Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe - There's Something About Mary - Mary Turlington has Lice & Defibrillator

Episode Date: September 8, 2023

"The best time to share bad news is almost always never.” Welcome back to Season Two of Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe! We’re thrilled to be back and ready to kick off the new season with two Stuart McLean stories about Dave’s neighbourhood nemesis: the indefatigable Mary Turlington. This week Stuart tells two barn burners about Mary. First up, hypochondriacal Dave has to step up when he learns that Mary has head lice. In the second story, Dave’s neighbours decide to get a defibrillator for the entire neighbourhood to share. They decide that Dave & Morley’s garage is the perfect place to store it…  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the Apostrophe Podcast Network. Hello, I'm Jess Milton, and this is Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe. Welcome back to the world of the Vinyl Cafe. We are so happy to be back with you for another season of the podcast. We will be with you all the way to Christmas because, of course, we have to celebrate Christmas at the Vinyl Cafe. So settle in and set your reminder alarms for Friday mornings. And before we go any further, I want to welcome those of you who are new to the pod. If you don't know me, I am the longtime producer of the Vinyl Cafe, a radio show hosted by my friend, the late, great Stuart McLean. On this podcast, we're playing Stuart's stories about

the fictional world of Dave, his wife Morley, and their kids Sam and Stephanie. And I'll be sharing some of my Vinyl Cafe stories too. Stories about what it's like to live life out on the road on a tour bus. Stories about process and writing and storytelling. And stories about Stuart. So, yeah, it's good to be back. and stories about Stuart. So yeah, it's good to be back. Over the summer, in between mountain biking and frog catching and afternoon swims and endless puzzles, oh my god, I'm puzzled out. If I don't see another puzzle for as long as I live, I would be absolutely fine with that. In between all

of that, I was thinking about all the stories we've heard on this podcast so far, and I realized with horror that there's hardly been any Mary Turlington stories. I mean, she's popped up here and there, but only in passing. Today, we are going to right that wrong. Today on the podcast, two barn burners about Mary being, well, Mary, buckle up. It's going to be a ride. We're going to start with this one. This is Mary Turlington has lice. Best time to share bad news is almost always never. Best thing to do when you're sitting on something you'd rather sit on for the rest of your life is almost always to sit a little longer. It's the way it feels anyway. There are all sorts of things that could happen if you do.

A thing could go away on its own. Things do that from time to time. The impulse to share could depart away on its own. Things do that from time to time. The impulse to share could depart of its own accord. Or the person you should be sharing with could depart themselves. And you could quietly bury whatever it was and carry on as if nothing ever happened. The Problem was, Morley had made a promise. It was now or never. If this ever happens again, you'll tell me, right?

Said Dave. I promise, said Morley. Though that was what? That was a decade ago, at least. They were in the kitchen it was a saturday night five o'clock good lord it was almost 5 30 the clock as they say was ticking burt and mary turlington were coming to dinner they'd be there within the hour i I have something to tell you, said Morley. There is never a good time for bad news. Dave stopped what he was doing, and he stared at his wife. Morley closed her eyes and threw her head back, And when she said it, she said it in a bit of a rush.

Three little words. Mary has lice. Mary Turlington. Now, I think we should just press the pause button for a moment here. I think I should tell you a few things before we go any further. In the few minutes we have before Bert and poor louse-infested Mary arrive for dinner, I think I should fill in a little of what the big-time Hollywood writers would call the back story. I want you to be able to appreciate the significance of this disclosure,

this uncomfortable moment. Dave and Morley standing there in the kitchen staring at each other intently. They have, you see, a certain history with lice. First time those nasty little creatures crawled into their lives was when stephanie their daughter stephanie and only child at the time was in daycare which means we're talking well we're talking over two decades ago stephanie's maybe three four possibly five years old and dave comes

home from his store on this beautiful autumn afternoon, and there's Morley sitting on the porch with Steph sitting in her lap, and she is combing through her hair. And when Stephanie spots Dave, she waves the popsicle Morley's using to distract her and announces proudly, I have bugs. I'm disgusting. Lice, says Morley. Head lice, not bugs, and it's not disgusting. And then she looks up at Dave, shrugs, and says, okay, it's a little disgusting. Now they'd only been married for a few years. And believe me, Morley handled it differently the next time. But it was too late for handling on that late September afternoon.

