Don't Blame Me! - Dating My Teacher

Episode Date: July 20, 2026

This week, Meghan and Melisa give advice on pursuing a relationship as a widow, your grandfather being a sugar daddy, and recovering from endometriosis surgery. Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/dontblameme Subscribe to But Am I Watching? Apple  Spotify Subscribe to Don’t Blame Me! Apple Spotify Call In for DBM - 310-694-0976 (3 minutes or less) Write In for DBM - [e-mail] (300 words or less) DBM Submission Form Buy Our Merch https://crowdmade.com/collections/sister-sign 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

On today's episode, we are cosplaying as, well, you're not cosplaying. Medical expert. Grey's Anatomy fans as, you know, medical show armchair experts. Yeah. I love the music. I love the songs. I love the clips that I see. I don't love the digging around in bodies.

And that's not even that big of a part of the episode. It's maybe five minutes. Yeah, it's five minutes. Too many for me. but yeah we give you so much advice on this episode we've got a massive age gap relationship which you'd think that's that's the crux of the issue there no melissa what is actually the real issue in that relationship so the writer is in their 30s but this person that they could potentially be interested in was their teacher when they were junior in high school yeah yeah

I don't want to spoil too much. Not too much, but just know that when we're saying that the age gap isn't the problem, you know there's a much bigger problem brewing. We also have a grandpa-sugar daddy relationship. Who's broke. Who's broke, yeah. A broke grandpa.

And what it means to transfer the funds from person to person when those funds are not yours. And then we also have someone calling in about having endometriosis surgery and we couldn't really give any advice because we haven't had it but if you have had it write in please and then for our personal lives we talked about uh us going to doctors recently and then i also got to share with melissa my current absolute favorite pharmaceutical ad that i've been seeing on tv oh lord and i shared one that i also saw that

reminded me of that one so this is our last episode before our break but you should still write in and call in megan how should people do that give us a call at 310-694-0976 international listeners send us a audio message at meganpodcast at gmail.com or if you're more of a written word person just write down everything you want to say if it's under 300 words and send us that email or fill out our form in the show notes all right let's get into it When you buy furniture from Wayfair, you're not just getting furniture, you're setting your home up for a lifetime of memories. Visit wayfair.ca today or download the Wayfair app.

Furniture made for all of life's moments. That's Wayfair. Wayfair, every style, every home. melissa giggled when she told me about these calls so i wouldn't put giggle no you giggled in a way that you were like today's gonna be a doozy and i said what way and it was like a so i don't know how to read that hesitant it was a ha ha we'll see i didn't read them completely but i just got a little taste so let's get into the first one perfect i just got a little taste too and now i'm nervous first up 37 she her okay okay maybe the taste isn't as sour as i'm thinking

i'm 37 she her and i was in a committed relationship and married for 10 years met at 21 my husband had chronic illness and passed six years ago and i didn't think i'd bring myself to dating ever again after losing my best friend. Since then, I've moved to my hometown and began teaching at the local university. I have a PhD in comparative literature, and I've been working closely within the local literary scene as a creative. There's a man, 50, who owns a few local bookstores and partners with the university, placing us in the same circles often, so we've become good friends over the years. He went through a divorce a few years ago, and recently our relationship is quickly progressing. Only thing is, he was my junior high school teacher. We've

kept up with each other on and off over the years since I was no longer in high school, and our relationship as pupil teacher feels lifetimes away, and our connection feels real and worth exploring now. But I pause when I think about the fact that I always knew we'd end up like this because of the way he treated me as a student. He was the hot teacher, and as a student, I was adamant it was inappropriate to have a crush on a teacher, even though everyone else regularly objectified him. And I definitely found him to be handsome and his personality magnetic. I became his favorite student, quite obviously so to the other students, and this resulted in some slut-shaming directed towards me. I would really appreciate your thoughts on the situation.

I just need some outside opinions before I were to dive into this relationship. Clarification, he asked me to consider a romantic partnership with him. This is not in my head like it was when I was a teen. Thank you both. first i want to say i'm sorry for your loss with your husband now we're going to take the training wheels off here first yes and i you i think it definitely affects it though like yeah i do what i mean like that ages i think the grief yeah i just want to say that like from the start there's we are going to be harsh with you but i want you to know that like that is not in spite of your grief I think that this situation is occurring also compiled a part of your grief

yep so do you know how we feel about age gaps to begin with so that you're calling in knowing how we feel about that so yeah and I understand like you have been married and you lost your husband And so that, you know, that does put you in a different maturity level than it does other people. But then when you add on that this person was your teacher, that it takes it into a different direction because obviously he was being inappropriate with you when you were a student, even though it seems like a lifetime away, it's giving you pause. So it's not really that far away because that's still in your head, not in your head as in, you know, like your head is up in the clouds. but like it's mentally within you he was inappropriate with you then he's being inappropriate with you now because you were his student he you also when you kind of contradict yourself because you're like it was inappropriate it was inappropriate to me then but i i just

pushed it aside but now you're like well that's still i'm still thinking about it but i'm not thinking about it because it was a long time ago it's still there it's still inappropriate so much so inappropriate that other students noticed it that's the key to me there that's like a lot because i i would say as we age we start to recognize relationships with like adults and people of power we're like oh that wasn't totally appropriate to recognize it in the moment and have your peers recognize it in the moment you've i worry that i really truly think you've essentially normalized it and you think that because you can identify it that means it's okay and you're over it and like you know what i mean you're not like yeah yeah that's still part of

