Don't Blame Me! - BAIW: Snacks For Mom's Co-worker

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

But Am I Wrong: Melisa:  All football players should be wearing the Guardian cap Meghan: It’s crazy to admit to crimes in a published novel But Are You Wrong: Mom is urging you to date an older man Considering a friendship with your ex But Are They Wrong: Melisa: Michael Scaletta Teates Meghan: Kansas City Chiefs Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/dontblameme Buy Our Merch https://crowdmade.com/collections/sister-sign Listen to Melisa’s New Show https://apps.apple.com/in/app/pocket-fm-audio-series/id1538433480?mt=8 Call In for DBM - 310-694-0976 (3 minutes or less) Write In for DBM - [e-mail] (300 words or less) Write in for BAIW - [e-mail] DBM Submission Form BAIW Submission Form Follow Us! instagram.com/meghanandmelisa @meghanrienks instagram.com/meghanrienks https://twitter.com/meghanrienks @sheisnotmelissa instagram.com/sheisnotmelissa instagram.com/diamondmprint.productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

hello welcome to a brand new episode of but am i wrong and the crowd goes wild ah welcome welcome so happy to have you back here for us to um to talk at you be in your ears listen to us entertain you on your drive while you're cleaning your home while you're you know performing witchcraft anyone has any etsy witches that you love send me the link i just like i don't know what i want the etsy witch to do but like i'm i'm hearing they're powerful witches witches and hoes they were almost at witchy season and for the first time i'm gonna watch practical magic well the second one's coming out soon is it coming out this year no idea let's see i feel

like if it were to come out this would be the time i think it'd be a little early because didn't they just release like photos of them on set i don't remember i feel like they've been talking about it for years yeah it won't be till 2026 yeah but this exact day oh no way september 18 september 18 which is the day we're recording that's so funny i love that what can i say i'm a little psychic i need to figure out how to tap into those witchy abilities because i have them but like i guess right now i'll use them for the podcast yeah tap in tap tap tap in what an interesting cast of course got Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman and Stalker Channing but we've also got Joey King okay Macy Williams Lee Pace that's feeling a little random

where is it based is Macy American is Lee Pace actually I don't know the you know I don't know the nationality of all these any of these men lee pace in a lineup no idea i don't know where it takes oh pressable photography began in england oh okay practical magic goes across the pond we're doing some spells anyways this is a podcast not about magic um except sometimes we are magically predicting people that we hate for no reason and then they do something that turns out There's a reason that we hate them. And then we get to talk about on the podcast. We can talk about the bad vibes that we're sensing,

you know, use those skills, put them to use. And we have three different segments. We'll explain each one before we get into it. But what you need to know is we want you to participate. You can participate by submitting things for the different segments. But really the best way to participate is to vote on who you think was wrong

in each part of the episode that we talked about. And to do that, you can head on over to our Instagram. We post stories there and we add them to a highlight and their polls. So you get to vote. this is who i think was wrong i don't think they were wrong and then write in why you voted the way you did and we read all those results on our see you next tuesday episodes i am about to go on a tangent it has nothing to do with this but what i it reminded me because stalker channing is in

this movie in case you don't know that's riz from greece um oh my god the way that when you drop the name stalker shanning so casually i should have been like who is that and then i should have been like megan of course everything agrees i remember that will smith's movie role he was still very new to acting if you watch the first episodes of fresh prince he memorized everybody's lines and would be mouthing them on the side i think that's so cute and he didn't know how to turn off what he was feeling in the movie and so in the movie he falls in love with her character and in real life he also fell in love with her he had a wife though yeah yeah he was very young but who was his i mean she never his first wife that his first son's wife i don't know that i knew that yeah um she's

he was so young then when they got married yeah wow no i don't think i knew that he was married before i think i just assumed because he was so fucking young yeah that he i mean nothing ever happened between them but he just felt this very strong feeling of love towards her he's also quite a quite a great deal older than him stalker channing is 81 years old yeah and he and i think that was part of the movie too yeah anyways this is brand new information i think i like that tangent thank you that's a good tangent to have ah anyway yeah let's get into but am i wrong so uh but am i wrong is our first segment this is where we will pitch a hot take or a rant to one another or something that we want to know if we've

anything wrong about? All right. Mine is, it's football season and whether you're a player, a coach, a parent, or a friend, we're all invested in this sport. We love the strategy, the athleticism, the competition, but what we should all be more invested in is the safety of the players on the field. I'm here today to talk about why all football players at every level from children to professionals should be wearing helmets with an added layer of protection the guardian cap so let's take a moment to look back at the history of the football helmet the earliest forms of the headgear in the late 19th century were nothing more than a soft leather cap they were designed to protect a player's ears and prevent cuts and abrasions not to absorb the

brutal force of a collision. Helmets weren't even mandatory in the NFL into the 1940s, and it was a long road from those flimsy leather head harnesses to the hard shell helmets we know today. The real revolution came in the 1950s when the introduction of the plastic helmet and the addition of a face mask. This was a monumental leap forward in preventing skull fractures and facial injuries. Then through the 60s and 70s, padding was added to absorb more impact, and in 1973, the Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment, or NOCSAE, was established to create and enforce safety standards from helmets. Each innovation over decades has been a step forward, but the fundamental design of the hardshell helmet has remained largely unchanged since the 1960s. we've come a long way from the leatherheads but the game has also evolved becoming faster and more impactful the need for a new level of protection is clear that's where the guardian