The cat was already out of the bag. The shock of it, his wife picking through his daughter's hair, the shouted greeting, it overwhelmed Dave. He was already itchy. Don't panic, he said. Of course, no one was close to panic except him. He wasn't only panicked, he was impossible. He was frantic. He was irrational. I am not irrational, said Dave. He certainly looked irrational. This is an hour or so later. He's sitting at the kitchen table wearing one of Morley's shower caps.

We're talking about parasites, he said. Not only in our house, but on our daughter. Morley sat him down after supper and ran him through everything the nurse had run by her. They are not dangerous. They don't spread disease. They prefer clean hair. They can't get a grip on dirty hair. They're actually a sign of cleanliness. Dave stared at her blankly. Are you trying to say that we're happy they dropped by? Now all that was long ago and far away. Over a decade passed before they returned. The lice, I mean. Sam was in grade two. Who got it first? Which one of them was patient zero that time well that's anyone's guess because this time the whole family was infested this is disgusting said Stephanie who at 17

was denying ever having had lice herself they were at the kitchen table Stephanie Sam and Morley and Morley was laying down the law this is this going to be our little secret, she was saying. We're not telling Dad. Why? Well, because you know your father worries, and I just don't want to worry your father. By then, there were services who came to your house to deal with these situations, and Morley had called one. It was a Saturday morning, Dave was at work,

and the lady from the service came and shampooed them with a chemical shampoo, and then she went through their heads one by one. Your nitpicking, said Morley to the woman. Lady gave Morley a written guarantee. Your nit free, she said, and if they come back, we'll come back. Of course, that left Morley to deal with Dave.

She had to be sure he was knit free, too. Well, it's unlikely he's infected, said the lady. They don't favor men. But Morley had to be sure, and screening Dave without his knowledge was not going to be as easy as it sounds. It was not her finest moment. She got the sleeping pills from her mother. She drugged him that night at supper. In the mashed potatoes, if you must know.

She doubled the dosage, to be sure. And yes, it was wrong. And she'd agree with that if she was here. But before you judge, you weren't there for round one. You try being married today. So they were on the couch watching the television news, but Morley was watching him more than the television. He started to list ever so slowly, and then he wilted like an asparagus. Before long, he was staring at his shoes rather than the television,

and he didn't seem to have noticed the difference. It actually scared her a little. Dave, she said, what are we watching? He pulled himself up, not fully erect, just to a 45-degree angle, and he stared at her from under his heavy eyes like an afternoon drunk in some seedy tavern. And then carefully and deliberately he said, we are watching exactly what we were watching a minute ago. And he beamed at her, clearly proud of his answer. Morley said, let's go to bed. When they got upstairs, she propped him up against the headboard and started in on him.

Of course, he was infested, too. Don't worry, you won't get any closer than this. I owe silver, muttered Morley, who was hovering over him with a flashlight in her mouth. She wasn't strong enough to wrestle him into the shower and use the shampoo, and she wouldn't have risked it anyway. The lady from the company had said she had heard people had some success with mayonnaise. Morley slopped a complete jar of mayonnaise through his hair,

low-fat, and covered the gooey mess with one of her mother's old bathing caps. The idea was she would smother the little buggers overnight. She set her alarm for 6 a.m. and collapsed beside him. Her plan was to clean him up before he came to. She hadn't counted on the dog in her plan. Who had a thing for mayonnaise. Dave woke up in the depths of the night with Arthur's tongue in his ear.

Well, woke up is overstating it. He shifted from unconsciousness to some drug-addled, semi-conscious stupor. And it was in this state that he stumbled from his bed into the bathroom. And it was while he was standing there in the utter darkness that he ran his hand through what he expected was his hair. And his heart stopped. All his hair had fallen out.