you those feelings are still part of you and you said you always thought you would end up this way because of how he treated you in high school that's inappropriate yeah yeah this like breaks my heart because um it sounds like you intellectual i i i'm so i don't want to project onto you but i am someone who intellectualizes my problems and I don't know how to not do that that's like the hardest thing for me in therapy is that like I can identify why I'm upset I can identify all of these things but like I that doesn't do anything like that doesn't solve anything but I can't get past that point and I do think because you can identify that like that was not an okay thing and that was inappropriate that therefore that means that like that either has been processed

or that like you are you have coped with it but you haven't like just knowing that it was inappropriate not then doesn't mean what's going on now isn't inappropriate you can't use it as a barometer of like well it's not that so clearly it's okay but like like Melissa said like it's still in the back of your mind it's still not even the back of my still the forefront of your mind in these interactions and like something that you think about because like that's traumatic like it just is and it also like ostracizes you from your from your peers it creates an unhealthy dynamic with people your age it makes you feel like you have to lean on older people like there are people who groom young people and those they don't even end up in a relationship with that

young person but that young person does end up in a relationship with another older person down the line because the grooming has been like they've been primed for that they have begun to feel different from their peers in a way that they can only relate to someone who's older. And yes, I don't love an age gap relationship. You're six years post your husband passing. And if you had met another widower who was in their 40s or 50s, even this man's age, who you did not have any prior history with that was like not someone who you had obviously a teacher-student relationship with but also someone that you weren't working with currently today six years after your husband has passed I would be like yeah if you're having a hard time relating to people your age because

there's not a lot of widowers your age that makes sense to me that maybe the next romantic partner you would have even if it's not long term is someone who's a little bit older just because statistically they're more likely to have that experience and be in the same boat as you and I think maybe that is where your justification is coming in and i want you to know that like i don't have an issue with that i have an issue with the teacher aspect i would also have an issue if you were like six months post your husband passing and he was just like i'm in my in my mind that age gap is because you can't you need someone who you could relate to if he hasn't lost someone or you know the divorce i understand that but there are other there are other 51 year olds who are

divorced who you could date who were not your teacher yeah and and but that's what i mean like if you wanted if the barometer is divorced you can find 40 year olds were divorced you can find people closer to your age it you're not connecting over the fact that you are both widowers and engraving you're connecting over the fact that like he's at a to you a more similar life stage than other people your age but the issue is is that he also watched you through those life stages and that's really disgusting like point blank that's really really gross and i think you know that and i also think that this is not only do i think that this is a little bit convenient where I would say good dick doesn't fall in your lap like the the most convenient most like oh

okay like friends to lovers all of those sort of tropes and things but something along the lines of like yes sometimes the best things happen when you're not looking for them but if that's the case you I don't know I'm a big believer in like you seek out other dates you seek out going out with other people and interacting with more people not just like the one who has pursued you or like the one who is like really going for you. And if you're not in the mindset of dating or anything like that, you're not gaining that experience. You're kind of just taking what is what's putting the most effort in. And right now his effort is just so happens to be in the same circles as you like in working in the same place as you. And I also wonder and this is like not I don't want you

to take this by any means of that. This is like something intentionally that you're doing or this like any sort of cause of your own but I also do wonder if subconsciously you mentioned that like losing your husband's like you lost your best friend I wonder if there is a subconscious aspect of like there's a familiarity of this teacher that is not just like a romantic connection it's someone who you feel like you have known for a lot longer than you would if you went on a blind date or an app date with some other person that there is more history there and you lost someone who you had a ton of fucking history with but I think like the best thing to do is to embark on like first page number one chapter one on new fresh things with people as opposed to finding

as opposed to seeing this as like well this is someone who you know I have this long history with unless you get really deep into like actually explaining the history the history you have with him is problematic like is deeply problematic and I think we can look at teachers like our friends and all of that and i think there's just there's layers to this the same way that there were layers to losing your husband who was your best friend so there's layers to this relationship but these are negative layers and i i i he's so wildly inappropriate and i also just to take you out of out of you like thinking about you for a second teachers that are inappropriate with one student are inappropriate with other students and condoning that behavior even 20 years down the line

is condoning that behavior. And you might be embarking on a relationship with someone who is a lot of other young women probably hold some trauma around or have had very uncomfortable realizations about. And sure, is that a risk of dating a man? Yes, of course. But he was never a good teacher and never a good guy. And he never learned anything from this. Do you know what I mean like i don't think that like i personally don't believe being inappropriate with students is like a learning behavior like something that you can like i think you can reflect on i don't think you should ever be allowed to be around to teach kids again i don't think that's you know i'm not like death penalty but i don't think that you should be given multiple chances to not be

inappropriate with kids i think you know you should you should be separated from you shouldn't be able to work in that field anymore but he also doesn't see anything wrong with what he's done And to me, that's a power dynamic that you don't want to embark on any sort of relationship with. And it's, yeah, it's deeply inappropriate. And I think you know that. And you, and also, you deserve so much more than this. You've been through, again, an immense loss and so much grief at such a young age. You deserve, you deserve a relationship, whether that's friendships, whether that's relationships

to the family whether that's romantic ones you deserve ones that like only bring positivity and light and love to your life because like you're you've dealt with a lot very quickly and very young that doesn't mean that that's like your destiny that you then will forever be in relationships that had difficult beginnings or difficult endings and I just think that like you deserve so much so much more than this yeah i agree with that and it can be hard to see what this man is a predator and he has been waiting for his chance to make his move especially like he's the one that said that he wants to have the relationship with you again your friends and peers saw this when you were younger you saw it too you thought it was because he wanted you to

