Don't Blame Me! - REPLAY: Dad Cheated with An Online Lover

Episode Date: February 15, 2024

Original Air Date: August 4, 2022 For But Am I Wrong Meghan thinks that Trader Joe's is overrated Melisa wants the executives at Klondike that discontinued the Choco Taco should be fired In But Am You Wrong they if listeners were wrong in the following situations: Feeling guilty for quitting your job while your husband still works Not inviting your father to your wedding because he cheated on your mom with a woman online And in But Are They Wrong AKA "Rachel of The Week" they nominate Meghan nominates the $18 Million Covid Thieves: Richard Ayvazyan, Marietta Terabelian, Tamara Dadyan Melisa nominates body part seller: Megan Hess Write In: [e-mail] Weigh In: Vote in the weekly poll on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/by.meghan.and.melisa/ Buy Our Merch: https://store.dftba.com/collections/don-t-blame-me Join Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/dontblameme Listen to Don't Blame Me: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dont-blame-me/id1223800566 Follow Us: https://www.instagram.com/meghanandmelisa https://vm.tiktok.com/TTPdYV7J5p/ Follow Meghan: https://www.instagram.com/meghanrienks/ https://twitter.com/meghanrienks https://www.youtube.com/c/meghanrienks Follow Melisa: https://www.instagram.com/sheisnotmelissa/ https://www.instagram.com/diamondmprintproductions https://twitter.com/SheIsNotMelissa Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wow. Hi. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the podcast that either already changed your life or is about to change your life i just love really laying it on thick i love you know being the what's the name of the man in princess diaries that does the makeover i want to say paulo that's what i was thinking too but maybe i'm just in my lizzie mcguire mindset i love being the paulo of the ears truly make all the boy mooses go and of the mind you really mold it and change it for different i wouldn't necessarily say better just different she was cute either way exactly and this podcast is the audio version of a early 2000s rom-com where a girl takes off her glasses and all of them are like wow

she's high no way like that trope is my favorite it's almost close second actually maybe the other one is my first but is the um masquerade balls where only like like a less than a third of your face is covered up and it's like i i didn't recognize you who was that it's like literally the person you sit next to like every single day in gym class like right what i love it as long as expense none the richer is playing kiss me in the background i'm in oh it's it's good it's good you know i don't know if i've shared with you but it is a known fact that i make fire playlists like i have had people who work in the music industry being like you should just make playlists like if i could make mood boards and playlists for a living like i mean there are jobs for that

there are but they have to do other stuff like i literally just want my job to be like come to me for the vibe and the aesthetic and to tell you if that's ugly or not or like yes or no like that what other career could I have to be fair yeah there was a job I don't know if people are still doing this where production companies would send playlists for your ride to the production office that's nice I've had directors who've sent who've made playlists for each character yeah which I really like music is influential and one of my favorite playlists I've ever made is I think it's literally called main character and it just has like every song that you would hear in one of those movies that when you listen to it you're like oh yeah this

is all about me like I'm just sitting in the back of the car rain is like pouring down the windshield and like I'm in my own music video and that is one of them and I also have a newfound appreciation for one of my other playlists I've been listening to it non-stop and it is called songs with drugs in them yeah you were putting some of that together at my home one day yes there is no rhyme or reason to i made mods listen to this he goes this was chaotic for this i've ever listened to because we have hide and seek by image and heap which beautiful yes drugs in it are you did you ever watch the oc yeah but like an episode here and there oh okay yeah so i didn't even get to the part where it happens but there's like a very iconic spoiler alert marissa croaks

and they play that song i'm sorry you didn't know that oh no no i know this you said oc but for some reason i was thinking laguna no i was thinking laguna beach you were like somebody died on the lauren kahn man that would be funny yes yes okay i've watched all of the oc until like the last season it did have a kind of a lost phenomenon where it was just like oh this this is getting bad it's mom's favorite show he loves that fucking show like you go from that to like get into it by doja cat and then time of our lives by pitbull and neo uh he could be the One, Hannah Montana. I would ask if you were on drugs when you made this,

but I know that you were not. Motz was asking for clarification. He goes like, these are songs that you want to do drugs to. And I go, no, some of them you might listen to and go, this would be fun if I was rolling in Vegas. But other songs, you're just like, how did anyone make these? This song has a quality. This song is that bitch.

But also like different drugs make you feel different things. So like, what drug is it? so that is actually a very very very important thing to clarify and i needed to convey that through the cover art so the cover art is just showing it's it's chaotic everyone go watch the video on patreon and it's we're turning it up all the way to 10 so it's in like a hell yeah so these are definitely uppers that are in them we're not these aren't songs with downers in them that's not that's like my sad bitch hour playlist okay maybe i i changed the title and i just do like uppers downers but it's good it's good wow so glad we were on that segue what were we saying

we were just starting the podcast there's nothing really much to be said other than that introduce yourself to the class hi everyone my name's melissa and welcome what's a fun fact about you oh hell no i hate icebreakers when i got to a certain age where i realized that i could say no i did say no and i stopped remember when you'd like walk go around in a circle and everyone's like and say an adjective that starts with the letter of your name yes i need you to know i'm not going to say last names so nobody is like going to be called out for this but like mine would be like marvelous megan miraculous like it's just what i don't know but there's a girl in my class in middle school who did it and this is in the early days of cindy and i becoming

friends and just like looking at each other being like oh my god she was like adjective describe your name what wendy you're all like that's pretty good it's pretty good but she was not in on the joke and everybody was just like and our teacher was like okay moving on so bad so bad oh this is a show where we talk about things in our lives decide if we were wrong or not we pitch hot takes and then we also read some email submissions from our listeners and they tell us situations in their life and they're trying to figure out if they are in the wrong or not And as the title of this podcast would suggest, we say, and we tell you, you say, but am I wrong?