He staggered over to the mirror and peered at himself. And there in the dim twilight of not yet morning, he saw that not only had he gone bald, his scalp had turned a brief moment of lucidity. And he put it all together. It was obvious what had happened. There'd be a nuclear disaster. It was clear to him what he had to do.

He had to get his family away from the radioactive dust that had obviously settled on their house. He stumbled down the hall, bellowing, Everyone up! Everyone down to the basement! Morley got to him before the kids woke up. They ran into each other in the hall. She said, there hasn't been a disaster. But what happened to my hair, said Dave? You have cancer, said Dave, that's a relief. And then he said, am I going to be okay?

Yes, said Marley, but you need to get some more sleep. She waited until he was asleep again, and then she worked the cap off, and then she called Arthur to deal with the mayonnaise. Dave slept through it all. He didn't come downstairs until 10 o'clock the next morning. I had the oddest dream, he said. And then he said, what's for breakfast? I have this incredible craving for tuna salad. She had to tell him what she had done, what had happened, and hence the promise. If lice ever returned to their life, she'd tell him right away.

So here we are then, we're back in the kitchen, back at a place they never should have returned to, ever. The two of them staring at each other intently. Dave said, Mary has lice. Morley nodded, from her sister's children, I think. And then she said, I thought you might find it amusing. I mean, of all the people in the world. And she and Bert are going to be here, said Dave, looking at the kitchen clock in less than an hour. Morley could see the fear settling on him, watched as he went slowly bug-eyed and twitchy,

watched as he began to scratch. And she said two words. She said, don't panic. and she said two words. She said, don't panic. And then she sat him down and she said, listen, Mary, she said, has been beside herself for a week. She had had professionals in to treat the entire family. She had spent a fortune steam cleaning the furniture and spraying the beds. She had washed everything there was to wash and thrown out things she couldn't. She had barely left the house for days. Morley hadn't invited Mary to dinner. She had coaxed her. Mary was coming, and Morley expected Dave to step up. Dave murmured a weak acknowledgment and disappeared.

It appeared as if he had accepted the situation. He hadn't, of course. What he had accepted was that he had half an hour to figure out how he was going to evade Mary without attracting attention. Half hour to figure out what he could get away with. Would anyone notice if he put a washable kitchen chair in the living room? Should he put something in his hair? Vaseline? Mayonnaise?

Was there time to spray the sofa with tea tree oil? The doorbell rang at exactly 6.30. Morley said, you get it. Dave headed to the door. On the way to the door, he slipped into the bathroom. When he was there, he pulled one of Morley's shower caps out of his pocket, tugged it down over his hair and quickly slipped on a ball cap, stared at himself in the bathroom mirror.

There were bits of the shower cap showing. Worked on that for a while, but the problem was when he tucked in one bit, another bit poked out. He got it best as he could, and then he headed for the door. The first thing he was struck by was Mary's hair. She had been oiling it and blow-drying it and heating it with a straightening iron all week long. It looked dry and straw-like, yet greasy, too. She had big bags under her eyes.

Her arms were covered in scratches. And in that moment, Dave realized something. This all happened in a flash, mind you. This part at the door. It all happened before anyone had a chance to say anything. In that instant when he opened the door and they looked at each other, Dave looked at Mary and he recognized himself. And in that moment, that brief smashing second,

Dave understood Mary more than he had ever understood anyone in his life. And his heart went out to her in a rush. He actually felt it happen. Come in, come in, he said. And as he said it, he stepped back slightly and behind the open door. And while he was momentarily out of sight, he reached up and he pulled off the ball hat and shower cap and he stuffed them both in his back pocket. And then he closed the door behind Mary and then he leaned over and he hugged her and said, Morley's in the kitchen. We're so glad you could come over.

As they walked down the hall, he left his hand resting on her back. And just before they got to the kitchen, Dave felt Mary do something that she doesn't often do. He felt Mary relax. Felt it first and then saw her shoulders loosen and drop. Moment later, she sighed and stopped, and she turned towards him, and she said quietly, we almost didn't. Come, I mean. Morally convinced me.