yeah and you pushed but you also pushed it aside and now he's into your you say that you've kept up on facebook which that should never have been done but it's been done and now he's been sitting and waiting for his opportunity and you're in a vulnerable place right now yeah and i know you work at a university and it's different but just to be totally honest if i was an admin at a university and i found out that like one of my professors was like dating their middle school teacher i would feel a little it's it's it's blurred lines within academia in a different level of academia or to your students would your student like you wouldn't want your students like that and then i don't know i also think that like if i say to you well would if you had kids

together would you want what if your kid was dating this and if your response is like well we wouldn't have kids together that doesn't it if you know it's a problem it's a problem your niece your nephew yeah anybody any child any 16 year old that you can relate to yeah it's or like i i don't know that like you're gonna be he you said he works in like a bookstore and that's like you're looking over your bookstores yeah yeah you're reading into every interaction he has when like you see someone a middle school aged person who looks like who looks like you did or looks the age that you like you will think about it all the time and you should and he is thinking about it all the time in a very different way and it's just like really really gross and

yeah like it gross i wouldn't even work with him like i would do everything you can to separate and if that means like telling a close friend of yours that this is like he's like reached out for like a romantic relationship just so you can also have someone in your own life who's like that's really fucking gross or like a colleague of being like hey can we swap this he was my teacher right and what are your friends saying do they know because you're saying that you wanted an outside opinion from us so we're have you already spoken to your friends about this and they're like no and you're asking us or they're like yeah this is cool and now you're asking us because you already know what we're gonna say i don't think anything we're saying is surprising i can't

imagine it is but yeah you just god you deserve so much more than this this yeah you just you truly do this is it's never the last dick on earth like there's there are options that aren't even good options that are still better than this man you know what i mean like there are men who are not great men but are better than this man and then there are also like very good men out there and so i think if we're gonna settle there's another we can settle for someone who's even better than this, but you don't deserve to settle. All right, we're going to take a break. At Volvo, safety is not a feature, it's our purpose. Rigorous crash testing, decades of learning from real accidents, innovations that help prevent accidents before they happen and

help protect you when they occur. Going above and beyond industry standards, a vision of zero collisions. Volvo's legacy revolves around you because safety is about helping to keep you and everyone around you safe for life. Learn more at volvocars.ca slash safety. When you buy furniture from Wayfair, you're not just getting furniture, you're setting your home up for a lifetime of memories. Visit wayfair.ca today or download the Wayfair app. Furniture made for all of life's moments. That's Wayfair. Wayfair, every style, every home. all right we're back and we'll get into the next one trigger warning alcoholism hey eminem so my mom 53 she her and my aunt 33 she her are not talking to my grandfather for now two months

so my mom and aunt would send money to my grandfather a couple hundred to help out back in his home country grandpa uses money for his cow farm that he owns my mom has been sending him money ever since she got here at the age of 12 and my aunt about five years ago. Also my grandfather since the passing of my great-grandmother has been sober for almost a decade and is in AA. He has been an inspiration to me as well as I've battled with addiction. So now here's the issue. So grandpa is a rabbit. You can tell with the age gap with my mom and aunt and now grandpa has a new girlfriend who is my age and this person is in their mid-20s. I can barely call it a relationship because he's pretty much her sugar daddy.

My mom and aunt didn't know about it until my other aunt who's living with my grandpa told them. She also told my mom and aunt that the money that they've been sending him is what he's using to give his sugar baby money. My mom and aunt were pissed, rightfully so, and now no contact. it actually affected my grandpa that it caused him to slip from alcoholism. Now, I'm always going to stay on my mom's side, especially with him using their hard-working money to supply some girl they don't know. However, it's still heartbreaking with my grandpa's slip, so it's

messy. I want to support my grandfather too, especially with his recovery, but I also want to be cautious with my mom and aunt as they were also affected by his actions. You didn't specifically asked for advice but i'm guessing you want to know how to navigate this situation can you imagine how bad you'd be if you're sending if like it's a sugar baby by proxy because also what if they're not your mom and your aunt's type like what if they had a different you know i mean like they could who knows maybe they would have enjoyed the sugar but there was no you didn't run it by us like can we pick a girl like this is more of my type it's not somebody of your age yes the same age as your grandchild I'm gonna guess that's not your mom and your

aunt's type who is slightly younger than your daughter yeah yeah that's um I can't imagine that's their favorite no you called him a rabbit too that's pretty funny I tackled yeah I think that the way to navigate this is to support your grandfather with his recovery but don't tell your mom and aunt that you're doing it and also support your mom and aunt by hearing what's going on. But don't tell them, don't, don't cross line. Don't tell the others what's happening. If there are other people you can talk to, like a significant other or siblings that you can talk to that it's not going to get back to either one of them, do that. That can be the way that you can vent, but you can have separate relationships with each group. Yeah. I would ask yourself like,

what do you see supporting looking like like how do you foresee what that is to like support him through this because there's a chance that like your aunt and your mom are angry but like i would promise you that like they support him getting back into the back into recovery and like consistently even if they're not actively speaking to him or talking to him and so i think that like laying out ahead of time asking him like what what how can i support you what can what can i do for you what do you need because if it is like sending money and it's like no my sobriety is actually linked to having a sugar baby and like if i if i'm going to be sober you're going to need to send me money so that i'm going to have this because this is why i fell off the wagon that is