And we'll be like, yeah, you were wrong. Or no, we don't think you were wrong. And then we head on over to the final segment, which is Rachel of the Week, aka, but are they wrong? Wote of the Week, the upside down Simone Biles. And we share pop culture, current events, celebrity happenings. and we nominate who is the absolute worst of all time for that week

or all time, all time. And then the best part, what's the best part after that, Melissa? The best part is kind of just going with the flow here. I don't know if this is what you were getting at, but the best part is that you get to go to Instagram

and vote on if you believe that person was wrong. So we'll put those up most of the time the Friday after the episode comes out. If we have other things going on in our lives, if by we, I mean, Megan, if Megan has other things going on in her life, then, you know, it might go up on Monday, but you have 24 hours to vote. Also, if you have opposing opinions, please send it to us in our DMs just because we like

to know and we share it with the class. Yeah. Sometimes people have other perspectives that we did not have or interpret it differently. everyone go wish megan a happy birthday because today is her birthday oh my goodness oh me birthday girl who wow that's so exciting it's my birthday and you know what i want for my birthday everyone besides world's peace and for you to vote in your local elections i want you to go subscribe to our patreon we now officially have patreon up for this podcast so you can watch the video version and we've expanded all the tiers so if you were already a patron from our other

podcasts don't blame me you can stick with stick with what you know or you could upgrade to the tier that also includes the video version of this podcast you can do the video version of this podcast as well as the live streams there are many options and all i want for my birthday it's a big booty ho and for you to join our patreon love it yay so exciting anyways all right should we read the results from last week oh yes we should okay so who is wrong for episode 35 first up we have me and me my vendetta against pharmacies for having a personal vendetta against me specifically, but also anyone on stimulants. 3% said I was wrong and 97% said I was not wrong.

A good chunk of people who said I was wrong were like, maybe voted wrong. And then some of the other ones who said I was wrong are, you know, the pro-forced birthers who like to come out every once in a while and just disagree with whatever I say. And then next is me versus people that commit hate crimes during Jim Crow era should be arrested.

1% said I was wrong. 99% said that I was not wrong. Then we have writer number one versus her friend who is dating someone with the same name as the writer's boyfriend. 97% said the writer's wrong. 3% said the friend is wrong. We still don't know the name.

And writer, original writer, I'm gonna need you to hop on into our DMs, stat, and let us know the name. We want to know. The people want to know. People in our DMs are like, we need to find out the name. And I agree.

so please this is a plea tell us my name please please all right then we've got writer number two versus the man she went out with who put his divorce papers on instagram that day five percent said the writer is wrong 95 said the man is wrong this beyonce reaction phase was the only thing that like it came i didn't have to search i mean i knew what i was looking for immediately because i was like it's it's the it's that face is one of my favorite favorite reaction pictures because it's just so specific you can't use it for everything it does not work for everything but like when it works there's nothing that works better she has another one where she's making this face too where she's not as dressed up too it's pretty good as well she's got some

good ones she's got because i mean she's stunning then my wrongs the week i nominated zach wilson aka football mommy homie hopper and 95 said that wilson was wrong five percent said wilson was not wrong was it alarming trying to find pictures of this man and realizing that he looks like a child like it was i know that like athletes are of all ages and especially like new recruits are like they're they're pretty young but i did not know that they let preschoolers play football and then fuck their mom's friends like it was just like that made it even grosser to me on like the mom's friend's side because like he looks like a child disgusting absolutely disgusting all right and then my wrong of a week list alleged artist gala nor who's wrong 99 said the alleged artist is

wrong and one percent said the alleged artist is not wrong but we got a lot of people that were shocked by how bad this alleged art is i tried to describe it and i told everyone i was like it's not it's not gonna hit as much it's it's so much worse than you could envision and it is also them side by side is just really embarrassing we did post the resolution on our story so it's in the highlight for that week so they're putting both up in the guggenheim with like an explanation i am hoping and kind of betting based on the it has the same formality of like a celebrity divorce announcement where they're like posting the exact same like thing so i'm thinking i'm thinking we got paid i'm thinking we got major major pay me me me too