You're good friends, you know. It's not often that we are our best selves. our best selves. We are too often too preoccupied, too afraid, too busy, or too taken up with whatever it is that's taken us up to something anyway to allow ourselves to be our best self. Every once in a while, however, we step up to the plate and we hit the ball out of the park. And every once in a while, if we are very lucky, when we connect, we have the sweet, lovely knowledge of what we've done. And we get to stand there at home plate and watch the ball sail over the stands and disappear into the steamy night. This was one of those rare moments.

Dave had not only done good, he knew he had. Of course, hitting the ball over the stands is always sweeter when there's someone in the stands to see it. When Dave and Mary walked into the kitchen, Morley was standing by the sink. Look who's here, said Dave, his arm still resting on Mary's shoulder.

The look on Morley's face, the smile. Well, that is all he has ever wanted from her. Looks like that. It's all he's ever needed applause thank you applause that's the story we call Mary Turlington Has Lice

we recorded that one in Brandon, Manitoba back in 2014 could you hear the joy in Stuart's voice in that recording? I could. I am not sure he ever had as much fun telling a story as he did that one. He absolutely loved the scene with Morley and the sleeping pills and the mayonnaise. And I think I know why. He was kind of pushing the boundaries a little bit, don't you think? He was like sort of right on the edge of what was okay and what wasn't. Truthfully, that's more what he was like in real life. That's the kind of thing he did when he was telling a story to me or to Meg

or one of his friends. In real life, off the stage, Stuart was very funny, but his humor had a bit more of an edge to it. I won't call it dark. It was definitely not dark. There was nothing dark about Stuart. He was full of light. But off the page and off the stage, his humor pushed the boundaries more than it did on the Vinyl Cafe. It was more surprising. It was like, he'd say the sort of thing that you'd like, whoo, at. It was, he was very, very funny, but slightly different, a slightly different kind of funny than he was on the radio. So I love that story because it just feels very him to me, the Stuart that I knew and was friends with. There are a few stories where that humor shines through. We played one last season, Field Trip. There's a sidecar story in that

episode about Chopsy, the terrifying baker that is also very Stuart. If you missed that episode, don't worry, you can still hear it yet. This is a good time to remind you actually that the podcasts, you don't have to listen to them on Fridays. So they show up on Friday mornings in your podcast feed, but they stay up forever. So if you can go back, if you miss some, you can listen to last week's or the week before. There's, gosh, I guess there's about 20, around 20 of them up there now. So if you missed the one about Chopsy, it's in an episode that's called Is Everybody Here? So you can go and listen to that one after this one, and you'll see what I mean. All right, we're going to take a short break now, but we'll be back in a couple of minutes

with another story about Dave and Mary Turlington. And this one is about the time that Dave gets a little, how should I say this, paddle happy. Stick around, you do not want to miss this one. Welcome back. Time for our second story now. This is a story we recorded in Barrie, Ontario. I love the beginning of this story. Stuart sets it up so beautifully. You know, a lot of Stuart's stories started with beautiful lyrical writing and shame on me. I was often the one to cut that stuff for time for the radio or even just because on stage it didn't always feel right. Stuart's writing process was part of this. He never wrote to time. He never really wrote with the end game in mind. That's one of the reasons he was so good. He just wrote well and discovered and explored along the way. He'd always start out with a plan.

He and Meg Masters, his long-suffering story editor, would come up with an outline. The stories would start with an idea, and then he and Meg would have a phone call where they'd explore that idea and come up with a narrative arc. But Stuart wouldn't always stick to that arc. In fact, most of the time, it changed in the writing because he allowed himself to explore. It's like he was on a path in the woods. He had a general sense of where the path would take him. He had, after all, set off at the trailhead. But he didn't always stay on the path.

