Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Armchair Anonymous: Valet Driver

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

Dax and Monica talk to Armcherries! In today's episode, Armcherries tell us about a crazy valet story.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 ad 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 and I'm joined by Lily Padman. Hi. Hi. Today we have Crazy Vallette driver stories.

It's an harrowing profession as it turns out. Both to park your car and to park the car. That's right. We have a Miss Matt. A hodgepodge. A mashup. Mosh pit. We have a mosh pit of different experiences dealing with valet drivers.

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Pick up a pack today and follow Goodleaf Farms for recipes, including some of my favorites, Goodleaf Farms, Max Flavor, Max Nutrition, available at a store near you. All times, come and go. Good times, take them slow. My life. I had a moat remember one thing you got to know I'm going to keep on shining Hello Now, are you a big outdoors person?

You have, it seems like, camping gear or some kind of cold weather stuff behind you. I am. This is my camping backpacking closet. I got all my sleeping bags and backpacks and anything I might need. How many days a year are you out in the wilderness? This year I spent third. nights outside this summer? This summer.

Wow. Yeah. That's admirable. It is. Now, you're not scared of bears then. That's a different story. I am scared of bears. I worked a summer in Glacier National Park and had a pretty intense bear encounter,

but that's not what we're here for today. Oh, my God. Or are we? Did you pee your pants? Luckily, no one peed their pants. Someone did scrape up their knees, started bleeding. And they're like, just keep going. We've got to.

leave. So I was like, okay. Scary. This is what takes me out. I don't ever want to meet a grizzly bear. I already worked with one professionally, and that was enough for me. You already did it once and got out alive. Okay, so where are you? I'm in Golden Cauderado, so just west of Denver. Yes, and is that where they brew Coors beer? It is. Yeah. Okay, you have a valet story. I do. This is a story from the most chaotic summer of my life, but it's just a little snippet of it. It's not the whole thing. Okay. Happened between my sophomore and junior year of college, I decided to work a seasonal job up in a national park in the PNW.

So how the seasonal jobs work, I drove out there in my car, I brought all my stuff, loaded up my Kia Forte. After a series of unfortunate events, which is a whole other story, I decided to quit midway and just travel for the rest of the summer before school started again. You said P&W Pacific Northwest? Is that where you're saying? Yes. Okay, okay, okay. You're speaking in codes. Okay. Oregon, Washington, Air. So it just so happened that when I decided to quit, a friend who I met at the park invited me on a trip to Iceland in about two weeks. And I was like, I'm in, quit my job, had two weeks off to travel to PNW. I was like, this is perfect. Me and another ex-co worker loaded up all of our stuff for the summer in my Kia Forte. So it was packed. And we hit the road. We spent most of those two weeks hiking, camping, living it up, having the best time. After about a week and a half of camping, we decided. decided to treat ourselves to a hotel. And we're like, this is going to be so nice.

We can sleep in a real bed. We can shower. Can I tell you something so stupid? This entire story, I'm framing in my mind that you were a valet driver. And I'm now realizing, and then you lovingly refer to the Kia Forte so many times. I was like, she really loves your car. And then I just like a dumb dumb put together like, oh, you're going to have valeted your car. And it's going to involve the Kia Forte.

Did you think all of these were going to be like? Well, just she was saying summer job. I'm like, okay, go ahead. That's a great summer job as a valet. You got it. A lot of grease. I always wanted that job. But no. Okay. I've caught up now. So you're going to go to a nice hotel. This hotel had ballet. And I was 20 at the time. I was like, I have never used valet in my life. I was so excited. Checked my car into the valet. We grabbed our overnight bags. Went out, explored the city and was just having the grandest old time. I'm about 10 p.m. We get back to the room. And I realize, I left my phone charger. the car. I went down to the front desk. I was like, hey, can you pull the car around? It's the Kia Forte. Five minutes passed. Ten minutes passed. And I was like, dang, it must be a busy day

for the valet. It's a Friday night. Maybe a lot of people want their car at 10 p.m. So we headed back up to the room. And a few minutes later, the phone rang. I was like, oh, perfect. Car must be here. And my friend picked it up, and I will never get this sight out of my head. She picked it up and answered in the most joyous tone. Maggie and Danielle's room, how can I help you? And then I just saw her face drop. And she hands the phone over to me. And someone on the other end goes, is this the owner of the Kia Forte? Okay. The proud owner of a Kia Forte. First car, I was so proud of it. Oh, no. I say yes. And they asked me to come down to the lobby. They're making you go to them. Maybe they want her to see what's happening. Oh, shit.

And they're like, we don't know how to tell you this. Your car's been in an accident. It's been in an accident. I thought it was sleeping in the garage. Yeah. So as they were pulling the car around, apparently, a drunk motorcyclist ran a red light, teaboned my car, and totaled it. Oh, my God. Did we lose the motorcyclist?

