americans that hadn't been broadcast

or anything like that. And through that conversation, we find out that he's been kidnapped. Oh, my goodness. They want a million dollars for his release, and they are holding steady to that. So over the next couple of months around Christmas, we get like a proof of life with him, long hair, beard, looking very different. He ended up being held for nine months.

A former business partner ended up paying 50 grand for his release. They came down on the price. They finally realized, like, you don't have an inn with anyone. When you're down there, you think all Americans are millionaires. You're watching TV and you're like, oh, yeah, everyone's fucking loaded. Yeah. He was released in June of 93. He came back to the States.

I sent Emma and Rob a screenshot of the Washington Post article that we did in D.C. with him. After that, he did a diary of his experience. Really? And then went back to work his ransom off. Oh, my goodness. Wait. What? Why?

So he kind of has integrity. No. They kidnapped him. No, no. To the man who bailed them out. Oh, my God. Yes. I thought you were saying he, like, made the million dollars and gave it to the kidnappers.

And how did that go? Did he remain in Venezuela? He was there on and off for a few years. He was in Guatemala for a while, which I have a little sister from that experience. He went to Siberia and did some work there for a while. What an interesting person. Did he speak Spanish? Was he like, hey, I speak Spanish. Maybe I can get something done. He was awful. Okay. That was like an ongoing joke where he would say something. no one could even come close to making sense of what he was attempting to say.

He was a little more confident than he should have been. Oh, he was so overconfident. Wow. Is he still alive? He is not. It was so interesting because Tuesday, I was having this very much, like, gratitude attack. I'm building a software that is directly rooted in an experience with him. He died of frontal temporal dementia.

So I was just having this. moment of like immense gratitude over getting to know him and getting that experience and hoping that this software will help a lot of people. And I get this email from Emma and I'm like, how fitting to be able to tell a story that while my part is significant, his really takes it up to the next level of his life. Like he was such an adventure. Oh, how awesome. Very sim.

You know, and I don't want to diminish my children's challenges because they're real. But when I think about the drama that's happening in seventh grade that I hear about versus I'm in a fucking boring school, there are some 13-year-olds dealing with some major shit that adults can't deal with. So, wow. But you're safe in Tennessee and you have your own children or child. That's incredible. I do. I have my own children that every time the prompts come out, they send me links to them. So do you have any stories for these?

Oh, how cute. Tell them we said you had a banger. This month, I've got 19 years sober. Oh, my God. Congratulations. My husband and I share an AA birthday. You do? 19 years, he has 39.

Oh, shit. Good for both of you. Wow. That's incredible. Can I bring my youngest in because I let her skip school this afternoon? Oh, how on? So that she could come say hi. Better than stealing a lebaran.

Hi. My name's A. Hi, Ava. How old are you? 14. Oh. You're older than your mom was when she drove that car. She became a criminal. Yeah, I always joke with my parents because my dad stole a motorcycle when he was 13 and I was like,

I've been your guys' record. I haven't schooling anything. Good job. Well, hopefully you'll pick better. Your mom picked a LaBaron. If you're going to steal something, at least go over to Mount Julia and get my Corvette or something. Yeah. Something awesome.

Something faster anyway. All right. Well, lovely meeting both of you. So nice to meet both of you. Thank you so much. Have an amazing day. All right. Bye. Hello. Hi, Trish. Are you a gamer or do you work at AT&T? Why do you have this great headset? Because I bought it for this specifically. Oh, we owe you some money.

Yeah, submit your receipts. We'll reimburse you. I might return it afterwards. Where are you, Trish? I am in New Jersey. No, I don't want to offend you, but I do think shit goes down in Jersey, right? We would say this probably is a standard deviation higher than the rest of the country and thefts in general. There is some shit that goes down for sure. We have some dangerous areas.

Crime rate in certain areas is a little higher than others. Did you grow up in kind of like a rural area or in one of the city areas? I actually grew up right by the beach just over the seaside bridge. Oh, you did? So we're talking Jersey Shore-ish? Yes. Wow. And so when this show became popular, did you feel exploitative or were like they nailed it?

They absolutely did not nail it. Okay. They did not nail it. They did not nail it. So you're annoyed by it, understandably. Relatively, yeah. Snooky actually bought a house on the block behind the house that I grew up in. Oh, really?

Do you know why I like Snooki is that her dad was very into snowmobiling? She grew up snowmobiling, and that made me like her. Oh, there you go. Yeah, it doesn't take much for me. Yeah, it's really easy. Yeah. Okay, so you have a stealing story. I do have a stealing story.