He almost always took that fork in the road to see where it led. Sometimes it led back to his path, the original one. Sometimes he'd get lost in the woods and have to retrace his steps to find his way back. But sometimes, often, the new path would lead somewhere else completely. Somewhere he didn't know about before he started. Somewhere somewhere magical, but impossibly long. Stuart's first drafts would usually be double the word count of what we needed for the radio show. They were way too long. That was his process, write long and then hack back until we were left with only the essentials. It's a good strategy because when you're cutting things that you love, you know that whatever is left over is pure gold. So he'd write long. The first draft would be ridiculously

long. And then he and Meg would edit and he'd rewrite over and over and over again. There would be like five or 10 drafts, sometimes more before we considered it ready for the stage. And then once he started performing it on stage, we'd edit again, because now we had a new editor, the audience. And you guys, the audience, you were such a fantastic editor. You taught us what worked and what didn't work. We could feel what was connecting, and more importantly, what wasn't. And the stuff that wasn't connecting, it would go. Stuart's first drafts often contained long, lyrical openings. He loved writing them. He sort of circled his way into the story. I love them too, but like I said, they didn't always work on the stage. Sometimes those openings would be 10 or 12 minutes of material, which is a lot for

an audience to sit through before they enter the story itself. But sometimes they work just fine. This is one of those times. I love this opening. I love how Stewart weaves it in throughout, connecting us to the seasons and letting the seasons show the passage of time. I hope you like it too. This is Defibrillator. So, summer came and summer went. Sashayed through town like a girl in a cotton dress. Langwood, long of leg, and just saucy enough to turn more than one head.

long of leg and just saucy enough to turn more than one head. Slow enough too so everyone who turned caught at least one more glimpse before she disappeared. But September turned to October and the nights turned chilly and the leaves began to turn. Pretty soon all that was left of summer was summer memories. It was the summer that Kenny Wong's restaurant, Wong's Scottish Meat Pies, I've always liked that one too, took a bad turn. The regulars still came, but the new burrito place down the street and the vegan cafe around the block were siphoning off some of the lunchtime traffic. Kenny had to lay off a chef and return to the kitchen himself for the first time in years. It was the summer that Dave's neighborhood nemesis, Mary Turlington,

had her infamous meltdown at the Bistro Womet. It's not clear what transpired in that little cafe. Mary was, safe to assume, wound up as tight as a seven-day clock. The conflagration, which is what the local paper called it, the conflagration had something to do with a please wait to be seated sign and the fact that a lot of waiting but not a lot of seating was going on. But what exactly happened, no one knows for sure. There was a dust-up, not much is certain,

and the restaurant hostess did go on sick leave. and the restaurant hostess did go on sick leave. And Mary did end up at the family doctor. It was the doctor who delivered the ultimatum, either psychotherapy or meditation. Choose one. You have to chill out were his exact words. You have to be kidding, said Mary.

Surely there's a chemical option? If this was Vancouver, there'd be a chemical option. Doctor didn't bat an eye. There is lockup, he said. Okay, okay, I'll meditate, said Mary. but I will not chant or go to an asram. Ash, said the doctor. Ashram. They gave her the name of a private meditation teacher, and she had her first class, Labor Day weekend.

She had to sit for half hour a day doing nothing. She found it insufferable, but she persevered. Finally, and surely most unsettlingly, it was a summer that Jim Schofield had his heart attack. The episode, said Jim. It was an episode, except it was more than an episode. Jim went to the emergency room at three in the morning with all the classic symptoms. Indigestion, a pain that started in his chest and radiated down his arm and up into his jaw, and a general sense of doom. Well, I always have a general sense of doom, said Jim. Wasn't a serious attack. I didn't lose any heart function, said Dave. I guess, said Jim. Anyway, summer is done and dusted. The leaves are dying, but Jim is fine.

He had bypass and went through rehab, stopped smoking, started exercising, a walking program. Whatever works, said Dave. The idea of losing Jim was intolerable. It's not clear who thought up the defibrillator. You're joking, said Jim. Well, not for you, said Dave. It's for everyone. It's for the neighborhood.

This is a high-risk neighborhood. Lots of men, said Dave. It's for everyone. It's for the neighborhood. This is a high-risk neighborhood. Lots of men, over 50. The idea was they'd all chip in and then store it somewhere central. If they could get 10 families, it'd be less than $200 each. Well, in the end, there were 12 families who chipped in, and so there was money left over, and they used the extra money to hire a trainer, and they organized a barbecue, and they sat around eating burgers and fries and studying CPR.