cap comes in in 2010 aaron and lee hansen of the hansen group saw a gap in the helmet technology they knew that physics dictates that an outer softer material could significantly reduce the initial force of an impact. It's the same principle behind a NASCAR driver and the soft wall technology on race car tracks or the bumpers and airbags in our cars. The Guardian Cap is that soft shell barrier for an athlete's head. It's a layer of padded energy absorbing material that attaches directly to the outside of the hard shell of the helmet. The idea was to provide a simple, affordable solution that could easily be adopted without fundamentally changing the look and sound of the game. Initially, it was designed for practices where players endured a high volume

of repetitive blows. The Guardian Cap XT and 2.0 models are built to reduce the impact of those daily hits, and the research backs up its effectiveness. Studies from leading institutes like Rutgers, Virginia Tech, BioCorp, and Stanford have all demonstrated that the Cap reduces impact. The Guardian Cap NXT, the NFL version, has been shown to reduce a metric called harm or head acceleration response metric by as much as 40 percent. And on the field data is even more compelling. The NFL has been at the forefront of this movement, has collected data showing that the Guardian Cap is highly effective. In 2024, the NFL announced that it had recorded its lowest number of concussions since tracking began in 2015, marking a 17% decrease from the previous

season. This is a direct result of the league's progressive adoption of the guardian cap, which has been a mandate for more and more positions during practices each year. This past season, the league even permitted players to wear the caps during games and saw them on the field for the first time in a regular season. I want to emphasize that while concussions are a major concern, the threat of football extends beyond a single diagnosed head injury. We are now acutely aware of the chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE, a debilitating brain disease linked to repeated subconcussive blows, the kind of hits that happen on every single play in every single practice and every game.

The fact that the guardian cap reduces the severity of these routine daily impacts is what makes it such a game changer. It's not just about preventing a single violent concussion, but about mitigating the cumulative effect of thousands of blows over a player's career. You may have heard about the situation at Alhambra High School in Martinez, California,

where parents, after seeing two players suffer concussions, decided to take matters in their own hands and organize a GoFundMe to buy guardian caps for their teams. It's an incredible story of a community coming together for player safety, but it highlights a critical point. This equipment shouldn't be a luxury. It should be the standard. We need to do everything we can to protect our players, especially our youth whose brains are still developing. The science behind the guardian cap is sound. The on the field data from the nfl is promising and the need for this kind of protection has been more urgent whether it's a professional training camp or high school field every player regardless of age

deserves the best possible protection the hard shell helmet was a vital first step but the guardian cap is the next necessary evolution it's time we made this simple effective piece of equipment a mandatory part of the game hell yeah i wholeheartedly agree and i have a very hot take about it what i think if one of the major major uh side effects of cte wasn't abusing and harming women if it was like not interpersonal violence and all of that kind of stuff it was something that was more uh like outward on the the violence aspect of it i think people would i think like the nfl would care more because it takes it's by the time that they're out that it's like taking full effect of this and i'm like i think if you knew that your player was like the like the level of

like aggression and those kinds of changes because it can start as early as like middle school and high school and then by the time you're in the nfl like you already are so predisposed to having cta but like your career is usually done by the time it like takes full effect and so then it's like well you're not our problem anymore and i'm like are you yeah i i i agree with what you're saying But I also think it's because the majority of the players are black and brown and they just don't care at all. And it's just like it's so fucking scary to like watch people be used for their bodies and then like have that like already like dealing with like arthritis and just like the joint mobility and all of these kinds of things or even just like missing out on a huge like aspect of your child life or like losing out on your own childhood because you've done this. like it takes so much from you that like no amount of money can compensate you for and then this other aspect of it that like it's just strong it like is your brain like it's your literal

fucking brain they're also very inexpensive i looked them up um because i was like actually i should be getting these for my nephews too they're like 67 dollars yes and i think like the like solution but one of the solutions to it is like put it in madden put it in video games have it be like that because like there's this like weird fucking macho sense that like i have to say if i was dating a football player and they said that like no i'm not gonna wear the guardian cap i'd be like you know then you don't care about me you don't care about our future you don't care about our kids like this is like it is cause and effect like it's just it's not an avoidable thing it's not like again by the time the amount of concussions you've had in high school football

already exponential yeah and so it's like i i'm always like anytime we're watching a game and i see someone wearing a guardian cap i'm like rooting for that person love that like that and i wish more people would and i think like there's this idea that like it looks fucking stupid or whatever and they're worried about these like middle school fucking fans who are gonna make fun of them put it in video games normalize the look of it and then i think they will fucking wear it yeah because the same way that seat belts were made fun of when they first came in the way that people were making fun of masks it just has to be normalized i mean initially they were just wearing a piece of leather on their head and you know i think those look stupid they look very