not support that's manipulation and i think that there is a way to like call him and talk to him a couple times a week like have like a video chat dinner or just talk on the phone while you have dinner together a couple nights a week or be like you know text me like we can talk about like i don't know mailing a book that you want to read and then reading it together and you talk about like something along the lines of like forming a base of connection that's like a regularly scheduled thing to talk about and do all of those things with that is just being a grandkid like that that is just like being like loving and supportive because you can't do more than that even though that you have your own experience with sobriety and all of that you cannot be there for

him in that way without factoring in the fact that like you are you're you're the grandchild like there is like a other level of relationship there and so if it's like you know connecting him with connecting him with organizations there that or like equivalent organizations that you you know of that you've used here that they have there that could be helpful in this like support and community and journey but i also would i don't know if this i mean yeah truthfully i would also kind of steer clear away from any sort of conversation or bonding over this struggle with like addiction or substances or anything because like that is not your weight to to carry like it's it's just not there is still like a you can relate on that sense also a lot of the fact

because it's hereditary but like that is not something that you'll never be peers in like that kind of support you can only support the way a grandkid can support so i think just like being the best grandkid that you can be like being that aspect of it like calling checking in asking how he's doing and all of those things and removing the sobriety aspect from it removing the recovery aspect from it and just like supporting him because the rest of that is on him and his responsibility and then on you know other adults who are not grandkids to have that encouragement and everything because i agree that i don't think that this is you should be telling your aunt and your mom but i also i don't think you should be telling them because they have their own feelings

and their own journey with this, I think that you shouldn't be telling them because you are carrying way more, you're carrying way more than you need to. You're being like any of that aspect of it. I think it needs to just be from like a loving, supportive grandchild perspective. And I would do your best to remove the addiction factor in that because there's truly nothing you can do about that. And if this has made you, you know, realize that you want to support him more than just support him, just support him more. And you want to be a more involved part of his life, be a more involved part of his life. But there's nothing that you can do or say or you can't support him enough to make him make any choices for him. Mm hmm. So. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm going through this. Yeah, me too. This is a very hard thing to navigate, but just keep your relationship separate, even though that is hard, too. Mm hmm. All right. We're going to take a break.

not against you. SAP Grow is built with AI embedded at its core, working across every system, and it's ready to go from day one so you can hit the ground running. Bring it with SAP Grow, AI cloud ERP for any size business. Your playlist might get you through the workday,

but have you ever wondered how your ancestors spent theirs? What work helped them build a life? How did they adapt as the world around them changed? With Ancestry, you can search select historical occupational records for free for a limited time and discover the stories behind the jobs in your family tree. You've got questions. We've got ancestors. Search free until August 31st. Visit Ancestry.ca for details. Terms apply.

When you buy furniture from Wayfair, you're not just getting furniture. You're setting your home up for a lifetime of memories. Visit Wayfair.ca today or download the Wayfair app. Furniture made for all of life's moments. That's Wayfair. Wayfair, every style, every home. And we're back. I got my coochie looked at yesterday.

How'd that go? I don't want to invalidate... What? Quick in and out? Yes. And I don't want to invalidate anybody who has... I'm not even talking about emotional trauma-related aspects to this. but just like physiologically like some people's bodies are just like it's just it's just different

when i tell you that like and maybe it's because like i haven't had a pap smear i've had like multiple transvaginal ultrasounds in between my last pap smear when i i almost said are you gonna start she was already done i melissa i it was like i was trying my in my brain to be like feel it it was like someone the same thing of like a LaCroix of being like oh someone is eating a peach three rooms down that's how it felt it's like oh I have a memory of um like being having like a tickle in my throat one time like I couldn't even be like is this physically am I feeling anything right now or am I just like convincing I don't think I felt a thing yeah yeah I mean the very first time I got one done I was very nervous about it and like the doctor

sat me down before like we went to his office and he sat me down he talked me through everything and then we went to the actual like exam room and he did it and I literally go that's it he's like yeah and since then I've had several I've never had any issues and I bet you that first one and probably my first one too was probably the one I felt the most because I was just like nervous so I was probably a little more tense but this one completely relaxed yeah to the point where like I cannot it was like if someone told me to like just like a memory of putting in a tampon that like I had like 600 years ago like that's like how distant the feeling was like I could I don't think I felt a thing yeah I don't I got one probably like six weeks ago I don't remember

what it was I know I was nervous because I needed to get blood sample after that that's what I was nervous about and like I jumped a little bit and she was like you okay and I was like it's not this trust me and it was just because i was and i was just lying back yeah you're like i'm not even thinking about what's coming yeah the actual pap smear no recollection of that yeah so i can't stress to people enough that like a it's so important to go it's so important to get them the technology is so good now that if you have have a history of having normal paps you only have to get one every three to four years and you can get them more often if your insurance covers it or if you want to yeah i prefer to get one every year just to totally get it checked um

and i have access to do that but like you don't have to no there's also other tests that they run too when they're when yeah they use that that those fluids to run other tests like hpv and other stis yeah stis and i think that like i don't know i would just encourage everyone to go because knowing that like once you start it's not like you know breaking the seal when you're drunk and you pee and then you're like now i'm gonna have to pee forever no you can literally go one time and then it's not like well now you have to go every single year no no no no you can't you but just it's just get it done get it done get it done get it done and i i mean she was so nice i love like a genuine this was a np uh like a woman who's older just calling she called me

honey sweetie the entire time and i was like i love it here like yeah she goes okay mine was like mine's like the same age as me and we were just like i've never had that yeah we were just like talking about like she was and she sees me for other things too so like yeah it was just kind of like hey saw you last week for this here we go I saw a review of Tia that it was like imagine if you're like out to brunch with your friends one of them's like let me give you a pap smear yeah that's legit yeah I've yeah I've never experienced that like everyone it's always been like older um yeah it was it was so easy it is crazy though that they don't start doing mammograms until you're 40 and i was like that needs to change that is yes that it was earlier