If you teabone a car that bad. I was scared about that. I asked, I was like, is the valet driver and the motorcyclist okay? And they go, they're both in the hospital, minor injuries. going to be fine. Oh, my lord. So they took me over to the accident and they're like, we're going to give you all the contact information, talk to the police. At this point, it was like 11. I was getting tired. A tow truck came and towed the car to the front of the hotel. And I unloaded everything from that car. I mean, I'm talking the whole collection of things for two

people over the summer, bedding, clothes, suitcases, backpack, camping gear. That Kia Forte was packed. Maybe that's why he didn't die. Cushion. Yeah, the padding. I was. blow. Yeah, it was like, that's stuffing inside. Stinking. Maybe. Ran into the sleeping bags and the tents and just bouts right off. As he was flying through the air, he went, oh, thank God. Then hit the ground. Maybe he even grabbed one of the...

Yeah, wrapped himself in a sleeping bag. I put everything in the hotel's conference room and went to bed. The next morning spent all day talking with my insurance, the motorcycle insurance, and the hotel's insurance. Because it wasn't my fault and still had to get everything that I brought for the summer, back to my house, back in Denver. And I was leaving the country in two days. Oh, stressful.

The coworker I was with, I was dropping her off in another city, supposed to be that day, but obviously that didn't happen. A few hours away with all of her stuff. Thankfully, the hotel did everything they could to accommodate us. They shipped everything we needed back to our homes or to our next destinations. I was under 25 at the time. Well, still I'm under 25, but under 25 couldn't rent a car. and this was during 20-21, so cars were hard to come by.

Oh, I got it. You couldn't even rent a car because I'm like, yeah, they got to rent you a car so you can drop your pal off and then head home and then turn it in there. Yeah. Luckily, the hotel comped our rooms and they also bought me a train ticket and all the Uber's and train rides and taxis I needed to get to the airport. So I made it to the airport two days after this happened and then went on my international trip and dealt with my car when I got back home. Do you fly out of C-TAC? Yes, I did. So you took that Silver Surfer train up, I think it's called, the Silver Surf Line?

I don't remember. If you just go, I don't care. You stole Monica's words right out of Vermont. I don't care. I don't think anyone else cares either what the branding of the train was. So was the car a total? Did it remain in the PNW or did they fix it and ship it home? What happened?

It was totaled. I never saw that car again. The last time I saw it was on the streets. windshield cracked, airbags out. Did you get enough money back to replace the Forte? They didn't give me enough to replace the exact same. So I had to buy a new car and take out a little loan for that. You know, I'm just thinking that Will Forte is in these VW commercials, right?

Isn't he in them with Kristen Wigg and Hader? Isn't it the three? No, he's not. No, it is. It's the Californians. It's our best dude. It's Fred Armisen. Because I was thinking, why doesn't Kia hire Will Forte for the,

Kia Forte. Oh, funny. Kea Will Forte. I really didn't understand until that last sentence. Yeah, this is a missed opportunity. You're right. You're on to something. I really have gotten something that's going to break through.

But did you have a good rest of your trip? I hope. As I said, this was the most chaotic summer of my life, and it just got even more chaotic after that. Oh, boy. The planets were not aligned. It was the best summer and the worst summer, all wrapped in one. It was the best of time.

It was the worst of times. Did you consider when the Kia Forte was in its accident that you're like, I'm not supposed to travel? That's what Monica would have done. She would have said the universe has told me I shouldn't get to my flight. Maybe she was supposed to be on that flight. Did you get food poisoning on that trip? I did not. I thought baby held hostage.

Wait, baby held hostage. We were staying in an Airbnb and the Airbnb lady trapped us in the Airbnb with a knife and wanted our passport. So, what? You were not supposed to go. You weren't listening. Yeah. Ignoring all the signs. Anyway.

Oh, my. Was it Bjork? No. It was crazy. It was chaotic. Wow, wow, wow. Well, Maggie, it's a delight to meet you. You have the best attitude for this kind of hijinks.

You've chosen the right path as an adventurer because it seems like anything can roll off your back. Thank you. I've had enough of these random things come up in my life that I figure you can either take it and be sad or mad about it, or you can take it and be like, you know what, it's a great story. It kind of sucked at the moment, but it's funny now. That's my ethos. Nice. It's so great to meet you guys. I've just recently become a fan, two of my friends, Lise and Maggie, they wanted me to give them a shout out. They introduced me to the podcast, and they're like, it's a great work podcast. Oh, absolutely right. Thanks, Gales. Thanks for turning Maggie on

to us. Yes. All right, send them our love, and good luck on all your travels. I think they'll be extensive. Thank you. I appreciate it and have a great rest of your day. All right, bye-bye. Hello. Hello. Hi. You immediately look like many people. Who are you told you look like most? To be honest, not really anybody. I'm going to hit you with one who's a personal friend, Malin Ackerman. Oh. Christina Applegate. Oh, Christina. Are you watching The Hunting Wives? Yes. It's a great compliment. I've never heard that before. Okay. We'll take it. When you first appeared, I, I got polar vibes. Oh, Amy Polar.

You guys are spoiling me. These are great. Good company. Anne, where are you? I am currently in Nashville, Tennessee. God bless. We're neighbors. I don't actually live here.