stupid so i yeah they're wearing these like tight little pants like there's just this idea that like well that's not gonna look macho and i'm like you're tackling each other and grabbing each other's butts like put on the extra hat like come on and yeah i just i think that there's so many ways that this could be done and it just doesn't seem like the league in itself even really fucking cares yeah i mean they're putting research behind it i think just because it started to be a thing but the fact that they haven't mandated it is a problem well there's like there have been discourse specifically about tua who has had so many concussions that there are players who are veteran players who have known him forever who like aren't hitting him like they're like actively

changing their game because they're worried about him and his health and then there are younger players who are trying to make their mark who are going out of their way to hit him extra hard because they know it's going to get written up about they know that they're going to get like have a moment and it's like this is like so you now have this other aspect of playing like this is just like not okay it's not safe for anybody and like you're going to have more of the guys and the veterans who have known him and have grown up with him more of them are going to leave and you're now gonna have more people who are wanting to make their moment by hitting him as hard as they fucking can like that's so scary and like we've had like tragedies and like really scary

health moments happen like at broadcasted games and like that is not something that people like forget and like are like oh just par for the course like it's getting scarier and scarier and scarier and i'm like at what point does like what has to happen for this to actually fucking change oh well we're gonna take a break when we get back we'll get into megan's we are back it is time for mine and i want you to prepare because this is fucking insane like it's insane i'm not even going to be able to do go through all of this so i'm going to shout out the link that you can do to like read even more about this but um my hot take is i personally think it's kind of crazy to admit to crimes in a published novel and i think if you're going to

publish the crimes that you have done that you have gotten away with i think the search of limitations we need to we didn't widen that a little bit this applies to elizabeth gilbert who most people would probably know her if they know her writing she wrote eat pray love which i've never seen to me it is one of those movies about like older white women that the older white women in my town loved and then i said that's not going to be like doesn't not really for me and i don't know anything about it i watched it i'd say maybe like three years ago and i hated every moment of it except for like julia roberts i love her but i just i didn't understand why it was getting so much praise that it did do you remember the book slash movie wild that was

made so that was like and i watched the movie that was like the same level of obsession that the the white women older white women that i grew up with it was like these two things where they were like oh my god i see me in this i go you see yourself in this you're gonna have to go try and i was like this is solutional i can't i can't i can't but i liked wild more than oh i'm sure it's just that this the the fan base of this turned me away from this because everyone's like i see myself and i go that's you're not doing that that's not what you're doing at all if you want to go do that hop in the woods but that's not what's happening yeah so um but someone messaged me and they're like i can't believe that this is she wrote coyote ugly and i said hold the

fuck up she didn't write the screenplay of coyote ugly she wrote like a story that was adapted for that but like as somebody who watched coyote ugly for the first time when i was maybe seven years old it has been one of my favorite movies forever like i love coyote ugly just as retire banks's acting career like i was i was like you're kidding me like i because i was like this woman's this lady's wild i never have to give anything i was like thank god she didn't write coyote ugly but My God, what a life this woman has had. So she just released her new book. And in it, she, as a quick little recap,

she admits to enabling her girlfriend Raya's drug relapse, abandoning her on her deathbed, as well as plotting her murder. Yeah, you heard me right. You heard me right. So there is a great Reddit summary post that this person did. So I'm going to send you the link

so we can put it in the show notes because I'm not going to be able to get through all of the summary of this. Like that's how bad it is. But the memoir is called All the Way to the River and it just got released this week. So it's really fucked up. Trigger warning for truly everything.

And here's just some of this. So they had been best friends, Elizabeth and Raya had been best friends since 2000 before she even wrote Eat, Pray, Love. And Raya was a former cocaine and heroin addict and Elizabeth had gifted Raya a house in 2013. to allow raya to write a memoir about her addiction and recovery and then when raya was diagnosed with pancreatic and liver and pancreatic and liver cancer in 2016 given six

months to live elizabeth immediately broke up with her husband who is the man that she met at the end of eat pray love and uh who she wrote another book about like committed about and then she confessed her love to raya and then take in mind elizabeth did not include details of the divorce because she wanted to respect his privacy raya no longer with us so that privacy fuck it apparently um she promised they like became a couple they had a ceremony she promised not to leave rye aside throughout all of cancer saying all the way to the river all the way to the river and that's what the title of the book is so after her cancer diagnosis elizabeth enabled her relapse back into drug addiction used alcohol weed xanax ambient mushrooms and mdma with her um she watched

as she abused prescription painkillers gave her money to knowingly gave her money to start buying cocaine again also personally bought her thousands of dollars of cocaine from local drug dealers registered with the city as a drug user to get needles for raya uh tied off her limbs and held flashlights up to help her shoot up in the midst of all of this she started plotting her murder collecting the needed medications and fentanyl patches and it was very clear in the book that this was in fact a murder attempt and was not compassionate euthanasia raya did not want to die that was not what she wanted um she said this is the planned murder i'm the nice lady who wrote eat pray love and i came very close to premeditatedly and cold-bloodedly murdering my partner because