I accidentally stole a purse from an elderly lady. Oh, okay. Let's hear how that happened. Which led to, well, you'll find out what it led to. This was circa 2011, and I was 21. And my boyfriend at the time and I had a house that we were rented. And oftentimes, we would end up with a roommate. We had an extra room, you know, a little extra income.

At this time, it was one of our best friends, Dan. Dan would go to work with now my husband, Josh, pretty often, extra cash. And he ran his own business. He is a marine mechanic. He specializes in performance marine. He builds engines. So at that time, I was actually detailing boats for a living. And a lot of the work was at the same arena where my husband was running his business.

So on this particular day, the three of us were there. This was before marriage and kids and all that. So we would spend some late nights there. So one day around like 6 o'clock or so, my husband said to Dan and I, he was like, why don't you guys run to the liquor store, grab a 12 pack, come back, you know, we'll finish out the day. Because that's oftentimes how we did finish out our days. Love it.

So Dan and I get in my car. We run to the liquor store. The location of the marina compared to the liquor store, There's a bunch of U-turns and lights that you have to go through. So on the way back, there was a parking lot that you could cut through to avoid all of that. It was like a strip mall kind of a thing, big West Marine, Bed Bath and Beyond, Best Buy kind of a thing. So we're driving through the parking lot, and I see a purse in the middle of the parking lot, just sitting there all by itself. And I was like, oh, I'm going to grab that.

I'll bring it to the police station in the morning. It looked like somebody had come out of probably Bed Bath and Beyond. Like I said, probably an older lady, put it on top of her car, loaded her stuff in, drove away. purse falls off. Just wait really quick. I love this theory. I think it's better than the one I thought of originally, which is like somehow she set it on the ground to then unload her cart, but of course probably on the roof. Yeah, the roof is great. Or it just fell off her body. This is where my inexperience of having a purse comes to show. Yeah, you've never had a purse. It wasn't huge, but it wasn't small either. It was like a medium-sized bag. A grandma purse. We stop. I grab it, throw it in my back seat, didn't even look

in it, didn't think twice about it. Head back to the marina. Doing our thing. We finish out our day. It's like 9 o'clock now. We're wrapping up and we're like, all right, Dan goes with Josh and his truck. And I had my car and I'm like, I'm going to stop at Wawa for milk. I'll meet you guys at home.

Dan's girlfriend was waiting for us there. We were going to hang out for the rest of the evening. Wawa's like a mile from my house, if that. So I stop. I grab the milk and I come out from Wawa. Now, side note, on my way from the marina to the convenience store, I heard a phone ringing in my back seat.

And I was like, oh, Dan left his phone in my car. Note to self. Give that back when I get home. So I come out of Wawa, my car is completely surrounded by cop cars. And I'm like, what the fuck is going on? There's like five of them. And I hear one of them say something about a purse.

And I was like, oh, I said I just found one a couple of hours ago. It's in my back seat. I was going to bring it to you guys in the morning. And he looks at me dead in the eye and he goes, turn around and put your hands behind your back. You're under arrest. No. And I was like, what?

Now, keep in mind, I'm 21. I have no record or anything like that. I'm trying to do a good deed for this person. He's being such a jerk about it. He took my phone. He took the battery out of the back of my phone. What? This was like early days of iPhone.

They had just come out. So I had like a sidekick. I can't call anybody. My husband's expecting me to be home momentarily. So he's like, I'm going to charge you with grand larceny. You could go to prison for like 10 years, all this stuff. Now I'm like freaking out. This is insane.

I tell him the whole story. He's like, why didn't you bring it to us immediately? I was like, well, we were in the middle of our workday. I was just going to drop it off in the morning. He's like, you should have called us. We would have come to you. I'm like, I had no idea. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.

So lesson learned my bad. So now I'm handcuffed. I'm in the backseat of my car. And my husband's got to be like, where the fuck is she? Why isn't she home yet? He had an 82 Chevy pickup truck. It was a duly with a flatbed on it that he fabricated with like diamond plate. It had a steel eye beam for a bumper.

And the thing was loud. The most redneck truck you'll ever see in your life. Yeah, the guy's a stud. You got to call it what it is. Guys are fucking stud. So I hear his truck from pretty decently far down the road. And he gets toawa, sees everything all lit up. He comes flying in, parks right in the middle of parking lot.