I'm here for work. I live in Asheville, North Carolina. Oh, we love it there, too. My other favorite places you might know. Aaron and I are planning a motorcycle trip to Asheville. Are you going to do the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Dragon's Dale? Is that what they refer to it as? That's like the stretch.

Yeah, we're going to be based in Nashville and do rides every day out of it in different directions. I'm going to make them look at Looking Glass Falls and sliding rock and all the fun stuff. Oh, fun. Okay, so you have a valet story. Yes. So before I got into training and development a lifetime ago, I worked in hotels. So I used to live in Charleston, South Carolina. I went to college there.

I managed the front desk at a hotel while I was in college. And so I ever saw anybody that you checked in at the front desk and the valet team that we had. for the hotel. Can I guess that that's a super fun job? Like, I'm so nosy, and I feel like I'd be getting a glimpse into all these people's lives, and I would really like it. As an early 20-something, I think a really fun job, because you're not taking things too seriously.

I don't think they probably should have put me in charge. Yeah, that's a lot of responsibility, because a lot goes down in hotels. Oh, absolutely. There's murders and suicides. Everything. A lot of chaos, especially Charleston, like party city in a lot of ways. So it was a great job. Super fun.

Sorry, I'm sorry, hold on. Did you get an emergency call, like someone destroyed the bathroom? Not an emergency call, but we did have some Citadel cadets. The Citadel Academy is down there. We had them party a little too hard and, like, really destroy a room. So we actually ended up calling their school to inform the commander, whoever it was above them, and they made them come back for a weekend and clean all of our rooms for us. Oh, that's cool.

It worked out to our advantage in that way. Yeah, if someone's going to trash your place, You pray it's cadets. He was looking for like a poop story and it's okay that you don't have one. I don't personally, I'm sure they happened. I'm sure maintenance got some crazy calls. I feel fortunate. I wasn't on the receiving end of those.

They shielded you from that, the underbelly. Okay, okay, okay. So I'm back up to speed. Okay. As you can imagine, I wasn't the only college kid working there. Almost all of us were college stage, especially the valet drivers, pretty young guys. And eight-hour shifts, you're just trying to kind of keep yourself entertained. How do you stay busy and enjoy?

yourself. So we had kind of ongoing prank systems with each other in wanting to keep things going, but try and keep guests out of it. And I jump really easily. So you can just walk around a corner, and I'm going to be like, ha, I didn't see you coming. And so our ballet drivers loved to make that the center. They would hide unexpected places, really try to pop out and surprise me at any chance. They'd try to one up each other on finding the best place to do it. Hotel closets, one of them hid in one of the washing machines. Oh, that's a damn. So they were really in it for the win. On Sundays, as I'm sure you can imagine, hotels are very busy with checkouts. Valet gets very busy. And also because it's a bunch of college kids, somebody usually calls out because they were partying over the weekend. And so during kind of peak checkout, I would leave the front desk and go help bring cars around. Our lot was across the street. And on a particular Sunday, George, one of our valets, had really been thinking through like, what is a great way that I could get her? female has this is their number one fear. I know. Like, didn't really think through

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I'll get this one when they get back. So someone was always around. And so I was waiting for the next valet driver to come back before I went to get a car. And during that time, another long-term guest of ours had come up and started chatting with me, was upset about something. And it became obvious I was not going to be able to step away to go get this car that I'd said I would pull around. And because I knew the guest, whose car we were going to pull around, I decided, hey, you can just go get your own car. I know you're in a rush. If you want to get it, he'd been staying there for a while.

Oh, give you the keys. Go get your own car. He says great. He goes across the street to go get his car. He goes to get in his car. And meanwhile, George has thought it would be a wonderful idea to hide in the back of an SUV. where he could pop up and scare me. He really thought through,

it needs to be a bigger car where I'll see her coming, but I'll have room to pop up. Yeah. He thought this was prime time, the best time. And so then obviously he noticed it was not me getting into the car.

Oh, well, first of all, that's a blessing, because I could see him going, like seeing you at the curb and going, oh, shit, it's happening. I got to get down and hide and totally missed that it wasn't even you. I don't know that he saw it as a blessing.

He kind of panicked. in the moment didn't know what to do, and so he just kept hiding. I actually think that's the right thing. No, no, no. You got to get out before he gets to the car and you go, oh my God, I'm in your car. I'm so sorry.

It's all happening so fast. It is your panic. Because that guy is in a rush, so he just got in and drove. But versus, let me just model out what could happen. You're in the backseat, the guy's driving. He takes a call. It's with a mistress.

Now you're in the backseat, like, oh, my fucking guy, I just learned something. You can't pop up because he'll either murder. you or get an accident. So you have to wait until they get to their house and then you sneak out. That's why I was arguing, initiate the departure before the guy starts getting in the car. I know, I just don't think there was time. There wasn't time.

Also, it's not like he could then open the back door and, like, roll out action film style or something. Like, he kind of was trapped at that point. Yeah. Oh, my God. George hid for about two blocks before. I think it just occurred to him, like, I'm going to have to get up. I have to do something. I can't stay in this person's vehicle.