You know it's true. So August came, and August went. September, too. And the pretty girl in the summer dress disappeared down the street and into the crowd. Jim was fine and Kenny was back in the kitchen. And Mary, who did not enjoy the meditation business one bit, not one little bit, was working away nevertheless, laying there on her bed half hour a day, counting her breaths in and then out,

smiling at her breath as it came in and smiling at it as it went out, trying to ignore all the thoughts that bounced into her mind and the infernal racket of the world around her. And the best place for the defibrillator, the most central, accessible place in the neighborhood, turned out to be, by general consensus, everyone agreed, Dave and Morley's garage. And you don't need me to tell you that that just wasn't a good idea. At the start, everyone treated it, the defibrillator, with great earnestness. But it wasn't long before it became, like everything else in the neighborhood, a source of merriment. The trainer said they should practice, should have drills.

You need to do what he said so you can do it without thinking in case you ever have to do it for real. And so someone drew up a schedule and they gathered in little groups on Saturday afternoons in Dave's garage. little groups on Saturday afternoons in Dave's garage. Dave, Carl Loebier, and Bert Turlington one Saturday, hanging around the way guys do until one of them said, okay, let's do it. Dave said, I'll be victim. And he clutched his chest dramatically, moaned a little, staggered around a bit, and then he lay himself gingerly down on the garage floor.

Bert looked at Carl and said, you go first, I'll time you. Carl nodded, and Bert pulled out his phone. Now, for all intents and purposes, the thing was foolproof. When you attach it to someone, the first thing it does is evaluate their heart rhythm. It has to recognize a life-threatening rhythm before it recommends administering a shock. Let me tell you how it works here. You turn it on, and it gives you step-by-step voice instructions. Remove the patient shirt.

Pull the sticker off the first pad. All you do is follow the instructions. So even if Carl had stuck the pads on Dave's chest, it wouldn't have given him a shock if he was in a healthy rhythm. And for times like this, when they were just practicing, there was safety mode. Go, said Bert. Well, Carl ran across the garage and he popped the little lunchbox-sized machine out of the bracket on the wall and he ran back and he knelt down beside Dave and he flipped it open and he pressed the on button.

Initiating device, said the machine. Remove the patient shirt. They all knew this was just a scenario. They all knew the machine was in safety mode and that Dave lying there on the floor with his eyes closed had not had a heart attack. But they also knew that Carl was kneeling beside a machine that was capable of delivering 200 joules of electricity. So even though they were acting all casual, as the scenario progressed, a certain seriousness settled on him. Carl unbuttoned Dave's shirt. Okay, said Carl, if this was real, I'd rip it open.

Machine said, remove the sticker from the first pad. Carl said, okay, I'm removing the sticker. He wasn't really removing the sticker. He was just pretending pretending because those pads are expensive. The machine said, place the sticker on the patient's chest just below the left armpit. And so it went for the first pad and the second pad and the testing of the heart rate. And Carl's face is all screwed up in concentration now. Carl is biting on his tongue. One minute, said Bert.

One minute thirty. And then the machine said, prepare to shock the patient. Bert said, make sure you're not touching him anywhere. Because if you are touching the patient, you are going to get shocked too. Carl said, clear. And the machine said, shock the patient. Well, Dave clenched his fists.

And he scrunched up his eyes, just in case. And Carl held his breath. Because these things can start to feel real. These things can get intense. Here goes, says Carl and he pressed the red shock button and that's when Bert, who was standing right behind Carl,

leaned over so the paper bag he had blown up was no more than six inches from Carl's ear. Here goes, said Carl. And then Bert pulled his hands apart and he clapped them together and there was a tremendous explosion. Carl lifted right off the ground. It was like Carl was the one who had been shocked. Dave and Bert whooped.

Dave and Bert staggered around the garage, half hysterical, pounding each other on the back, clutching onto the side of the car. half hysterical, pounding each other on the back, clutching onto the side of the car. Took ten minutes for Carl to settle down. For a good ten minutes, Carl was all fluttery and crazy, standing up and sitting down, calling the two of them unspeakable things. I can't believe you did that. I could have had a heart attack.