and i'm very happy for it i would love to know specifically but the fact that we don't know makes me think it's pretty large pretty pretty large and quite embarrassing for the alleged artist which it couldn't get more embarrassing but like yikes i'm glad it worked out though because they were the guggenheim was getting bombarded and i think they were trying to figure out what to what was the right move legally because they probably have a contract signed with the alleged artist too so they're getting all their ducks in a row yep and also there's like laws on art and satire and that stuff and so there's just like a lot of gray area but yeah but it was also the description of it was a blatant lie yeah and then it's like well you can't because

she tried to claim satire afterwards and so i think that became like now we have to go through all of the legal process to like be like this isn't satire there was like no reference to it there is you can't use like that as inspiration and then claim you didn't and then it then it's satire on that thing that like has not been addressed so happy for the um assumed payday for day day pay day for day day fuck yes i would also like just a little bit of kudos for the instagram post i did to promote last week's episode we all know what happens in italy the slideshow of lizzie mcguire living her best life and the caption lizzie had the original thought girl summer i was thinking about that she did she she invented as like a child to me

vocation was Lizzie McGuire. We've gone over this. I know. But as somebody who had a thotty renaissance in Italy, I would think that you would relate to Lizzie. I mean, there are other people that I could relate to. I could relate to Saved by the Bells when they went to Hawaii. They all had thotty summers. There's there's plenty of other TV shows that I could relate two that came out before that was there another one so because I was trying to when I was originally making this post I was like going to include lots of ones because in my mind I'm like all of those movies take place in like Italy and like everywhere having that and then I realized that the only ones that I could think of that I knew were this and then the Mary Kay and Ashley movie and all of my

like rent like thought girl summer renaissance movies all were about preteens and I was like that's and the thing is again the Olsen twins and I are the same age I know that for a fact so I think it's just that you watch things that are of people older than you yeah and so you don't watch things of people the same age so I had already viewed all my earlier thought thotty summers before that like when I was a kid I thought when I would go back and watch them as an adult I would be like oh yeah they were all like cool and like 20 years old and I was like oh no like they just felt so much older than me because I was a child whatever that was a wonderful segue um head on over to instagram to vote for this episode listen to the episode first though please of course also

don't don't look while you're drunk yeah it's a common theme every week and maybe that's the friday in it yeah they're like i'm drunk and i'm like okay just wait you have 24 hours like i hope this is not a whole full 24 hour bender all right you're up okay so i have a hot take because my brain fog is especially bad the last couple weeks so i could not tell you what i have been doing saying or um experiencing and i almost picked i just want you to know that i did you personally a favor i almost picked love highland uk just to talk about as an excuse but i also recognize that not everybody is watching illegally to be up with uk time i don't want to spoil it for anyone but i could talk about it for eons mine instead is something that i have told you off camera that i

have been sitting on a bad boy and not a bad boy piece of information but just a truly hot take I think Trader Joe's sucks and I know that is a a big statement and you might also be like Megan didn't you shop at Trader Joe's like all the time up until you moved and yeah you would be right and I felt like I almost compared it to Stockholm syndrome that is way too intense but I feel like I had settled. I had settled based on proxy that like I had gotten so used to Trader Joe's that I just had my blinders on for what else was out there. And I was just accepting of the fact that like, you know, they have snacks. They are a grocery store full of snacks with shitty produce and good freezer foods if you do not have any food allergies at all. And I just bought into

the Trader Joe's hype. That was like the grocery, one of the grocery stores that I shopped at as a kid. And I hadn't been inside a grocery store in truly like over a year with the pandemic, Mott's was doing it. And I was just, I was getting bored with my food. And if you have followed my journey with long COVID on my YouTube channel or TikTok, you will know that food has been a horrific thing post COVID. And so when we moved, we went to Sprouts for the first time in, I mean, I go, we would go to Sprouts occasionally, but like I hadn't been grocery shopping in Sprouts and it was like, I had been awakened for the first time. And I realized that I had been accepting subpar shitty things from Trader Joe's because I forgot that what else is out there. And I was

greeted to organization to aisles that actually made sense and it wasn't just like oh here is all like with even just aisles that had labels on them that they would tell you what is going to be there as opposed to trader joe's which is like we are going to one-up target and make you literally walk through every area and look at everything to decide if you need this and we're not going to tell you where anything is that's how they get you to buy more things and then you get home and you're like i have nothing to eat i just have sacks like just just snacks and i was greeted in sprouts by like aisles full of gluten-free and just dairy everything was it was just so good and there's the fishmonger and the butcher and i have since that moment said fuck

trader joe's except for like you know the select few things that i want but i just think we are all absolutely conditioned to believe that Trader Joe's is like the best and part of me also wonders all those Trader Joe influencers who are like what are the best things at Trader Joe's I think that they might be conspiring with Mr. Staple and Big Milk and there is something going on with all of this and my hot take is that we have been conditioned to believe that Trader Joe's is the end-all be-all and in reality it's not it's subpar and we have just accepted subpar grocery store shenanigans because we've been told that it's the best and it's cool and it's great and it's not that great and also half of the names of their stuff