No, no, no. You have to get to the destination. How old was this guest? Oh, he's probably 40s or 50s. Oh, thank God. It wasn't someone in jeopardy of a heart condition. But he could have had a gun in the glove compartment. He can seal and carry.

Yeah. Also, he could have been driving to, like, Florida. When we say you get to wait till the destination, who knows where that is. Who you say, excuse me, sir. So that's kind of what George did. So he just kind of slowly raised his head over the back seat. And it was like, sorry, sorry, sir. And then immediately the guy slammed on his brain.

Just like, what the fuck? like screaming and he's like, I'm from the hotel. I'm from the hotel. Because his first thought is he's going to think I was trying to rob him. Yes, of course. And I got caught in the car, not that this was something else. So he starts screaming, I'm from the hotel, I'm from the hotel. I'm so sorry. Gets out of the car. The guest is screaming at him. I will give George credit. He came up with a pretty good backstory. He didn't want to go prank-wise. He said, I'm so sorry. We have another guest whose birthday it is. And so we had told his wife, that we would surprise him in the car,

and then we were supposed to give him directions to meet her, and I got in the wrong car, and I just panicked when you got in. This is an intricate lie. I was like, in two blocks, you came up with a decent story, given the situation. Yeah. My boss never found out about it.

He didn't write bad reviews. We did comp the room and apologize. I mean, what else were you going to do? There wasn't a really great way to get out of this. That went without detection from your supervisors. They didn't even realize you guys had comp the room. No. For something like that, it wasn't common that they would get into it. Somebody was upset about a stay. Because we pranked so often on each other, when they came back to

the hotel on the same vehicle and the guests got out to tell me the story, it was a quick pickup of, yes, he was supposed to be surprising somebody so that everyone kind of jumped in and played along. Wait, he drove him back. Yes, he drove him back. Oh, that's nice. I mean, it was nice, but he was also wanted to come back and, like, yell at me. I wonder how that car ride went on the way back. He's just sitting in the backseat. It would be started getting up front in the passenger scenes. He's like, stay back there. Oh, no.

Wow, that is a really, talk about a bit gone bad. That's hijinks. That's prank gone wrong. We've done that before. I feel like that guest probably is a little bit scarred for life when he gets in his car. There's not a time I don't get in a car from a hotel valet that I don't kind of look in the mirror thinking, somebody hiding in my car. And I won't say the name of the actor, but there was an actor who had a weekend off from his television show, went to Joshua Tree. here in California in the desert, in an RV with friends, and did shrooms all night,

crawled back into the RV, went to sleep, woke up because he heard, he heard like this, and he's like, oh, my God, they already started driving home, but what are we driving on? And he got up and he looked at the window and they were crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. He crawled into the wrong RV. Yes. Yes. Oh my God. And woke up crossing the Golden Gate Bridge and had to, again, go, excuse me, and then had to get himself from San Francisco with nothing. He was on Shrooms the night before.

I know the agent. This person called the agent collect was like, I'm in San Francisco. Is this person recognizable enough that the person driving was like, whoa. I don't think so. No. Shit, that is so funny and crazy. Wow. But that is a hundred. percent my nightmare someone in my back seat yeah you would have maybe fucking crashed the car that might be a blessing it was not a good call on his behalf early 20s you know but it worked out okay that's a great story anne i really enjoyed it thank you it was the first time you guys had a prompt that i was like oh i might have something this fits for you certainly do and it's abstract it's like you didn't valet and you weren't a valet worker and yet somehow it's still all worked yeah that was great

Well, lovely meaning you. Thanks for taking time out of your workday in Nashville. Thank you guys. Enjoy Asheville. I will. I recommend you eat at bricktops tonight. There is a bricktops right across the street from our office. I cannot recommend it enough. Get the doubled eggs and candy bacon if they have it. Okay. I love some candy bacon. Oh, it's the best I've ever had.

Wonderful meeting you. Bye. Bye. George and the other valets never saw that episode of Punky Brewster where she, I think, is playing hide and seek and she goes into like either the bridge or the washing machine or something and it ends bad. That was one of the big moral panics of the 80s is everyone thought kids were getting trapped in refrigerators. They were. Punky was. But what's crazy is I grew up and my mother was always like, don't at some point if I got old now, I was like, a human can't get in this fucking, what are

they talking about? Punky! There's no room in a refrigerator for a human to get in. I don't know why there's such a huge fear. I mean, I don't want to recommend anything. I'm pretty sure you could open it from the inside. If you can open it from the outside, it does not hold it all. Do not try it. I'm going to do it as like a David Blaine thing. I'm going to put it on television. I'm going to get in a fridge and I'm going to walk right out. It's going to be like a two-second special. And I'm going to go debunked. No, you should say depunked. And then like you're using it. You just got to punked. Here's Monica. Oh, which Monica will let be? Monica Lewinsky.

Hello. Hello. Not Monica Lewinsky. Not Monica. And not Monica Padman? No. And not Monica Geller, though you do kind of look like her, Courtney Cox. Oh, Cici.

My mom's name is also Monica. It is your second generation, Moni? They don't do that with women, right? You can't be a junior as a woman or can you? You could, but they don't. It's in my family. My grandmother's name is Maria. My mom's eldest sister is Maria.