Bert said, well, we got the defibrillator for that. And that's when Ted Anderson walked up the driveway and Carl got all earnest all of a sudden, said, hey, Ted, I just finished. It's your turn. Let me time you. And there was Bert hiding behind the car, inflating a new paper bag. And so went the autumn.

Bags popping and leaves bursting into orange and red. And then came the smoky afternoons as the reds faded to yellow, the yellows to brown, and then everything to gray. Pretty soon, the defibrillator in Dave's garage was just another summer memory. Not forgotten, but no longer the first thing you thought about on a Saturday morning. No longer a preoccupation. Except for Dave, of course. I mean, come on, it was in his garage. He didn't walk by

it morning and night. And you stare at something like that day in and day out. It's only natural that you're going to start obsessing about what it would be like to use in real life. to use in real life. Be godlike. The power to give life. In emergency rooms, the ER doctors call it riding the lightning. It has baby pads, said Dave to his pal Kenny one day at lunch.

Dave was sitting at the back counter at Kenny's Cafe. He was waving his hand over a steaming plate of dumplings. It still delivers a shock, he said, but a kid-appropriate amount. Even the adult pads wouldn't kill you if you were shocked. By accident, I mean. Get your attention. Knock you around a bit. But it wouldn't kill you. Would stop your attention. Knock you around a bit. But it wouldn't kill you. Would stop your heart. But your heart would start again.

And those were the adult pads. What harm could the infant pads do? No way, said Kenny. Come on, said Dave. Take off your shirt for science. He just wanted to try them so badly. How about your dog, said Dave. There is just so much wrong with that, said Kenny.

They settled on a 12-pound roast. A rump roast. They got out of Kenny's cooler. They took it over to Dave's house, took it out to the garage, shut the garage doors, duct taped the roast to the pads so they wouldn't have to hold on to it. And they let her rip. And what happened was a lot of nothing. Sort of disappointing, said Dave. He was hoping it would bounce around or something.

He was remembering Carl. The roast didn't even quiver. Nothing. Until the next morning, when the phone rang earlier than you would expect. Get over here, said Kenny. Well, when he got over there, Kenny served him the tenderest piece of beef he had ever tried. tenderest piece of beef he had ever tried. Next night, they got another roast.

Tried out the adult pass. They only seemed to toughen the meat up. Was it possible they had stumbled on the sweet spot on the first try? Was it beginner's luck, said Kenny? Well, they set off to find out. They took a big bag of roasts over to Dave's garage, and they tried them on pretty much all the possible settings. They spent hours out there in the garage working on this.

What are you doing out there, said Morley. Oh, nothing, said Dave. We're not doing anything. But they were doing something. Kenny was serving twice as much beef and broccoli as he'd ever sold. And then the bone white moon of winter slipped into the sky. And the stars doubled and moved further away, or seemed to. The sky deepened is what happened. And the nights were long and cold. Until one morning, out of nowhere, someone said, I woke early for no reason.

And someone else said, me too. The crows were back. Pretty soon, the robins were back too. That was April. Then came May, May, the lusty month of May. Kenny was selling so much beef, he opened a backyard patio. Stayed open for dinner for the first time ever. Jim, who had been walking in malls since November, started walking outside again.

And Mary Turlington moved her daily meditation from her bedroom to the back garden. And the sorry problem with that is that when you're standing on Dave's back porch. You can see clearly over the back fence. Into the Turlington's yard. And the problem with that is. What you'd see. Is Mary splayed out on the ground. Ominously still.

We're getting to the part of the story you've been waiting for right here. And you can understand that it might be easy to jump to the wrong conclusion, especially if there happens to be a defibrillator in your garage. Cheer up. Hello? called Dave. A little tentatively. Because when disaster comes calling, no matter how prepared you might be, no matter how much you think you are courting it, disaster is never a welcome thing.