problematic but like i remember thinking that when i was a kid and then i didn't really like go up and like look at those same products over and over again and i remember i was in the grocery store like a year before the pandemic and i saw they still had i was like whoa i fully thought this would this has been problematic all ways and they just kept it and also the unionizing issues and you know mr joe half our listeners are like what the hell is a trader joe's um because they're not everywhere but also no but I've never considered them like the grocery store of choice I just it's like you know I just go there for snacks but two I also have not been since the day before the pandemic was called a pandemic because I was trauma like I need to be compensated

for the trauma uh that I endured during this time because they're so small and so tiny I was going there to just pick up snacks for us to record this podcast and it was people it was just pure pandemonium in that little tiny ass grocery store and they should have i mean they did this weeks later but they should have limited the amount of people that were in there but fire code wise that should have been enabled the whole time so you know i agree with you i also think that they have this like pseudo quote-unquote healthy thing that they do and I have like such a gripe with like the term healthy as like what the actual definition of it because I think the true definition of healthy is allergen friendly because the only things that are bad for you are foods

that are inedible rotten or you're allergic to that pretty much describes their produce literally literally so I do take an issue with them being like positioning themselves as this like quote-unquote healthy grocery store when or like a health food kind of well i guess health food usually people think of supplements but like a healthy grocery store that too yeah but like they have virtually no allergen friendly things and so i just i i hate that am i a little bit bitter because i can't eat all of their frozen foods yeah but like who's not find me a bitch who's not allergic to things who isn't okay the state within most trader joe's locations in the u.s is california which is 192 which is 30 percent 34 percent of all trader joe's locations in

america they are in 42 states plus the district of columbia but it's surely honest we did national domination that's like a threatening there's only five in texas all the places that i've lived i've only seen them in los angeles oh wow yeah no that makes sense because california 192 and then the next one is new york with 33 and also i think they purposely pick locations with the absolute worst parking in the world yes i agree because i want to give you like the hometown market feel to it i'm like lies literal bullshit but i will definitely like you know pick up some things there occasionally i still have not stepped in there since 2020 that's fair i can't go to that Ralph's that I went to yeah even though I had a buddy that like lady and I with her like three

kids and her mom like we became friends so like we were in it together but if I didn't have her I don't I would not have survived all right so mine is also food related and if you're not driving in your car I would like you to turn the lights down low and play it's so hard to say Goodbye by Boyz II Men, and also put a lighter up while I speak these very real words. Yesterday, we lost a real one. I got some shocking news. Actually, I feel like it really rocked the United States. My hot take, well, rather, it's a cool take, actually. Very cool. Some may say frozen is whoever made the decision, the person that works at Klondike to discontinue the Choco Taco should lose their job. I want to give a thank you to Mr. Alan Drazen, who was the creator

of one of the greatest contributions to the world. I don't, how do you describe a Choco Taco? It's like a waffle, but it's kind of a waffle cone, but soft. So then it doesn't crack as you break into it. And then you've got the ice cream, which is like the, I should say the shell, the cone itself is shaped like a taco shell, a hard taco shell. And then you've got the ice cream, which serves as like the meat and then the chocolate fudge and peanut combination. That's kind of like the toppings on top of the taco. And you might say, you know, we've still got drumsticks, but like drumstick, you don't get the same taste in every bite. The taco taco was perfected in how you got a taste of every one of the flavors. I would also like to blame Taco Bell because a few years ago,

they stopped carrying the taco taco in their stores. I remember the day that I went and I ordered one and they're like sorry I mean we've got cinnamon twists those of our those of our dessert I was like why is there an either or also I do not want to be driving with cinnamon sugar all over my shirt I want the choco taco it's very yes practical and just perfect of how it fits in your hand and I should have seen this coming because about a month ago I went to buy some Choco Tacos, and they were $15 for six. You're kidding. I was like, there was inflation, but this is absurd. Yeah. But we might have a savior. Some of you may know him as Alexis, but he's more widely known as Olympia's dad and Serena's husband. I truly was like, who's Alexis?

exactly he said that he wants to buy the rights so please continue to use your money for good because i know that you do put a lot of good out in the world and please olympia's dad buy the rights so i can continue to enjoy my favorite treat i don't disagree with you i just have to say something that might be incredibly controversial i had seen choco tacos one of my best friends jake was to be fair maybe jake stopped eating choco tacos and that's how they went out of business because like he between that and hot pockets like keeping them both in business he loved choco taco i was more of an it's it girl um i don't know what that is google it right now it's space it i've never seen this a day in my life it looks like a moon pie but san francisco

based but it's like a it is okay they have look at me i'm just such a local like homegrown farm to table girly it is like a chocolate you can have a couple different ones but like it's like the most delicious cookie you've ever had just like a cookie sandwich ice cream yeah but they also have one my favorite one was it was two chocolate chip cookies and they were like delicious cookies with vanilla oh it was delicious but so when we would go to the 7-eleven that's what i would get he would get a taco taco and always I was not allowed to have one that and a push pop and I was like damn it and I was like these look so cool one day that's gonna be me like that is just amazing wow so cool and I still to this day don't think I've ever eaten one but the day that