So then Monica, Monica. Oh, nice. Do you have the same middle name is mom? My mom does not have a middle name and I have a middle name. And are you a nurse? Yes, I'm actually a nurse practitioner. You're our favorite group of people on planet Earth. Yeah.

Monicas, monicas. Monicas. And then additionally, nurses are our favorite. Yes. Yeah, I do high risk obstetrics, so high rich pregnancies at a clinic. Oh, amazing. Stressful? Mm-hmm.

Do you have like a high arousal setting? Are you like calm and shit hits the fan? Yes. Yeah. Good for you. Do you have a wild childhood or are you just genetically that way? I think genetically, perhaps, I can be calm during stress, but then afterwards I will kind of relive it and panic. Delayed panic. How's the name working out for you? Are you happy with it?

I love it because I can use my mom's ID, like going into the American Airlines Club. Don't tell American Airlines, but I can use her name and go in. Nice. So it's worked out very well in my life. I love having the same name as my mom. That is a hack. That is. That's good. Okay, so you have a valet. Yes, I do have a valet story. I'm curious if you guys have heard valet driver stories or people who have used the valet. Great question, because I had framed all this incorrectly. Our first caller, I'm like, oh, they're going to tell me they worked as a valet. No, they had valet their car. And then second person was neither, but was involved in a valet debacle. And where do you fall into this? So we used the valet service. It was a family vacation in 2014. So my family, my mom, my dad, I'm the eldest. So in

2014. I was 21. My middle brother was 19. And then my youngest brother, Michael, so there's all M's. He was 16. So we flew to Calgary, Canada. And then we were going to rent a car and drive the two hours west to Lake Louise, the town outside of Banff, gorgeous, gorgeous. So we landed in Calgary. We rented the car. It was a blue Chrysler. Dax, I'm sorry, that's all I know about the car. I'm not a big car person. So we rented the car. My youngest brother, Michael, 16, he is our suitcase loader. So he had to load our five checked bags, three backpacks, and then two carry-ons. So he loads it into the trunk. We all drive on our merry way for two hours. Have a great week at Lake Louise. We're staying at the hotel right there. And so because they don't have a parking lot,

you have to valet your car every time you come and go. So during the week, we would call from the hotel room. My dad would order the car so that would be ready by the time we came down. Your dad's so Taipei. The whole family's so Taipei. I already know this. It's like the coordination of the names, the call ahead. That's me. I don't want to get down there and wait. Wait in the room and we'll be ready. So there's, you know, the blue minivan. The day comes for us to leave. So we know it's a two-hour drive and we have to arrive two hours at the airport before our flight. So we have it all calculated. So in the morning, we're all packing. My dad again calls the valet. Hey, let's get our blue minivan up, please. Okay, great. I'm the

eldest. I walk down with my suitcases, followed by my brother, my other brother and everybody eventually comes down. So I had walked up. There's our car. Doors are open. Trunk is open. I'm like, hey, valet guy, thanks so much for pulling up our car. This has been so great. You've been so great all week. He said, oh, no problem. Do you guys have your little valet ticket? I was like, oh, yeah, yeah. My dad has it. He'll be the last one down. He'll hand it to you. Perfect. So I leave my suitcase by the trunk. Here comes my youngest brother, Michael. And of course, he's the loader. So there he goes working on loading everybody's suitcases into the trunk. We're all buckled. Michael's still working. Poor guy. And he's taking a while. And he's like, it's not fitting, you guys. It's not. Not fitting. We're like, Michael, you're so dumb. Like, just ratting on him because he's the youngest. Finally, my mom's like, we have to go. We have a two-hour drive. We have a flight. So, Michael, we just take one of the suitcases and we put it into the middle passage row. We're leaving the hotel and on the street, Michael from the back row, hey, dad, why is the gas meter lower than when we turned in the car yesterday? Oh, he is really. This family is on it. They all have designated roles. And they're trustworthy, because she's

She was like, I'm going to leave it here. Like, I would never trust a younger sibling to get my bag in a car. So I'd be like, fuck it. I'm putting it in. I don't care what the rules are. Well, I didn't want to do it. Yeah, that's annoying. Okay.

So my dad answers, oh, it's at altitude and we don't know where the valet parked their car. Maybe they ran some errands with the car. Sure, Dad, whatever. Let's just go to the airport. So we're driving against a two-hour drive. So we're about halfway there. Oh, no. I'm in the seat behind my dad, and he's driving.