she had taken her affection away from me and because i was extremely tired and she only stopped plotting the murder when raya started figuring out what she was doing so after that she sat right down and told her that she thought raya had lost her soul and integrity and that raya was degrading elizabeth's soul and elizabeth had accepted raya's death and elizabeth felt she had done all she could and now she wasn't going to stick around for what raya had quote-unquote gotten herself into so then kicked her out of their shared home. So Raya is now homeless, went no contact. Raya had nowhere to go. And now she was homeless, addicted to drugs. And the drugs that Elizabeth was quite literally administering for her. And she was then forced to move several states away with one of her

other exes who found out about this and agreed to take her in. And very quickly, that ex of Raya's got her sober back under a medication plan for this and locked up the other meds, didn't give her any drugs and once raya's ex got her sober elizabeth knowing that she had now gotten sober re-established contact and visited raya at her ex's home until raya died just a couple weeks later so now it's about seven years after her death and elizabeth claims to achieve this like high level of peace through a 12-step program for sex and love addiction and says that uh raya's sister has objected like vehemently to the memoir saying that it's exploitative and that she really didn't want like her sister's death to be monetized like this but elizabeth claims that she got permission

to write this memoir several years after raya's death when raya's dead spirit visited from beyond the grave to communicate with elizabeth and elizabeth's own mind and this is what elizabeth said of this saying that she could hear raya's spirit in her mind telling her telling her that raya's kind digs about being dead and that elizabeth should write all the gory details in a public book because riot's riot spirit has no use for dignity since she's dead and also she said that uh riot spirit called elizabeth beautiful three times made cancer jokes and predicted that elizabeth was going to become enlightened and then her ultimate view on all this is riot is my most beautiful story and i want to add another note to this because i will say

someone sent me a fucking dm that i was like and i responded being like did you misread this was basically being like you know she's a wonderful writer and like i think people are being really harsh i haven't read the book people are being really harsh with these reviews but like you know it was known that like we shouldn't like try and glamorize people on their deathbed like sometimes people are just people and like she had a known history of drug abuse like are you not understanding that that's not what this is like at all and i think a lot of people are like okay well yeah the plotting the murder part's bad but like you know some people just want to have like a a fuck it mentality of like you've got six months to live and you're just gonna go have whatever

you want any of the vices any of the things you're addicted to and like that is a thing that happens to a lot of people that is like not the case here so um this is like a someone this was written about in the guardian from an article from dina nayari from september the 11th and it's All the Way to the River, Elizabeth Gilbert review, excruciating to read. So that's from this. But in this, she quotes, when Raya divorces, Gilbert offers her an isolated house away from her sobriety group. When Raya itches to drink again, Liz enables it.

Once Raya is diagnosed and given a six-month prognosis, Liz confesses her love a dangerous thing to offer a dying addict. Let's just live balls to the wall until I die, Raya says, turning down chemo for cocaine, which Liz pays for. All of this, Liz thinks of as my most beautiful story. so Liz removed her from the sobriety house prior to the cancer diagnosis

prior to the cancer diagnosis and then when the cancer diagnosis forwent having chemo and cancer treatments that's not Raya's that wasn't that was what Elizabeth decided to do

that's what she decided to do and like the also decided to buy drugs and administer them like she talks about buying needles and things yes and like

this this like she just used her like she used her as this like reason and excuse to do all of this but like it's just horrific like it's it's so fucking horrific and there is like no mention in her i haven't read the book but like i watched a bunch of interviews of people and a bunch of like podcasts of people who have like read the book i talked about it and i've said like that the glaring thing that like she like never fucking really addresses at all is like she'll address like different power imbalances but like in a way that's like i'm not i'm not into rye anymore

because like now she's like a gross drug addict and it's like you did this and like you you did this all intentionally and like you want someone who's dying of cancer to take care of you like what the fuck are you talking about but like she never acknowledges or addresses the fact that like she has an insane fucking amount of money like she has so much money she has so much power and so much control in like that aspect of this so like when you have like your very very very wealthy rich friend who's like i'm gonna save you i'm gonna come and save you and then you become entirely fucking dependent on them because they've got the money to do that like it's not you don't think that you're putting them out because you're not financially bottom line you're not putting

them out of anything they've got more than enough of this to then rip that from underneath them like holy fucking shit or even like going to doctor's appointments or whatever like people when you have that kind of when you have that fuck you level of money people treat you different you get to call you get to do whatever the fuck you want to do like like you have lawyer money if you wanted to sue people for a reason that's not legitimate but like for any fucking reason so like people are going to tread more lightly around you and i just think that the whole thing is like so fucking wild and like she's like the ultimate victim in all of this and i i mean i again i haven't read eat pray love but a lot of people who read it were like this is like unfortunately

not surprising based on someone who has like zero self-reflection and has like an a desperate need to be the victim and to be needed in any which way yeah i had sent you a message and i was like she's the definition of somebody that does it for the plot like she just does things so that she can write a book about it later and i would like for julia roberts to do a sequel but an unauthorized sequel to eat pray love so that she didn't get any money from it and it like focuses on how horrible of a person this woman is yeah and like immediately i was like she's admitting to like crimes here in this like this is like really scary and the statue of limited the statue of limited of limitations on this is like three years it's been longer than three years and like