He's like, what the hell is going on? They tell him. She stole this purse, but he's like, she didn't steal anything. They fully arrest me. What? They took me to the police station. They booked me. They took pictures of my tattoos, like, the whole line.

We were there for, like, far too long. They had me sitting in a cell by myself. Oh, my God. Also, like, at what point did you steal it? It's sitting in a fucking parking lot. Well, and the other thing, too, is I was like, dude, if I was going to steal this, I would have ransacked it and then dumped it in a dumpster somewhere. Like, everything is still in it.

We didn't get home until probably 11, 30, 12 o'clock. They really fucked up your evening. Completely. Everything was great. Now we've got court date. So now I have to hire an attorney. Oh, my God. It's insane. And we have to take off of work. So the first court date, the cop never showed up. The second court date, the cop didn't show up. And neither did the owner. They never showed up. So it kept getting pushed and pushed and pushed. So finally, after six months of rescheduling, the owner's son showed up. And I was correct in my assumption that it was an elderly lady. She was in her 90s. So the son was older too. He was like in his 70s. The son is not what I was picturing. So the ringing that I heard in my back seat,

she had had a brand new iPhone and they were trying to hang it. That's how the cops found me and ended up surrounding my car. So after all was said and done, because the son was like, there's nothing missing. He's like, she clearly wasn't trying to steal this. Everyone was inconvenienced by this dick cop. The judge dismissed it. Case closed.

I never got charged with anything. So fast forward some years, one particular company I was working for was not far from my father-in-law's house. and I worked there for almost four years, and during that time, every single Friday, my father-in-law and I would meet up for lunch at one o'clock at this one particular bar right in between the two of us. And whoever else wanted to join, they always knew we were there, whether it was my husband or one of our friends. For years, there was a guy that was sitting across the bar from us. And we knew we knew him from somewhere, but we couldn't put our fingers on

it. So then COVID hits, unfortunately, the bar did not survive after COVID hits. So they ended up shutting down. So like six months later, out of the blue, my husband and I were, I don't even know where we were. But it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was like, babe, I know who that guy is at the bar. He's like, who. I go, that's the attorney that we hired when I didn't steal that lady's purse. Oh, my God. So then very shortly after that, I was with my mom. We were out somewhere and person in line in front of me left their phone on the counter. So I grabbed it and I ran it outside to them. And I came back in and she was like, when are you going to learn to stop doing these things for people? Like, you're going to get arrested again. You're too nice. You're trying to help.

No good deed. Damn if I do and damned if I don't. No good deed. Indeed. Oh, wow. Wow. Well, a lot of things are happening. I'm hearing this life you have and I love it. It's very much where I grew up. It's like if you're a hardworking blue-collar dude, you learn how to work on some shit, you can build a business, you go to the bar, you do everything right, your family, you're connected with the father-in-law.

All of it's great. And then the cop is very reminiscent of it, too. I can't help but be pissed all over again for that kind of demeanor. Popping your fucking battery out of your phone. What? I know. And then many years later, one of our very good friends happens to also be a police officer in the same town. And we were telling him this story. And he was like, oh, what's his name? So I tell him

and he goes, I'm like, best friends with that guy. I was like, well, you can tell him that he's a jerk off. Yeah. Exactly. And then he arrested me for no reason. Well, Trish, what a delight to meet you. Yeah. It was such a pleasure. You guys are awesome. You guys don't know this, but the three of us collectively have been friends for years. I discovered you guys during COVID. And I listen all the time and I'm always like contributing to the conversation on my ex. Good. As you should. That's what we want.

You lost a bar in COVID, but you made two friends. So maybe it's a push. I did. That's right. Win, win. We found a new bar. Good, good, good. All right.

Well, Bewell is great meeting you. Best wishes to both of you. Okay. Take care. I would be so pissed if I was trying to do something good and I got. Oh, the injustice. The injustice. Yeah.

I hate it. You would have to do the forgiveness. exercise for the car. That we learn from James Kimmel, Jr. Check that episode out. Great episode. Jim Kimmel Jr. All right.

Love you. Do you want to sing a tune or something? I want to sing a tune or something? 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 own suggestions on the phone.

fly rhyme dish on the flyer rhyme dish enjoy follow armchair expert on the wondery app amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts you can listen to every episode of armchair expert early and ad free right now by joining wondry plus in the wondry app or on apple podcasts before you go tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondry dot com slash survey