So I look in the backseat pocket. I don't know why. And I pull out these sunglasses. And I'm like, oh, all of a sudden, the suitcase is not fitting, the gas being different. And so I say, if these sunglasses, do not belong to somebody in this car we have the wrong car so my dad whips around

takes the sunglasses puts them on his face they're mine they're mine they're mine and my mom looks at them they're women's sunglasses we're in the wrong car it's like a scene from a movie

we're in the wrong car it's so home alone it is the thing is your brain will do like no don't worry they're definitely mine. Was he sincere? I'm so confused. Now I'm all over the map on your dad. Because when he writes off the gas thing, I'm thinking, well, that was his way of saying, I don't really trust that you monitored what the gas was. But now with this classes thing, I'm like recalculating what I think about the gas situation. I don't know. No, I know. He's an optimist? No, as soon as it became

clear like, oh, fuck, we might be in the wrong car. We can't be it. Nope, that cannot be an option. Denial. The stages of grief. Denial. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. Yeah, we had a flight to catch. We are an hour away, both from the hotel and from the airport. So then in the car, we're all looking around for stuff. My mom, like, that's not my trash. And what's that paper? And my mom opens the glove box and pulls out the family's personal car insurance. So it was a personal vehicle, not even a other rental car.

It's just so much real car. Yes. Well, if there was a bloody knife in the glove box. So this is definitely the Valley's fault. Well, he asked for the ticket. It did come out that my dad. never gave him the ticket. It was a trust thing of, we've been there for seven days.

You've pulled up the same blue car. It's the family five going to the same blue car. Oh, no. See, this is what you think my knowledge of cars is extraneous and useless, but I would never end up in the wrong car. I'll give you that. That's about the only thing that's useful for, I suppose. I think I would be sensitive enough to the smell, but not in a rental.

So what the fuck do you do? So we pulled over. We called the hotel, and the hotel is freaking out because that, that family is livid that their personal vehicle is gone. Of course. And the valet has no idea where it went. And they had ordered it the same way we had because they had an excursion to go to. Oh.

So my dad in the valet talk, they agree, let's meet back at this exit marker on TransCanada Highway number one. Smart. So we pull around. We start driving away from the airport. So now we're like, we're going to miss the flight. We're in the wrong car. We get to the mentioned exit number. We sit there, and I sent an email of a photo of the car, our suitcases, and the beautiful Canadian background.

Oh, no. Oh, my God. Just all your shit on the street. Your dad and the guy decided, let's meet in the center of the fucking median. Literally. I mean, literally. Not in a car park. Yeah.

So they brought our rental. We switched in the middle of the highway. When Michael went to load our suitcases into our car. car he's like hey it fits oh my god oh my god if i was michael i'd be like you you fucking dumb-dums i told you so yeah he had a big i told you so did your dad grease this valet like a hundred dollars my dad is a very big tipper oh that's nice my dad never brought out the ticket either yeah but it is kind of also their fault because they did bring out the wrong car no they brought up those people called too everyone called at the same time just there's at an

arrived yet. Oh, no. It was the exact same make, model car, everything. Now, my hunch is you still made the flight. They actually delayed the flight for some reason, and we made it with that perfect. That's really, that's kind of perfect, because you get a good story out of it, and then no one was inconvenience. The other family might have been fucked. They were, can you imagine if another family was driving around your personal car? No, I would be like, I want to meet the guy. Don't meet, bring them back. I want to meet this son of a bitch. What did you do to my car? You'd be checking every single thing in the car when it got back. Also, this van came back on, this van came out on empty, for sure, because it was already

low on fuel. Right. Yeah, so that's how we stole a car from the ballet. Well, lovely meeting you, Monica. Yes, likewise, this was fun. I'm happy you're doing what you do. Keep at it. Thanks, I will.

All right, take care. She's so cute. I love when Monica's are cute. Somehow I feel pride in that. You should. Should I? Yeah. You'd like to think.

Like, if I'm at 12 other Daxes and they were all rad, I'd be like, oh, good. I know, but it's, but like, that, it's not, there's nothing to do with it. It doesn't, but you go, oh, there's a pattern here, and presumably I'm part of it, I hope. Oh, I see. It's like, if monicas are cute, then I got to be cute. Yeah, if they don't make uncute monicas. Right. That just makes me think of how bad I feel for everyone named Karen.

Don't you? I do. It's unfair, that your whole name was, now you. He uses a pejorative that I and myself have used on people. I know. That's why you feel guilty because you've used it. I actually don't use it because I kind of forget about it. We're trying to think what the male equivalent is.

Is it a Chad? We said Chad. Yeah, that's what we said. That's what you said. I said Chad. The thing is though now if you name your kid Karen, I'm like, guys, don't. There's no way anyone has named their kid can. In fact, that would be a fun stat to look up.

I bet there's been zero Karen's born. There's 100% definitely some Karen's born. Well, you've got some time to kill him, yes. Okay, check. Yeah, let's see what AI says. I think some people want to push back on that, so they're going to reclaim it. Uh-huh. Has the rate of naming babies Karen fallen in recent years as a result of the popular term Karen to describe a terrible woman?

It's definitely fallen. Maybe it'll give me some actual stats, though. You're absolutely right to connect the drop in use of the name Karen as popular culture decline, but there's, more to the story. I like that, intriguing. The historical decline of Karen. Peak popularity, 1950s and 60s.