the part that like really freaks me out the most is like as someone who has written a book you have to go through the legal team with your publisher to like make sure the things that you're especially if like a memoir but like the things that you're saying the quotes that you're using like they're used to people taking you know legal action against some of the stuff if this isn't real if this isn't if it even if it is true but like you can't you have to have there's a whole process you have like two different um pieces of evidence one has to be like at this level one has to be at this level it can't just be like your memory you can't just say something off of your memory and say that this happened like it could be like you have to phrase it in a certain way

and so like knowing the fact that like the legal team at her publisher had to like look up the statute of limitations like do i mean like they had to like make sure that like she was this wasn't like a legal problem and i'm like that's so wild to me because like that to me is like a loophole in the law like the fact that like oh time's passed now i can just say all of this and like it's just like awful and horrible and she's gonna make so much fucking money and like there's still not a lot of i've just seen people like when i searched up the book it's just like people can't wait to read this i'm so excited like she's such a great author and i'm like this is like so scary and that because most people are probably not thinking about real people being part of this

even though they know it's non-fiction it's not their lives and they don't care and she's using raya as like a stepping stone for her own like personal growth journey i'm like this woman died like and i'm not here to like dispute like medicine or whatever because like yes sometimes like oftentimes when like saying that you have six months to live is come is coming from like an educated like place from medical teams sometimes it's not like sometimes like sometimes people defy the like defy that and it's like oh okay or you know you'd spend the last six months of your life not absolutely miserable and ending up homeless like it's just like it's so fucked and this woman is like disgusting so yeah i don't think you should be able to publish crimes in

a book i think that should open up the put the clock back up in the same way that oj he wrote his book if i did it did the whole thing but then it got pulled from the shelves this should also should have gotten pulled no this should open up a brand new investment like i think the clock needs to like start it again like this is now you have new information like this is just the statute limitations in general i think are like fail in like 99 and i'm only saying 99 not 100 because i don't know every instance in which it's actually been beneficial for this to be done but like yeah it just feels wildly irresponsible to publish this if like in publishing it it doesn't aid in raya's family getting any amount of justice like it just aids in like bolstering elizabeth's pockets

yeah all right you're not wrong we're gonna take a break and we get back we'll get into but are you wrong in toronto every arrival is a statement and nothing says it better than this cadillac optic was the number one selling luxury ev in canada for 2025 find your rhythm across a seamless 33 inch display and an immersive 19 speaker akg surround audio system this city demands agility and optic delivers with precision to make every drive extraordinary let's take the cadillac find out more at cadillac canada.ca luxury sales claim based on s&p global mobility canadian new vehicle total registrations for calendar year 2025 for

the cadillac definition of luxury all right we're back and it's time for but are you wrong but are you wrong is when y'all write in and share predicaments that are going on in your life and then we judge you and let you know if you're wrong or not you can write into but am i wrong pod at gmail.com or fill out our form or dm us and then you also can vote when we put the stories up on our instagram here's the first one i'm 19 she her and i need an outside opinion because i cannot tell if I am way off here. My mom keeps trying to set me up with one of her co-workers, a 29-year-old he-him named Alex. It started as a harmless joke when I met him at her office holiday party, but now it feels like a running bit that has gotten weird. Alex and I actually get along.

We like the same music, we trade memes, and sometimes we text late at night about new bands. when he works late I'll drop off coffee or snacks if I'm nearby and he stops by our house to say hi to both of us somehow it has turned into this half serious joke that we're basically engaged and everyone at her office plays along my mom adores him and keeps saying things like he'd be the perfect husband for you he's stable funny and he already likes the family she's even suggested a double dinner so we can get to know each other better. Here's the problem. I like Alex as a person but the age gap makes me uncomfortable. He's almost 30 with a full career and I'm still figuring out my major. I keep wondering if I'm being uptight. My mom swears it's harmless and says I'm overthinking

it but sometimes it feels like I'm being pushed into a situation that crosses a line. So am I wrong for feeling weird about this and pulling back even though Alex is kind and never inappropriate should I speak up and tell my mom to stop or am I making a big deal out of an innocent friendship this is weird go with your gut tell your mom to stop also you should stop talking to him don't go up to the work and drop off snacks or anything unless it's just for your mom so yeah I do think this is weird I don't think you're being weird and I think you should tell your mom know yeah i think this is like really sketchy like very very sketchy if there's like not a cultural thing that i'm getting here like if there's an aspect of that um because i can

only speak on it from big old fat age gaps in uh um you know my my culture and community and by that i mean my own personal life and if your mom has a really big age gap with her partner or if the person who like if i don't know if your dad is in the picture or whoever like your father was if she had an age there was a large age gap there i think that like if you are in an age gap relationship that is like super healthy and wonderful and great you know that that's the exception to the rule and you don't like try and push people to like do that i think if you are in an if you're pushing someone to get into an age gap relationship oftentimes it's because you like control and you know that there's like an aspect of that there and i don't know if your