I found out that the taco shell was soft was a day that I've never recovered from because visually it looks like a hard shell taco so I thought there was going to be some crunch to it and finding out that it is literally just a soft waffle cone blew my mind it's still a little crispy it's just it's just soft enough so that it doesn't crackle when you bite into it yeah I do think that if Olympia's dad does bring back choco tacos I would love an option for choco tacos the dairy-free gluten-free yes but choco tacos hard shell and I want that to be the magic shell on top with a crispy waffle cone and I want it to be just as messy as eating like a regular hard shell taco with like a ton of like toppings and that stuff because I think there is room for

both there used to be both I mean there used to be just the hard one and people like were like it's too messy so now we're at the soft crispy i would like both but i don't think they're going to be dairy-free gluten-free and i don't know if my voice is loud enough so maybe if olympia's dad does it then it might be yeah i feel like olympia's dad is he he he created reddit and so constantly every day he is like i must put so much good into society because i put a lot of bad in there by inadvertently and i own that and so i must pay but i strongly believe that they need to get fired i also believe whoever ended the partnership with taco bell and choco taco they should also be it's definitely from taco bell's end they should also be fired and i hope that they were brought into

the office and it was just a powerpoint presentation of all the angry tweets about choco taco being like we could have saved this but they probably burned that bridge of choco taco choco tacos like no oh very very sad my condolences to everybody thank you who has been affected by this i probably have a picture on my in my phone of me enjoying the last time i had one next time i really need you to get an it's it like when you get like you can i don't like cookie i don't like the cookie ice cream combination i don't like it unless it's a hot soft cookie that's sitting beneath the ice cream but like i don't like a combo they're not crunchy but they are not hot love them though miss them that's like up top there with one of the things i miss the most

we're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back and we are back now it is time for but are you wrong where you send us your emails to but am i wrong pod at gmail.com and you let us know the situation going on in your life that you would like us to be the unbiased third party to tell you if you are in the wrong or not and we ask that you keep it under 300 words if it is not under 300 words we're not going to read it so if you have submitted it a while ago and it has not come on double check your word count and as always submit stuff there's a lot of ones that like are kind of similar to ones we've done before so we similarly to our other podcast don't blame me we don't want to constantly repeat the same

things because it doesn't change what we're gonna say so if you hear something and you feel like like oh this reminds me of something please don't yeah it's we're gonna say the exact same thing so we are currently looking for new submissions different ones ones that have not been done on the podcast before if it's wedding related we've pretty much answered most of that at this point most of like the general like wedding stuff as well as like getting back together after a breakup like you know unless it's like a very very unique different situation our opinions usually stay the same so send some of the something something wild a wild card you haven't heard on us do before we also ask that you include your ages and if you would like to also include the pronouns of

you and the people included in the story it is always anonymous but the more info we have the better okay hi megan and melissa i at 26 she her and my husband is 26 he him i'm a huge fan of both pods thank you i've been wanting to ask about this but i've been putting it off because i'm afraid my issue will come across as annoying privileged and i don't mean it that way i'm struggling with coming to terms with my husband being the only earner in our household and adjusting to the concept of, quote unquote, our money. I grew up poor. I never made good money. I've always worked physically and emotionally draining jobs, and I've always lived paycheck to paycheck. My husband, on the other hand, grew up well off, had a full ride to college,

and landed a well-paying job right out of school. We've known each other since we were 16, dated seven years, and got married nine months ago. In the last six months, I went down to part-time work for my mental health, and then last month, I finally left my job to pursue art, something I've always had a passion for, but could never afford to put 100% of my time into. I'm doing local events to sell and trying to get my name out there. I'm really struggling with feeling guilty for relying on my husband's income. We've discussed everything and are in a comfortable financial position without my income, but I can't help but feel like a burden. My husband says my feelings are silly because he fully supports me pursuing my passion and says it's our money now

and we can live comfortably on one income. So I have nothing to worry about. Do you have any advice for me coming to terms with transition? Am I wrong for feeling guilty for pursuing my passion. I never want to say someone's like wrong for feelings because I don't think feelings are so black and white, but this is one of those things that like you feel guilty because we've been taught that the only thing that you can bring to like a partnership is like financials and that that is something that it's like, oh, don't be a gold digger. Like women are just like, they just want to find a rich man to do blah blah blah all of that when in reality even if you weren't pursuing art like different people bring different things to a relationship and like

like you said like he had a head start in life and he is coming from a background of privilege which is going and he's a man and so I think that it would be more ridiculous it would be ridiculous to me if he insisted you stay in a job that was like hurting your mental health and like not pursuing your passions when you instead be could be living off of one income I also think that like in long-term partnerships and relationships him being able to like be successful in his job is not a solo endeavor like that's like even if you don't have kids and even if you're splitting a lot of like the household like tasks and things like naturally you are taking on responsibility for things that he is not doing like that's just how it works like people can't

part that's why in divorces people like their spouses are paid out for the money that that person has made during their marriage because you have been able to make said money because usually because of like having someone at home who is contributing to like maintaining the household and doing all these other things that like I don't think what you bring to a relationship should be valued financially, like that's like the top of whatever it is. I think that it's great that he is being supportive. I would be probably a little bit annoyed if he said like that feeling of being silly. I think I would have probably like had a more nuanced conversation about that. But I don't think you should feel like this. Like I don't think there's any merit