they changed it in recent years i think but i think they need to change it back because like so many so many young people are getting so many young women are getting breast cancer in their 20s yeah like it's just like it's so and then if you're a person like me who has dense breast tissue and you don't know that until you actually get one there are things that are going to get missed and like the fact that ideally they want to catch it at stage zero stage zero is not a lump no do you know what i mean like so like it's the self-examine all that like you know i i'm very i always i always check mine i'm doing all that it's fine but it was also so funny because medicine is just so fascinating to me because you know did the pap smear and then they do the

you know the manual feeling around and they're pressing your stomach she goes okay feeling for your uterus and i'm like what the i didn't say this to her but i was like girl what are you feeling for like because you can't reach my uterus that's what i mean like it's so crazy to have this like wealth of knowledge that you can you're quite literally going in blind you've got fingers in my vagina and you've got your hands on top of my stomach and you're able to mother hooking identify the organs the separate ones and evaluate them from that she goes feels great and i was like awesome i have no idea what that means if it doesn't feel great then they know what it's more like it doesn't feel off yeah so like if they felt around and they're like oh there's something

different here then there's something new here yeah yes they're like we're just feeling for this many surfaces and if there's more or less then we have questions or bigger than it should be yeah yeah but i was like thinking about like how the you didn't watch this far but in uh paradise season two shailene woodley's character is like training to be she's in medical school and there's like i forget what tests they're doing but they're showing like them doing like the rounds or whatever with like patients and they're all like being like what am i feeling for like like just basically being like oh and i'm just imagining like the first time that you do that and like your teacher's asking you like what you think and like your wrist deep in a patient trying to be

like ah and it's literally like one of those blind things where it's like close your eyes it's like fear factor and you're like squeezing things like what do you think this is and i'm like that's just so it's just and like you quite literally develop muscle memory of other people's bodies and anatomy and it's just like not something how my brain does not work like that so i'm always so fascinated by it but it was great so everybody go to your go to your ground and i was in and out my appointment was at 11 15 i was out by 11 45 the issue whoa guess how much my fucking parking was why do you have to pay for parking to go to a medical exam oh well you know that you have to pay for parking at the er that's ridiculous i i'm it's more like a rhetorical rhetorical question tia does

they validate so you don't have to pay i mean i'll be real they might have validated but they were so busy and i was just trying to get in and out of there that like i didn't realize until i was already downstairs and it was 94 degrees and i was like i can't go i thought you were about to say it was 94 and i was like megan that was you needed to go back up how much was it 40 eight eight it was like two dollars eight eight dollars for 30 minutes yeah that's wild that's that's a rick caruso pricing that is and i felt so bad because my card wasn't working and like Mott's had called me to be asked me how it had gone and so I'm on the phone with him but I'm like not really talking because like I'm paying my parking and there's other people around I don't

want to like bother them and my card keeps getting rejected I finally have to pull up my other card and I think there's like two people behind me and I'm like talking to myself this whole time even though Mott's is on the phone and it's very clear we're not having a conversation like oh my god what's going okay I'm not and then I turn around I see all these people I go oh so sorry and they were like it's fine because I finally got it to work but I was like oh my god mortified but then I was like realizing that I was not the most annoying person there because the parking lots at hospitals the people who are driving these cars I'm like I I don't know what's going on but I'm I'm concerned you're having a medical event you're one person just like sat in their

car in the middle of the two lanes of this parking garage one going up one going down they just sat in their car in the middle for no reason everybody's honking everybody's honking I hate, not just like in a parking garage, but when people do that on the street where they're just like in the street instead of, you know what? You can pull over to the curb. There's actually a lot of people that are parked on the side. Or use your blinker or your hazards. Tell me what you're doing. In most situations, all they have to do is pull over.

They just don't want to. Or like when somebody is delivering stuff and they just park in the street. Pull over. There's a curb right there. Pull over. It was it. thou shall not pass and i was like that one is like there's parking spots pull into a spot pull pull into a motherfucking spot or at least go into the one lane so we can get around you

but i literally almost got out of my car because i was like are you having a medical event no it was like someone who was like maybe in their 30s and i was like and of course they're always driving the biggest car you've ever seen and i go this is a weapon and i think you're afraid and that's fair this is a very large car i don't think we need this big of a car it's not safer with you behind the wheel i know the concept that big cars are safer not safer when you can't drive them not safer at all and i was just like so it just makes me especially in hospital parking lots i get so nervous because like i'm always assuming i'm like oh god are you having a medical event something's happening it's an emergency yeah and i'm like don't park on the

third floor if it's an emergency you can't even drive like something's wrong like leave the car running i'll park it for you nope she was totally fine i think she was on her phone i was like and you just took the sound of horns echoing through a multi a multi uh floor structure as like oh it's just like the background noise to my scroll it was crazy but yeah now i have my other one uh end of this month beginning of next i know at end of august after my birthday so love a gyno love it love that you went you inspired me i told you that that you were doing all yours and i was like you know what i'm gonna go i'm gonna go i also love how like out of all of the medical practices i've ever been to they're by far the most like supportive like as like a whole as a

practice that like they literally have signs everywhere and like papers that they hand you of essentially what you can and cannot say in these appointments which i don't know what they used to be called well woman visits i don't think they're called that anymore but your annual to make sure that insurance will cover it for you or preventative care as well because it is preventative care they'll call it yeah but so like you can't talk about any of these other you can't talk about like essentially any issues like it just has to be what this is like what medications you take your pap smear all that and like they're so adamant on it that like you know if you start accidentally talking they're like because they're like we want to make sure insurance