mom is just like so much older that she's like not really thinking about like the big age gap there but like i do think that people who want what's best for you would never want a 19 year old to be with someone who's almost 30 and like i don't mean to say that that like your mom doesn't want what's best for you but like i think that you have to acknowledge that like this choice that she's making or these even these jokes and all of that like that is factually point blank inappropriate and your mom might like love you and be wonderful and great but like she is not seeing or thinking clearly about this circumstance so you should not take her word for it that it's okay you shouldn't take her word for it that it's fine that it's no big deal if you tell her that

you want her to stop and she like is like oh my gosh you're being such a baby you need to know that like this is just fundamentally not okay and just because she's your mom and she says it's fine doesn't mean that it is and you know i don't know if she has malicious intent or she subconsciously does or she just doesn't whatever just her barometer of like how normal and okay this is is just like fully off and you're need you need to trust your gut and yeah I also think parents who if you tell her that like hey my gut is just telling me no I think that to me should always be the end of the conversation like I will never want I mean friends anyone but like if especially if I had a kid like if they're telling me like in my gut it doesn't feel right I will never ever ever

try and steer you different from like your own compass like your own feeling of all of that like you can know yourself better you know the circumstance better because you know how you feel so to me that's this should this should like what everything you're saying to us should like put a full stop to this happening and if it doesn't i think you need to create some space but like melissa said like this man's not your friend and him being okay with being your quote unquote friend as you are 19 i also think is inappropriate so like you need to pour into friendships that are appropriate because they can there there's not this like insane power imbalance there yep and i'm sorry because i can't even imagine like how it makes you feel like

you're crazy because you think that something's off but everybody's telling you it's fine and all these are adults in your life that you're supposed to listen to all right next one i'm 24 she her and i need a reality check well we're here for it backstory i dated a guy named matt for about a year and a half in college. Our breakup was ugly and we went completely no contact. A few months later, he started dating one of my close friends, Jenna. They were together for over two years

and I heard they were even talking marriage. Recently, Jenna came out as gay and ended the relationship. Out of the blue, Matt started texting and calling me. We've been chatting and it feels easy because we've known each other long before we dated. Part of me thinks it's harmless to rebuild a friendship, but part of me wonders if I'm stepping into a minefield. He and Jenna aren't fully broken up.

They're in a murky finding things out stage. I don't want to be the reason for extra drama or look like I'm breaking some unwritten friend code at the same time Matt and I genuinely enjoy each other's company and have the same sense of humor it feels natural to talk here's my dilemma am I wrong for staying in touch with him while his breakup with Jenna is still fresh should I draw a boundary and wait until it's clearly over or is it fine to just be friends since we share history and there's no romantic interest on my oh there's no romantic intent on my side I keep second guessing whether this crosses a line with Jenna or if i'm overthinking what would you do am i wrong for even considering a friendship right now

thanks so much love the podcast i mean are you still friends with jenna that's my question yeah that was my number one question too because you don't you don't mention anything about your friendship with jenna like which to me if you are friends i think you've already then kind of like made your decision because like you're downplaying that friendship to like justify that but you're downplaying that current friendship to justify this like rekindling of a potential friendship but like i don't know having no romantic intent on your side you don't know that there's no romantic intent on his side and also like i will say that like i don't like being i don't like being like used and to me i feel like you're kind of being used as a pawn

like you're being used as like either emotional labor from him or whatever that i think like someone who's like in the right place to like rekindle a friendship and be a good friend this is not how they'd reach out to you like yeah so i don't know that the friendship in itself that like i i i have a feeling that this friendship with him will be very short-lived and it'll be a you know he's leaning on you because he's not getting his i don't know whether emotionally he's like he's going through a hard time and like wants to come back to something that's comfortable that he's familiar with but like i do think that i don't think that this is like oh we're you know i'm losing my friendship with jenna and i'm gaining a lifelong friendship with

him i think you're probably gonna lose both of those friendships yeah i feel like you're not friends with jenna and things probably ended bad and that's why he felt comfortable reaching out to you because he thought that you know already an enemy then i can reach out to somebody that already doesn't like her because like were you okay that they started dating after y'all broke up good point probably not probably not and now he's like like why haven't they ended things yeah figuring out what how do you know she's gay yeah like is this like him telling you like we're having a talk you know i mean and did she use the word gay or did she say bye and he's not okay with her being by yeah because why else would they still be together yeah or like if she's talked

about like you know i'm questioning my sexuality and like i don't know what this means but i'm still like i still love you and i still love us like if you're getting this like secondhand information it is not the truth like it is a version that makes it okay for him to be reaching out to you and it makes a version of him that's like poor me i need to be coddled i need i need love and attention yeah i just think we should never do this much for a man me either friendship or not because if y'all were really this good of friends why did you stop talking afterwards because if you were that good thing you would have continued to talk why is he now talking to you while you're while he's still in a relationship with somebody else that's on the rocks because