to you feeling like it is his money versus your money together because like you are a unit but i also understand because like matz and i have like fluctuated with who's made more money and currently he makes more money than i do and he'll cover more expenses for things and then i will and like he grew up with he family had money he grew up like full ride to like i mean he college was completely paid for, a lot more financial help and leg up than I did. So I definitely have always personally equated my worth with like my financial success and career success. So like it has been a dynamic that has been like hard to navigate. But I think that like you've lucked out and I also view, I feel like I've also lucked out with someone who will reiterate over and over and

over again that it's like I wouldn't be, we both support each other and like those things fluctuate and change and like you can't be where you are in your career if in a very high up very successful position all on your own like you have help from family you have help from your college you went to or the high school you went to a tutor is that you had your skin color your uh sexual orientation your gender like there are always things that aren't just based on hard work and i think that like when specifically men can recognize that their success is not all attributed to them and they share that with the people in their lives, I think that's a good thing. And I think if you can view it as less of, I'm not contributing anything to my husband is recognizing his

privilege and that this is something that we both benefit from. Yeah. And I think that he realizes that I wonder if one of his parents also didn't work. And so that's kind of something that he's used to, but you both have talked through it. He understands. And you, I think in the moment understood, but now that you're more probably at home more than you're not thinking of what you're pursuing as a job. So I think maybe changing the mindset of your art as in like, for me, I work from home and like, I'll roll out of bed and I'm ready to work. But like, maybe if you think of it more as like, this is your job where you get up and you get ready. I don't know if you have like an art studio that's at home.

So like you treat that space as like this is just where I'm doing my art or maybe there's somewhere because I know a lot of like if art is big in your community, then like there'll be like a collective art studio that artists will work out of. So maybe looking to see if there's something like that in your area that you can go to. So then it feels more like you're actually like focusing on a profession as opposed to your hobby. So I agree with everything with Megan saying, but I just think maybe changing your mindset of what you're doing for work as in, you know, I'm not getting paid for this now, but I'm investing my time and energy and my work into something that could be a bigger payoff for me, whether it's financially or mentally, which, you know, your mental health was very much on the line before. So, you know, if you're strengthening your mental health, then that's still making an investment into yourself. Yeah, I totally agree. So I guess the final verdict is with the caveat that I don't like to tell people that they're

wrong for feeling their feelings in the format of the show. I would say I think you would be wrong for feeling guilty about pursuing your passion, but I don't think that's your fault, if that makes any sense. I don't think that you're at fault for feeling that way, but I don't think that you should feel that way. Agree. All right. So my pick for this week, it is a wedding one, but it is a unique wedding one.

So hi, I, 24 female, have recently got engaged to my fiance, 24 male. We are planning to get married in 2024. My issue is my parents are getting divorced due to my dad having an online affair with a woman from another country. He is planning to move there after the divorce, likely before I get married. I found out through the woman messaging me. I haven't had the best relationship with dad due to him saying he doesn't like my fiance for no reason, then backpedaling when we got engaged. due to this he is not walking me down the aisle during my brother's wedding in june my dad's behavior was awful he spent most of the day on his phone he can be seen in the background of

photos family members commented as he was on it most of the meal i had to get him to come back inside twice his girlfriend was threatened by my mom and kept calling him i am now debating if i want him at my wedding. I was worried that if he is on the phone texting his girlfriend and I have my friends and family commenting on it, I will not keep my cool. I am also worried that my brother and his wife are friends with the girlfriend on Facebook, that she is trying to worm her way into my family, that she will force my dad to bring her without telling me. I am worried if I don't invite him it will put a strain on my relationship with my brother as he is seemingly plain happy family and I haven't had much support from my brother when I have been struggling with this

you didn't state what the thing is that you're asking like if you're wrong about so I'm just going to decipher that are you wrong if you don't invite your dad to your wedding yeah I don't think you're wrong at all because honestly he brought this on himself uh having an affair with the woman in a different country online also is this woman even real i know that she's friends with your uh brother and his wife on facebook but like a strong catfish can be a strong catfish they can have yeah they can have like a whole backstory how did he even meet this woman on Facebook, I'm guessing. And the divorce isn't even finalized yet. Yeah, I don't. If you don't invite him, I don't. First of all, he didn't enjoy being at your brother's wedding when he

seemingly has a good relationship with your brother. And if this woman is real and he does bring her to the wedding, a woman who has already admitted to being threatened by your mother, it's just not going to be a good time so I think you debating him not being at your wedding isn't like a bad thing and you have to your wedding is I know Megan you say that your wedding is about your guests but for me I think that the wedding is for I mean the marriage is for you but like people that are at your wedding should be there to support your marriage and if they're not there to support your marriage, if they're not there to be fooling in, if they're not there to love the people that you love, if they're there to be messy and feel threatened by other people

that are at your wedding, if they're there sitting on their phone their whole time, they shouldn't be at your wedding. So no, you're not wrong. And I mean, you've got two years, essentially, maybe things will change. Maybe we will find out if this woman is actually real. But at this point, I don't think you would be wrong for not inviting him to your wedding. I agree. I don't think weddings are about like pleasantries. Like I think that like if you don't like a family member, I don't think you should invite them. I think because someone invited you to their wedding, you don't have an obligation to invite them to your wedding. Like I think the only people you should invite to your wedding are people that you want there.