covers this because we also want to make want to make sure you come back if they have to charge you all this extra money you're gonna get pissed and not come back so yeah but i would recommend everyone give them a call i know calling on the phone sometimes sucks but initially when i went to make the appointment it said the soonest one was october and then i called and she got me in a week later and i was like oh okay fuck my computer they now are trying to do a a study of um or pass it in different countries they've officially done a study of accurate saliva a testing for endometriosis. Damn. But I watched this whole video of someone who works in the biotech medical space and has endometriosis and has talked to investors, American investors,

about it. And they're not interested in it because the only way that it would work is if insurance gets on board. Because if insurance wants to do that, then that means that it will no longer be a diagnostic surgery. That's the only way you can diagnose it now is surgery. so it would like save insurance money essentially from people getting surgeries that don't have it but besides that they're like there's no money in a diagnosis there's only money in a cure and i was like oh my god but if there's a diagnosis then the number of people who have this then you actually work towards it but i was like that's depressing that segues perfectly into our next person that's asking for advice so we're gonna take a break and when we get back we'll get into the last one

Hell yeah! more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. Hey y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair.

With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. And we're back. This person is 24. she, her. Hi, Megan and Melissa. Love the pod. I've been listening since the first episode. Well, thank you. This is my first time writing in for advice. I will be having... Whoa, you are right.

This was a perfect segue. I will be having endometriosis surgery next month and would love any advice you or any of other listeners have, especially for recovery and unexpected post-surgery occurrences. I've done a lot of research independently, but articles and research papers will always pale in comparison to real lived experiences for this sort of thing. If memory serves, I don't remember if either of you have ever disclosed that you've had this procedure done but any anecdotal advice or don't blame them on this topic is more than welcome thank you for creating such a wonderful safe place through this content y'all put out it has been such a comforting and consistent bright spot in my week over the last nine years or so nine years

damn looking forward to any feedback and for any potential don't blame them please feel free to lay it all out there very lady with the list on tiktok vibes i would love to be as prepared as possible all the best so nice first of all so happy for you me too it'd be great i've never had the surgery so i point blank i've never but my mom did and so i mean clearly it was before i was born but she and also that was over 35 years ago so like it's been a long time and things have changed a lot but she's always happy to talk to people about it because a lot of people get scared and her thing is how long did go ahead i was gonna ask you how long did she have it before she had you uh that i don't know okay but she had it in her when she was like adult life yes yeah yeah

she was very she was an adult it was actually it was after my parents were married so they got married i don't even know when they got married okay but yeah too but like yeah it was yeah i just i know because uh she talks about how both my grandmothers were there with her while she had the surgery and you know that's been a long long time ago and you know she had it then she's fine she had three children after that and they had told her that she never would have children that's why all our names start with an m for miracle um so like i just want to give you hope like there's hope and also that was a very long time ago and so much has changed since then as well yeah matz's mom too matz's mom got it uh without even like really knowing that that was a problem

when she had her uh after her first kid then it was like oh we figured this out that this is something you're dealing with and then had matz after that like late like they're like six years apart so it was like oh wow this is people it is one of those surgeries that people speak so highly about obviously there are people who will still have issues with it but i mean i can the only anecdotal evidence i can give you is what i've heard from other people which is like gas x which to be fair is like the only thing that like i really worry about is like the gas part of it because like you give me gas pain i am the biggest like there's nothing like i'm the biggest fucking baby like and i also get like anxious about you know getting constipated like my ibs

really controlled a lot by my brain like really controlled a lot by my anxieties and stress but i think that like you know it's there are lots of people i know who follow me who i assume also a large majority of them also listen to the podcast who have told me all about surgeries and everything like that um so i'm sure that you will get a lot of don't blame them advice from it this one is completely unreal there's a couple people that are in our patreon and have had it so If they want to share, I'm not going to say your name, but you know who you are. If you want to share, please give information. Yeah. And this one is unrelated, but it's just like a surgery related thing that like, I don't know if it's the most typical advice. And again, it's different because this was on my face. But I think that when you're recovering, focus on the act of the physical recovery, not the visual recovery. so like having someone who's able to if you need it's i'm assuming you're doing laparoscopic so

like any sort of small amount of like wound care that you do have to do or anything like that do that from like an analytical point and not like a let me like look in the mirror at my at my body let me look in the mirror even like the thing that also really freaked me out when i got my nose done is like when i was looking in the mirror i could also like see that i was in pain and that would freak me out that like even if I'm on medication and drugs to like help alleviate the pain I'm like holding my body in a way that like I'm uncomfortable and you can't it was like the different there was not a lot of mind-body connection I felt while I was recovering from that because you're on medication to like help ease the pain but I can like physically see that