that tells me you actually don't care about our friendship you don't respect our friendship because like you're not taking any care in that like you're you're treating me like they let me circle back to like my high school girlfriend who i can you know who i used to hook up with over thanksgiving break when we were in college like it's just like you're running it back in a way that i'm like okay this doesn't feel like i'm you actually thought our friendship was meaningful at all yeah i'd be insulted by it you're wrong yes you are wrong but you have the opportunity to write it and that is goodbye matt all right we're gonna take a break and we get back we'll get into but are they wrong

we're back it's time for but are they wrong this is where we nominate a person place or thing someone in current events pop culture zeitgeist that we would like to nominate for being wrong i will say there's a lot of there's a lot of wrong happening so again sometimes depending on what's happening in the world we have to remind there's not a ranking of the worst of the wrongs right so my pick this week is michael scoletta teats and this is a developing story out of washington state the authorities um uncovered a what they're calling a complex case of alleged criminal impersonation a man who is also convicted felon is now facing charges after he reportedly posed as a police officer, responding to actual emergency calls in uniform and tactical gear.

This is a story that has left local law enforcement and community members baffled and concerned. So we're going to walk through the details of how this elaborate scheme unraveled and what we know about the man at the center of this. So it began on September 5th in Bremerton, Washington. According to a report from the Bremerton Police Department, 49-year-old Michael Scalata Teets arrived at an active police scene, meaning there were other cops there. He wasn't there as a civilian. He was dressed in a dark uniform, wearing a tactical vest and had a metallic Edmonds Police Department badge and police and SWAT patches prominently displayed. displayed. He was driving an unmarked Ford Explorer outfitted with activated blue emergency lights. Body cam footage captures the moment Bremerton police officers first saw Skeletta

Teets. The officer can be heard saying, I thought you were like one of our detectives at first. Skeletta Teets, for his part, tried to project an air of authority and familiarity, telling the officers i know some of the guys with the task force it was a smooth facade one that seemed to work initially scalotta teats was observed responding to a trespassing call and a tip about a potential fire in a parking garage appearing to assist legitimate law enforcement he introduced himself as mezzy m-e-z-z-y scaletto and claimed to be an officer from edmunds police department, a city roughly 35 miles away. The suspicions of the Bremerton officers grew. They asked for Skeletatite's police commission card, the official identification for law enforcement,

which he failed to provide. This simple lack of document was the key that unlocked the truth. Officers called the Edmonds Police Department to verify his employment. Their response was swift and definitive they had no record of a michael scoletta teats and confirmed he had never been on their payroll the badge he was wearing was not from their agency and the number on it was not valid edmunds police badge number as officers placed him under custody scoletta teats was captured on body camera asking can we not do this in front of every i mean really he was quickly handcuffed and led away, a quick look inside his vehicle revealed the extent of his deception. A Bremerton officer noted, he's got a fire fire helmet too. He's ready to do it all. It appears

Skeleta Teets was prepared for a number of roles. He had also allegedly claimed to have retired from the Baltimore police after two decades and worked at the Thurston Sheriff's Department. He also had a gun on him and a really cheap cam he was using as a body cam as the investigation deepened more of skeleta teeth's past came to light he was found to be a convicted felon having been found guilty in 2016 of making a bomb threat in north carolina for which he served 185 days in prison despite his felony he had been working as a security guard for the salvation army where a witness told the news that he had been intimidating and had told people to shut up and keep walking he also allegedly responded to an emergency at a 7-11 following his arrest he was booked at the county

jail and charged with first degree criminal impersonation and unlawful possession of a firearm his bell is set at 50k like we unlock whole new levels of losers yeah like this is like this is like just like loser times at that like what can we not do as a brother also that name that he gave himself sounds like a fucking cop like a goddamn network show that your dad and i watch or he like put it through like a cop name generator yeah no like it's so like we don't do this oh what are you doing i'm walking me like it's like oh my god what the police the footage of it hilarious well i also have to assume that like the police are not that intelligent so like the fact that he they so quickly were like you're not doing a good job even it was also he would

have not been in his jurisdiction like it doesn't make sense you lied poorly and badly and like you spent the money on a firefighter helmet but like you got a cheap what i assume is a dash cam you've like glued to your fucking body on like a gopro like strap like what also why would you go when there's police already there like the 7-eleven thing he got there and got out before any actual police showed up yeah why don't you just like go to like krispy kreme and get like a free donut or like i don't know like something else like you're literally getting nothing from this there's no paycheck that you're getting you're just cosplaying as a police officer you're not getting any of the perks you're not getting like uh oh like thank you for your service like you know people who

lie about being veterans who like you know get that shit or whatever but like you're not even getting like attention in a pod like everyone's just like who's that weirdo lying and you're like it's me mezzy wait that's so crazy i did not hear about this so thank you for sharing this you're welcome i love when people do stupid and embarrassing things it's so please don't don't do it in front of everybody buddy not my guys they're like who not in front of my not in front the squad yeah why am i we came up in the academy together quite literally no you didn't you were in jail when they were in the academy for 100 days that doesn't seem like a lot no okay so for my nomination of wrong of the week it's also football related and i would like to nominate the kansas