The name Karen was a top ten favorite in the U.S. between 1951 and 1968, reaching its highest point as the third most popular girl's name in 1965. Steady decline began before the meme. Karen had already been falling out of fashion through the late 20th

century. By 2020, it had plunged to rank 831. in the SSA list, the lowest since 1927. The meme effect, from name to punchline. These are so well written. They are. Mimetic backlash intensifies drop. In 2020, the term Karen became a worldwide meme

symbolizing an entitled, demanding, and somewhat racist, middle-aged white woman. Example, the Central Park Karen incident. Sharp declines in usage. That year, the name fell 171 spots on the SSA's popularity. list from 660 to 831 in a single year. 439 baby girls were named Karen in 2019.

That dropped to 325 in 2020. Okay. Articles all attribute the sharp decline to the meme-based negativity. Well, so already by five and a half years ago, it had hit 325. Okay, but that's not what the debate was. I said none. Yep. And my point is some people out there are still doing this.

Some poor kid whose parents are so unaware of pop culture. No, you wish. You wish. What do you think it is? Pushback. I don't even think a Karen's proud of being a Karen. Like when you're a Karen, you don't think you're a Karen. No, I know exactly the thought.

Exactly. It's an anti-woke. Like, they think we're racist. Then let's show them. But I think people on the right use Karen too. I don't really think it's so in stricably linked to racism. Andrew, do you have an opinion? Dax, I didn't hear you on that one.

What's going on? We're talking about the name. Karen. And first of all, so sad if you were named Karen and then this meme happens. But furthermore, does anybody name their kid Karen anymore? We then looked it up while we were waiting for you. And we're down to 325 kids were named Karen in 2020. I had said, I bet nobody, Monica said. I said some people still are. As a pushback. My reasoning is that I think some people are like, you guys are annoying, calling racism, Karen. So I'm going to double down. I think some people want to double down. Where do you land in this debate? They really created a brand with the haircut. I will say to some evidence, the stock of American Eagle has... Oh, it's a very successful campaign. Exactly.

So my point is, just there's some doubling down. That happens. And that's fine. Where are you at, Andrew? I am in Maryland, about 40 minutes north of Baltimore. Oh, okay. And do you realize how blessed you are with your hair? Your beard is phenomenal and your hair is so thick and black.

I'm very envious of the whole setup. Hearing that from you means a lot, that. Thank you. Okay, great. So, Andrew, you have a valet story. Did it take place in Maryland? Yes, it did. It was right in Baltimore, right in the city near Johns Hopkins University, actually. Oh, we love Johns Hopkins. To hate the name, but we love the institution. Great institution. We need to dump that ass. I know. I'm fine with it. I know. Only you are the one with the issues. Do you like that we've got Johns Hopkins that we have two plurals? No, I actually used to do an announcing for D3 soccer, and they used to play Johns Hopkins. And I said John Hopkins over the intercom. and my boss screamed at me.

People are very sensitive to it. I'm a proponent of dropping one of them. Okay, so hit us with the valet story. All right. So it's a few years ago. It was about four years in me valet. And I work in an Italian restaurant. It's this old textile mill

from like 1800s that they repurposed. So with that textile mill, they turned it into really nice apartments. They've got business in there. And then they also have the restaurants. The restaurants in the boiler room next to their Jones Falls River, beautiful place. This sounds awesome.

Nothing could be better than Italian food in like a brick warehouse, kind of a sitch. It's fantastic. It looks exactly probably what you're imagining. And 5 o'clock shift started up. Of course, happy hour comes through. If I grab their keys, give them the claim check, they go ahead and they walk into the restaurant. From about 5 to 7, somewhat steady, but then around 7 o'clock, of course, the dinner rush comes. So we start to get more and more cars coming in.

And this lady drives down in a Prius, and she starts coming down slowly. Of course, you can barely hear the car because it's the Prius. She stops the car. I'll put it that way. She stops the car. We do the whole little, hi, welcome. Here's your claim check. Give me your keys.

And I go ahead and let her walk into the restaurant. So I stayed a short car there. There's a few more cars coming in, but I noticed the 5 p.m. people were coming out. When they came out, they gave me their claim check, said, hey, how is everything? I turn around to go grab the keys out of the booth. And all of a sudden, these people start running past me. I'm like, what's going on? It was so weird.

It's a group of four people. All of a sudden, I look up and I see the Prius coming right at the restaurant. No. With the ballet booth, myself, in between. Oh. Zach's your car guy, you know, Priuses, you know, they'll idle and they'll kind of just sit for a little while. But then eventually they're going to start get that momentum on a downhill. Oh.

Wasn't crazy aggressive, you know, but it was enough to get some momentum going. So it just wasn't in park. She hopped out a little prematurely. Understandably, it's out of her routine. She's nice to valetang. I get it. Oh, that's nice. Understanding, really kind of you.

All of a sudden, that car is barreling down the hill. Goes over maybe a two-foot stone wall. The light, probably about four or five feet tall, pretty thick. It took that thing right out. And the Prius is coming towards me, and I just stepped in front of it and put my hands out. Oh, you thought you could stop it. Luckily, it was a Prius, not a Chevy Bolt, and it was all right. I stopped it.

You stopped it? So these other obstacles did scrub some of its speed and momentum. I'll admit that, yes. Yes. Okay. Wow. Did you feel like a superhero? That's very superhero-esque.