And then from there, don't make the people that you care about and you really like do things that they don't want to do. I did see a Reddit post where people were like, we're going to make everybody to have puppets because we love puppeteering and all of the guests we're gonna have hors d'oeuvres where you only have to use one hand because we want people to talk with their puppets the whole time don't worry we'll have a range of puppets that you like with links to buy from 100 to 500 instead of giving us a wedding gift and it's like uh no no no no no no no no no hard pass unless they're part of the like puppet community and everyone that you know into puppets i i honestly don't think think see anything wrong with that oh no but it's everybody

is resisting and doesn't want to do that and they're forcing them and you can't take the puppet off and you have to communicate through the puppets all night you go to the bathroom i don't know i guess they are in for a show you keep them in character like that's so fucking weird oh and oh sorry i didn't even include the worst part of that the reason why he's like that they like him and his wife like fell in love and they both were in the big in the puppeting puppeting community and they frequently still use their puppets at home and the implication was sexual and then it was like you can't involve 150 people in your kink when they have not consented to it yeah i feel like you like you can invite it but like if people don't consent then i just

don't think they should come to the wedding yeah no but they they're trying to they were trying to figure out how can we convince the like what can we say like how can we do this everybody's like make it optional and then make it abundantly clear that this is what's going to happen and then some people aren't gonna come like I also think that like I don't know this might be a hot take I don't think weddings should be that big of a deal where it involves if you don't invite someone to your wedding I think it does happen to be like oh this is a pivotal change in our relationship and all of that stuff I think that if it is like a real truly great honest wonderful relationship that is like going through some like hard times or whatever I don't think

not inviting someone to your wedding should get in the way of a reconciliation later down the road if the two parties mature so like I don't like the whole thing of being like well if you don't invite this person to your wedding like then the relationship that you have that is already fraught with them it will never ever ever get better and I just think that like why should I have to like risk ruining this day to have someone there who I don't currently have a good relationship with because I might have a better relationship with them down the road. And it's going to cause me all this like anxiety and stress. And I'm going to be unhappy about that because it's just as likely you're not going to have a good relationship with them later. And so you thinking that this

might affect your relationship, like with your brother, I think if not to be dramatic or all or nothing, but if people are not with you, they're against you. And I don't think that catering yourself to people who are not respecting like your boundaries and like what you want for how people are around and like if you want to prioritize making sure your mom's also comfortable and you're comfortable and you know that this will irritate you i think anybody who will give you shit for that they're not caring about you like and i would also assume probably the brother projecting as if he like didn't care about his what happened at his own wedding because some people would rather make you the villain than recognize like oh i thought i shouldn't have

invited that person right so I do not think you'd be wrong for not inviting him I wouldn't invite him but I would find out if this girlfriend's real right interesting well we're going to take another break and we're back okay now it's time for but are they wrong where we nominate the vote of the week and mine is something that popped off my twitter made me gasp three members of the la family behind the 18 million dollar COVID-19 relief scam were captured in Europe I do not know they got captured oh my gosh yes I am so happy that I didn't know about this prior because reading all of the shit about this up in arms up in arms I'm so glad that I feel like I it's like finding a series

after it's already finished so you have all the episodes to binge I'm like thank god because my blood was boiling reading this and then i had to keep reminding myself megan you found that you saw this because they've been captured so uh they are a couple from tarzana which is a suburb in los angeles so it's a couple and then a family member it's the husband's sister-in-law so they operated like a wife sister i think it's the brothers i'll get to it so they operate a massive of COVID-19 relief fraud ring and then they escaped to Montenegro like they're in a fucking James Bond movie they were captured and they were like the federal authorities were like looking for him so it's uh Richard his last name is A-Y-V-A-Z-Y-A-N and his wife Marietta her last name

t-e-r-a-b-e-l-i-a-n sister-in-law tamera d-a-d-y-a-n dad yeah as anyone i cannot sound things out i'm not good with phonetic spellings and things like that so i'm just gonna be using first names for this so he 43 then the wife was 37 they had like these like monitoring bracelets that they had after like they initially were convicted for this they sliced them which i'm like what is happening we have we keep people in prison we hold people in jail cells for like because they can't pay bail for like months and months and months years on end but these people just had these little bracelets that they were able to snip off and then they vanished august they were convicted in june they vanished he was sentenced uh to 17 years in prison for leading a

fraud ring that stole 18 million dollars that was to secure emergency pandemic loans that were meant for small businesses and his wife was sentenced six years. And then Tamara, who was the wife of his younger brother, vanished. And then she had been sentenced to 10 years and 10 months. So the three of them, they're among eight that were convicted as conspirators of this massive scheme. And they filed 151 fraudulent applications for loans that were like supposed to help keep small businesses afloat during the pandemic a hundred and fit first of all that's a full-time job i'm i'm so curious actually they were so easy to put like it was like it took like because i did it for my business and it took maybe like five minutes but i also the thing that people thought

it was like it was free money but when it came around for like the forgiveness party their forgiveness or you get paid back you had to show like physical things of how you use this like towards your payroll and that's where people got caught up oh and so like the payroll thing is when you had to prove that you actually used this money then that's how it got but it was pretty easy to put it through to get it they should have made it tougher yeah it took less than five minutes so they created like fake businesses to get these loans and they attach fake payrolls and forge tax returns on the applications. And then they opened bank accounts for these businesses with stolen identities. And then in 2020, they used $640,000 of these loans to buy a $3.25 million house in