city chiefs hey so um they are facing criticism criticism is like a very light word that i would say i think it's so fucking stupid and they look like a bunch of men being losers the theme of this nomination um they showed up for their i don't know practice game something they all showed up and they decided they had a group chat and they said everybody like what if we like all match let's match and uh there had to be enough planning and foresight into this because they had to order matching shirts that someone had to design and make for them to all have so they could all wear them on the same day and that was wearing free four shirts uh in support of their teammate rishi rice and if anyone doesn't know rice is serving a suspension and a 30-day jail sentence which

is crazy and incredibly soft after pleading guilty to felony charges relating to a high-speed crash in Dallas and when I first like learned about this I opened the comments because someone talked about on TikTok at first and opened the comments and it's all these people in Dallas being like wait that was that crash everybody knew about the crash not even recognizing that he was a part of it like the crash was so bad prior to they even know who did it that like it was devastating like it was so fucking bad and it's like now it was massive news before we even knew who was behind the fucking wheel and now you have the teammates of that person who got an incredibly fucking soft charge for this because of who he is and because of the nfl and the nfl gave him an even softer

punishment for this and then they're like free him free him from what fuckers free him from truly what and i will say travis kelsey is also wearing that so ask yourself about that um so the attorney of one of the crash victims called the player's actions cruel and said his client has not yet even received her 1.1 million dollar settlement so i will say it's not all of the kansas city chiefs players some of them um but uh yeah the they wore this shirt and part of it was that it He was in a Lamborghini going 119 miles an hour, went on a shoulder, came back, clipped this person, spun her car, and then her and all five other people were hurt. And Andy Reid said, and also for Andy Reid of all coaches to be like, I'm okay with you guys making a stand for a at-fault vehicle collision that came away with serious injuries is crazy to me because I'm like, and now we're just re-Googling your son. we're now re-googling all of this like you have a this team has a history of being very okay with

this saying that the shirts display nothing more than support they love the kid and they want him to feel part of it in their own way so the whole backstory is he did plead guilty to felony racing on the highway and the felony accident causing serious bodily injury on july 17th he was sentenced to five years probation and 30 days in jail jail time is to be served sporadically like whatever he feels like it's like i got time today i'll go to jail yeah i'm not i i don't have practice i can go and and this makes me so mad so it was initially just going to be probation but the judge ernest white said he added jail time because it really bothered him personally that rice fled the scene without checking on victims like he fully just devastating car crash going

again well over a hundred miles an hour and he embarrassingly it's literally on video fled not in the car fled and like that's i feel like we've we've had something like that in our neighborhood where like someone caused a and like thankfully nobody was hurt but like they totaled a fucking car and if anybody was there they would have not survived it it was awful and if that car hadn't been there this person would have driven into someone's home like it was awful and there's just video of them running away just running away like abandoning their car and leaving and i just think it's like so just awful like again thank god no one was hurt in this but like this person doesn't necessarily know that like no that there wasn't i mean thankfully no one was in the car

but i'm like you don't necessarily know that but in this situation there was somebody yes and like you're on a fucking freeway like there are multiple this is not just like a single car collision now at this but like you have now fucked there will be maybe not that you can see with your eyes but like when you have an initial and we can when you live in a place that has a lot of freeways you have one crash that crash slows things down that then causes other crashes and other things and it just like just to not even check is just is wild to me and yeah so they wore it uh to their week two game against the philadelphia eagles which is like and they lost i just want to put it out there they did lose but it's like the reason they can say that the timing was like

well that's when all the shirts finally came in that we ordered off of etsy but like that's also like the most anticipated game of the season so far like the right like all of this shit that i'm like you have you know you have the most eyes on you and like all the fucking players wearing this shirt getting photographed all look so fucking smug that they're and i'm like are you kidding me like it's such an embarrassing thing and for the nfl his punishment that he got for the nfl was a six game suspension so free him from the first six games he's not even out the whole fucking season he gets to do weekend jail whenever he fucking wants to he still hasn't paid the settlement from this and you want you're you're protesting the fact that you think the nfl should

have given him what nothing you think that he should have had zero repercussions of this so the nfl reportedly said they sought a i don't know if they said but reportedly they sought a double digit suspension before he accepted a six game punishment so yeah um i just think it's like beyond poor taste and again like for a team that has a horrific history with vehicle collisions and like pushing like pushing it under the rug i just think that like morally it's like it's depraved and i i commend the players who were asked to participate and who didn't and like i don't know who that is but like not everybody did it and like i'm so glad that there were people who were like no that's not cool like that's not a good idea and to i think

everybody should be looking sideways at every single person who participated yeah or who's defending it like andy reed and again look up andy reed's son look up and i'm not talking about like his son makes whatever look up at the how that went about um job employment wise yeah all right that's the end of our episode thank you so much for joining us tomorrow we've got see you next tuesday thursday we've got don't blame me friday and 50 friday and then we'll be back here for but am i wrong we will circle back bye this is a sister sign production hosted by me megan rinks and me melissa demonts plus diamond imprint productions post-production by Coco Lorenz. Production assistance by

Melanie D. Watson. And music by Ryan Hunter and Giacomo Picasso.