Hey, call Dave again. He's walking toward the fence now thinking to himself, Mary must be asleep. But no matter how many times he called, Mary didn't wake up. Mary didn't move. So now we have Dave running for his garage. We're going to take a little break here for a moment

and consider all this from Mary's point of view. Mary had been working hard at her meditation all winter. Just the week before, teacher had told her she was doing very well. Didn't feel like that to Mary. Okay, once or twice she had lost track of things and entered some joyful state of, well, she wouldn't have used the word out loud. Not to you or not to me either, but to herself and the teacher. It was the only word she could come up with that described it. A state of bliss, she said. Of course, as soon as she had noticed it, as soon as she had become aware of it,

it went away, popped just like a soap bubble. She had tried to get it back, but she couldn't. Teacher said, do not try. Teacher said, to hold on, we must let go. Just breathe. Just breathe in and breathe out.

Just notice each breath. Just notice what is. I notice everything, said Mary. That's the problem. It is the problem, said teacher. But it's also the solution. Just notice and let go. Notice and let go. Just notice and let go. Notice and let go. And that is when Mary heard the latch of her garden door open and closed.

The latch on the door opened and closed, and she thought Bert must be home early. He said he would. Last fall, she would have opened her eyes and said something. Sat up, maybe snapped at birth. But she had progressed. She noticed the gate and she let the gate go. Breathe in and breathe out. Mary?

Mary didn't move. Not a muscle. Teacher had warned her there would be a moment like this. Every moment is a learning moment, said teacher. Breathe in and breathe out. Mary? She was not going to succumb. Now there is no doubt a long list of things that even the most experienced meditator might find difficult to notice and let go. And one of the things at the top of that list would surely be your neighbor's hand landing on the top button of your blouse and ripping. Mary opened her eyes. Mary said, what is going on? Well, Dave had his back to her.

He was fiddling with the machine. Just relax, said Dave. I'm here to help. And he whirled around and he slapped the first pad into place. Mary said, I don't think so. And she began to get up. And the thing is, those wires are not designed to be jostled like that. And if they are, that defibrillator is going to pick up an erratic signal, and the little voice will say, shock the patient.

Mary's husband, Bert, came home about ten minutes later. And when he didn't find Mary inside, he went out into the backyard. Where he found his wife and his neighbor lying next to each other on the grass. With his hair and her clothes in disarray. His wife was moaning. And there was the smell of something burning, as if one of them had just smoked a cigarette. Mary never meditated again. Oh, she tried, but her eyes popped open with every sound, every voice, every

footstep, every distraction was just too distracting because everything she heard was him coming her way. So she went back to her doctor, and he said, okay, okay, and he referred her to a psychiatrist who put her on meds within five minutes. And there was a neighborhood meeting, and everyone there agreed it'd be best if they moved the defibrillator from Dave's garage. For Mary's sake, said Carl, Bert says she's having terrible nightmares.

June turned to July, and July to August. And Kenny's beef sales went back to normal. Not right away, but slowly over the summer. And August turned to September. And as the nights cooled, so did the memories. And what seemed unforgettable just seemed memorable. And what seemed horrifying just seemed funny. Mary hasn't talked to Dave, mind you. Not yet. I'll never talk to him again, she said.

But she said that before. And everything always seems better with the passage of time. And the passage of time is the one sure thing we can all count on. That was the story we call Defibrillator. We have to take a short break now, but we'll be back in a minute with a sneak peek from next week's episode. So stay with me. That's it for today, but we'll be back here next week with two more Dave and Marley stories, including this one. She had spent longer than usual in the supermarket, aimlessly gliding down the aisles, looking for things she could put in her children's lunch bags.

Something new, something surprising, something they would eat. Just one day, she wanted one of them to come home and say, gee, lunch was good. You hear that just once. You hear that just once and you could die happy. You hear that just once and you could die happy. You can hear the whole story next week on the podcast. In the meantime, if you want to find out more,

you can go to our website, vinylcafe.com, or you can find us on Facebook and Instagram. Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe is part of the Apostrophe Podcast Network. Our recording engineer is my dear friend, Greg Duclute. Theme music is by Danny Michelle. The show is produced by Louise Curtis and me, Jess Milton. Let's meet again next week. Until then, so long for now.