It felt pretty cool. I got a few shift drinks for that. Wow, you really put yourself in harm's way. I mean, I could imagine you putting your hands out and they're just getting run right over. Flatten like a pancake? Yeah. Luckily, I did not. I lived it to tell the tale.

Did someone have to run then and jump in the car and put it in park? Because you're probably holding it from going any further. Of course, that lady was like, oh, what's going on? And she runs and goes ahead and presses park or turned it off. I don't know what she did. Not the most trustworthy person to put it in park, given what had just happened. But if she accelerated. She gets it and punches it.

Help! Goes into the boiler room, three flights down. What was her? I would kill myself. I mean, that's the ultimate level of embarrassment. If I lost control my vehicle like that in front of everybody and I just fucked up everything in front. I mean, it would be so hard for me. How did she take it?

She was very embarrassed, of course, but it's not like she went and jumped in the river. But she was really sorry about it, really embarrassed. Did someone have to back it now over this wall she had come careing through? Yes, I took care of that. Oh, what a hero. Yeah. Yeah. She's like, I'm just going to go back in and eat now.

Did she continue on and eat? She went right in the restaurant. She ate her dinner. I bet she was on a first or second date. So she was nervous, so that's why she got out of the car. She was like, I'm stressed. That's the generous. I thought maybe she was going to have an unauthorized evacuation,

jumped out of the car and a panic. And now that is on her plate. Did she tip you exorbitantly when you brought the car back around? I'll say it was above the normal tip. Double. Okay. No, if someone catches your car from rolling into a restaurant, it's time for a hundred. She might not have any money because she was on a date with someone,

and she just spent it on the day. And they went Dutch. Yeah, because she was so. nervous. It was a bad date. And he's like, let's split this. You know, I have a handful of these jobs that I think are dream jobs for me. Valé being one of them. I love driving cars. I love driving different cars. I feel like I could be charming in a way that I might garner a good tip. Did you love it? And is it a great job as I think it is? I really did. So I was in college. Even when I'd get tired of it a little bit, I'd be like, you know what? I get paid to exercise and drive

luxury cars. Really not that bad when you frame it that way. Do you make pretty good money? It was good for being a college kid. I got my our money and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I imagine you could be up in the $35 an hour situation when you factor in those tips. I would say, but then again, it's just like restaurants where they can make your wage like $3 and then the tips make up the difference. Right. You're working for free. That's annoying. Yeah, well, so often the valet is not even associated with the restaurant, right? They just have the contract to do all the parking. That's what we were actually.

We have some photos. Am I allowed to look at them? Absolutely. Well, this is just a gorgeous M3, M4. So that was an M4. Was that the Alpina, I think? It's gorgeous. These are these just pictures of cars you like? No, those are the cars I valet. See, so I'm talking about, Monica.

Yeah, that's nice. A GT2RS. Oh, wow. Look at that. Oh, that's a $500,000 Porsche. Wow. And then a Ferrari, Modena. Oh, fuck.

Aren't you scared driving these? I'd be scared. So that was the second Ferrari I drove. The first one, the guy rolls in, and he's like, you know how to drive this thing? I was like, yeah. Yeah, I know how to drive that thing. Of course. It has four wheels and a steering wheel, right?

I wouldn't even be able to drive your cars from one side of this driveway to the other. You'd be too panics. Yeah. Oh, yes. This is exactly what I thought it would be the job. Also, we're getting a taste of the, the environment. I got to go here. Yeah, that looks really nice. How old was this textile factory? I don't know the exact year, but I'd say like early to mid-1800s. Fuck. Wow, cool. So cool. Yeah, the bricks aren't even uniform. I like it. I love it. Well, Ander, it's a delight to meet you. What a hero. You're a real hero that you caught this Prius before. Anyone was injured. I appreciate that. What color is or Prius was it? Silver gray.

Prius color. No? Mine's a white. Oh, you had a white. But you also had the weird hatchbacky one. Yeah, I had a Prius C. C. You would have definitely been able to stop it because it was tiny.

You could have just picked it up. Yeah. Lifting it back out on the street. Just squatted it away. Well, lovely meeting. Yeah. Thank you so much for telling us that story. It was great to meet you as well.

And I believe I may have sent a video in. Oh, my God. Oh, Rob doesn't have a video. Oh, we don't have. video what's in the video we'll check in with Emma and we'll look at it later but what is it it is the video of the car coming towards the restaurant oh shit

there's fucking video of it oh do you mind if we post that that's not a problem at all oh that's not a problem at all then we can do that for our social exciting well I look forward to seeing this video me too all right well take care brother nice meeting you bye

valets things can go awry valets are heroes Heroes. Not all heroes wear capes. Some of them wear valet vests. Next time on Armchair Anonymous. Love you. Love you. Do you want to sing a tune or something? I want to a theme song. Oh. Okay, great. We don't have a thing song for this new show, so here I go, go, go.

We're going to ask some random questions, and with the help of our cherries, we'll get some suggestions. I'm a flyer rhymed dish On the flyer rhyme dish Enjoy Follow armchair expert on the Wondry 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

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