I'm not to my normal self and that like psychologically messed with me a little bit I would just say like, yeah, focusing on like the day-to-day physical aspect of healing from it as opposed to when does that like light come back into my eyes? Because like it can kind of feel, at least for me, that felt like it could kind of feel a little bit like a spiral again because of medication that you have been given during surgery and afterwards. afterwards that like time is everything's a little off that like for me focusing on like the exact moment and like all of those things was a lot easier but yeah and also i'm sure everyone will tell you this but like lots of people recover at different paces and that was something that like with my nose i that felt i got a lot of people thanking me for like showing that like for some people it takes a lot longer to like recover from that and there are people who like

literally got their nose done and then went back to work a week later and like there's no way i could do that i couldn't even do it with my wisdom teeth so like they're just knowing that like there it doesn't mean that like you're not healing correctly you're not healing well obviously look at signs for that as well but like everyone heals at a different pace and it doesn't mean that like it didn't work or something went wrong if you're healing at like a little bit of a slower pace than other people but yeah and pick some good tv shows like a new series to start or something yeah what's a good one new girl's always a fun well maybe you don't want to laugh too much do you want to cry watch parenthood one really fucks you up plot twist and like it yeah i know

i signed up for it being like oh look uh you know ensemble show this is fun the first two seasons you're laughing and then season three they're like this is actually gonna rip your heart out and it did beautiful minus the dax shepherd of it all but you know he plays a deeply unlikable character yeah um yeah best of luck you usually say that i don't know why i stole your line it's okay we could just morph into one that's why i sent you pictures of my feet seeing like get the same shoes as me they're really cute i think you'd like them you know i don't like to wear my toes out though i don't like them yes but so obviously i didn't say this but i specifically think that the square toe box i think you would like it more because i have like big ass toes

you've got chunky toes i've got long finger leg toes and the square the square toe box of the flip-flop looks so much fucking better on me than like round ones i find with a round sandal i need to have more of my foot covered i need to have like a good chunk of my never have a round sandal on all my sandals no it's just like they have a strap over my toes i don't do that's what I'm saying I need to have a good thick strap that like cuts off half of the sides of my toe because otherwise you're like, oh my God, why are you walking on your hands? Yeah. And mine is like, I don't want my Tootsie Rolls out.

Yeah. It's a little vulnerable. That's the only thing I'm vulnerable about on my body. It's my toes. Even though men love the toes. I just don't love it. I feel like I get more predators with them out. But you're protecting yourself.

You know how many people tell me, how many men tell me I have beautiful feet? Too many. That's actually might be why I don't like having them out. I was about to say, Melissa, you're protecting yourself. It's unwanted sexual attention. I, it is wild though, because like, I have no concept of like a foot fetish. Like, I don't even know what a good foot is for that. You know what I mean?

Like, I guess it like depends on the, on the person. Yeah. Like, I look at people's feet and I compare my toes to theirs. And I'm like, you're like, I'm like, OK, it's a foot. And then I'm like, whatever. Like, most feet are disgusting. Most people don't take care of their feet. Like, you need to put lotion on those things.

I don't know why people. And not just when you go get a pedicure like this needs to be every day. Put some lotion on your feet. I'm very strong and passionate about that. If you can hear the sound that your feet make when you rub your heels together, if you can hear it before you can feel it, there's a problem. there's a problem like you shouldn't be able to hear that you should be able to feel it you shouldn't be able to hear it's like as a kid i used to that was my probably the first sign that my parents should have known like this kid is neurodivergent i had socks that i would call

rusty socks no that like i didn't like how they felt on my feet because i was so adamant you know me i was washing my feet every day in the bathtub putting lotion on like i i i cannot stand the feeling of dry feet and there were socks that even no matter how moisturized my feet were the socks they felt dry i know exactly what those like hayne socks from the rusty 90s 2000s that would just get hard and that's why i'm so also very passionate about my socks to to this day yeah because why were you giving children socks that had no they had no stretch in them and they were not soft it was like they only have starched socks they'd have stretched in them for like the first couple weeks and then they're completely stretched out well the issue was all my clothes

were hand-me-downs so i never even got to experience the first couple week of stretch here i am getting hand-me-down socks and also i had big ass feet so they were already too small and then the heels in the wrong spot oh my god miserable makes it makes like my give me goosebumps one last thing i have to tell you about i want you to go to let me make sure i have the right website because you don't have ads on any of your streaming right i do on um paramount and that's only just because I was trying to get caught up because I don't want to give them more money than I need to, but I'm caught up now.

So it just reminded me I can cancel my Paramount now because I was getting caught up on Young of Our Young. I mixed Young of Our Lives. Three different soap operas together. Young and the Restless and Beyond the Gates. I was getting,

I was catching up on them because I was months behind, but I'm caught up now. So I can cancel them and just watch them on my Hulu life. perfect so i want you to go to bent carrot.com bent and i want you to know that there is a two minute unskippable ad conveniently on the app peacock that i thought was an snl sketch that is in fact a real ad that they keep playing on our peacock and i'm floored it is a two and a half minute video of a couple sitting on a couch that ad is for like for the ads four years old

that one that i just watched when you watched the one i yeah no no they've got a new one and they are it is a couple sitting on a couch and i'm like are they talking about what i think they're fucking talking about and what they're talking about is her husband's curved penis and the ad directs you to bent carrot.com which is a a medicine that you take that helps straighten out your dick and on the website they're saying it could be this disease in the ad it is purely cosmetic it is just i love that straight dick of yours remember when it was curved that silly little curve it is the i was it was like the middle of the night i had fallen asleep and i woke up to it and i was like oh we must be watching snl again no this is a real ad and i'm

like god men can have anything they also did the first study of um topical like uh that the the topical estrogen cream and everyone's like oh my god finally like perimenopausal menopausal women like this will be great it helps with uh labial atrophy and all of those things turns out they tested it for men for something related to their ball sacks and everyone's like are you fucking kidding me and i was like wow so yeah it's a first and only fda approved non-surgical treatment to help reduce erectile curvature and i was like what the fuck is this and 94% of eligible patients should pay zero dollars out of pocket what do you mean this is what we're doing i'm getting a lot of ads on tv for uh psoriasis commercials and most of them are fine psoriasis

like on like skin like on your yeah oh okay not the head one not the head one this is like body like on different parts of your body like one is this woman going on vacation she doesn't want to take off her swimsuit she's like everybody's looking at me and it's like nobody's looking at you girl um another one i forgot what that was for but there's three of them that are in regular rotation but one of them was like this woman with her man and they're sitting and then they start getting intimate and she's listing off the reasons why it's been interrupting her life and then they're like about to have sex and he turns off the light and she goes and that was the last that was my last straw he wanted to have sex with the lights off she

doesn't say that but that is the implication of it and i'm just like wait why are we getting horny on tv like this in a commercial that i would have never guessed we were going to psoriasis yes we also get a lot of psoriasis commercials and it is most often the trope of i'm uncomfortable i'm shy or i'm in pain never sex related i would think it was a bent carrot commercial yeah and he he still wanted to have sex but she's just like she's like i only want to have sex with the lights on the light is where i drop a line i'm like okay well by the way girl you would also have sex with the lights on with your psoriasis right no he turned it off so she felt like that he was oh not into her anymore yes because i guess because i think it was her husband so i get

i'm guessing the thing is that they're implying is they always have sex with the lights on and he turned it off so that was the last straw okay because i would assume maybe he also had a bent carrot and maybe that's why he wanted to do a merger of the two commercials wait why can i not find this fucking commercial like xia i because i have to link it for but i wonder if they're just doing it on on like they're not posting on youtube because it's truly bad but i do have to say we need to increase the caliber of like our expectations for commercials on streaming these are not youtube ads this is a commercial i'm watching this on my on my large television and i shouldn't be getting ones for like fucking draft kings with dave portnoy filmed vertically with a sunburn oh my god there's

There's really bad ads on streaming. All the ones for- Oh my God, it's so bad. What's that chicken strip place that people like to eat at that I think is absolutely disgusting? Local? It's the chain, but they have them here.

Cane's? Cane's. They have the worst commercials. Yeah, that's what we do. And they'll have like celebrity athletes in it, but it was a commercial filmed on an iPhone that's five years old with the worst, that they included the sound from the phone and not external sound and it's just like in an empty

location what are we doing no like a youtube ad read or a podcast ad read should never be a commercial that's not that's not a commercial level and it just makes me like but then they also they're also faking podcast ad reads too where they make it look like it's a podcast ad but it's not it's just like i don't know when i don't know i don't know when our standards went like down the drain i will i'm blaming sports betting because like they have made the worst the worst ads i've like quite literally ever seen like they are so low budget so bad and i'm like you're asking people to like get hooked on the most like the most detrimental and addictive addiction and you're not gonna put money behind your ads you're gonna ask for their money

and their life and their souls and their families and like everything about their sanity their 401k and you're not even going to invest

in a fucking studio like what we're filming this with a front facing camera it makes me so mad but I can't find this ad

but if I do king what's that mobile app king king's crush you know who I'm talking about

king's like oh no royal yep that one no there's an AI one now that is this couple that is like arguing where i think the girl thinks that the boy is cheating on her but like he's playing this game and so like they try to make it look like it's

real people but it's literally ai and it's so bad the voiceover is so bad for it i'm like go back to doing your where you hire the same five actors that have never acted on anything else and just do that you made them do a cameo of it yeah they were spent they were literally buying cameos and had them endorse it that way but like also i don't love scopely you know for all of their all of the monopoly go things those are high quality ads those are very high quality ads they now have they now have a a game on fire tv oh but i think like if you're gonna hire kiki palmer i clicked on it it didn't load but the ad was very very high quality yes those monopoly ads are great they partner with beautiful companies uh-huh and like put the fucking money in but like

i just think it's insulting to ask me to spend money when you're you're like i don't think it's worth it for me to i don't think our product is like worth a lighting setup i don't think it's worth any of that like and you're so dumb you'll just spend your money on it fucked up um well i cannot find this fucking commercial i'm gonna have to like record my tv the next time i see it please it's crazy all right well that's our episode um as you know we are going on a well if you've been listening we're going on a little uh break for the summer because we've both got trips coming up so um still write in let us know what's happening and we'll be back in a few weeks but we'll still have old episodes in the feed so listen to those if you're you know you still want

to hear us. And we've got a new episode of But Am I Watching coming up this week as well for The Invite. Hell yeah. And if you didn't watch the last week for Office Romance, both Coco and Anthony watched it and they absolutely loved it. They're like, why am I laughing so much in this film? Yeah, it truly catches you by surprise. And I have been thinking about it and laughing all week see you were mad at me at the beginning of last week's episode you told me i paid for my crimes but i stood by 10 toes down and said this is a great movie i do think that we are officially even because i know the movie that we watched this week by my suggestion you went in blind and my first thought getting out of that movie i actually didn't go in blind because they they

i actually didn't go in blind because they played an ad they played a trailer before one movie i saw it's already new oh okay because okay because i was gonna say like this to me like going in blind to this movie is probably exactly how i felt going in blind to uh the office romance movie and i'll say spoiler alert it's a perfect movie that's coming up uh-huh yeah all right yeah so join us on thursday for the invite on what am i watching bye This is a SisterSign production hosted by me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa D. Montz, plus Diamond Imprint Productions. Post-production by Coco Lorenz.

Production assistance by Melanie D. Watson. And music by Ryan Hunter and Giacomo Picasso. Wayfair's Labor Day clearance is on now. Right now at Wayfair, you can get up to 70% off everything home. Shop Wayfair's Labor Day clearance now through September 7th at wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home.