Tarzana. And it was raided. They dashed out the back door, hurled grocery bags into the bushes, like hopping fences. And agents fetched the bag and emptied it. And it was stacks of cash, 40 450 000 in cash in this i don't know these people think that they were in a literal movie and so the jury decided that the government could confiscate the house and there was gold there was cash gold coins like gold coins diamond earrings wrist watches property acquired including a 35 000 rolex that one of them bought when they were on vacation in turks and cagos and they're all of this in text messages that like how they plan to create like fake payroll reports and make a fake employer identification numbers to make it look more legit they found like fake identification

documents credit cards checkbooks uh notary stamps and seals that belong to like state and federal courts and it is wild wild they like pled guilty in june the wife pled guilty in june and then she named her husband and his brother as co-conspirators so i'm like yeah rat him out and then her husband blamed her for all of the fraud and he was convicted to only five years in prison but they caught them and they like they left their children too while they're on the run it just blew my mind because there was no amount of secrecy to this like it was like the most obvious thing that like it does feel like a villain in a movie where you're like of course you're gonna get caught and they're also not that old and so like here's the thing I would morally I would never understand

like this is not an ethical scam morally I would never understand stealing money from like small businesses though I will a lot of people who got these loans the money didn't go it didn't like you weren't stealing money from the small businesses you were stealing money from the government because like everyone got as long as you qualify you got it so it wasn't taking away from anyone and the thing is is that like what they did i'm not going to compare it to like the game stop kind of thing but like these major airlines did this like they're all these huge or organic like companies who are making tons of fucking money they did this as well to get a fuck ton of money back from the government and that's not ethical this also is not ethical but but in the sense

that like would i rather two individuals do that than like a massive corporation and then fuck over their employees and you know not do anything that's actually helping and just continue to contribute to like the capitalism scam yeah i'd rather two individuals uh do that but i will say I would have thought if you're going to do this so lavishly, not like so and so not inconspicuously, so out in the open, I would have expected you to be at least like 75 or have someone with a terminal illness. I think that like if you don't have employees you as like or you were struggling yeah you're always you someone who works freelance you need to have a larger threshold of what your income is that you can live off of and like there is a large difference between um what you can live off of so you're not defaulting on any payments you're not getting behind on any credit card stuff

and you're able to pay your rent and like food and all of that stuff versus not wanting to change any aspect of your lifestyle as a pandemic is going on and they improve their lifestyle these people yeah people i saw people who like influencers who were hiring people to take they were like oh i'm decided i'm gonna get a loan and then i'm gonna get an assistant and they're like well i'm creating jobs like but it also proves to like the government could pay for anything at any point exactly and that's like i don't i'm not against people doing that but you know i think if you're gonna scam the government at least robin hood it a little bit and these people did not yeah yeah did not but i'm think they probably lived their best life and if a movie

is made i could see it happening like i could see the move because i'm sorry you're hopping your fence i'm sure they've already signed over their rights already in the same way that uh anna delphi did when she went to court that's how she was still able to turn looks in court that's how she was able to pay for her court because Shondaland bought her rights you know who's gonna play her who Ana de Armas look at this you could definitely yeah Ana de Armas and then for him I want to say buddy from Cake Boss but I don't think he's an actor oh uh the guy from succession the really obnoxious like the um one who did that interview jeremy strong jeremy strong and anna de armas starring in the tarzana tycoons

uh okay so my racial of the week is this actually happened at the beginning of july but july has been just like a month of of news so uh there's this woman in colorado who owns a funeral funeral home and she has been accused of stealing and selling body parts and she's pled guilty her name is megan hess and she's 45 and yep another megan and she is guilt she's on there's more coming but as of right now she's been she's pled guilty to one count of mail fraud and aiding and abetting and the charges come after she created this scheme where she was um selling hundreds of victims body parts to uh like scientifical and medical educational purposes for like research and stuff and the body parts were sold without the consent of the people's families and she worked

also with her mother at this funeral home and she said quote met with families seeking cremation service offered to cremate the descendants bodies and provide the remains to the families and so it didn't occur she was giving a lot of them like allegedly dirt and things mixed with a little bit of their actual family members she also created a non-profit organization in 2009 so she's been at this for a second called the sunset mesa funeral foundation which did business with donor services and officials have called it a quote a body broker service so she was running these body parts through this service and the income primarily came from her harvesting and marketing essentially donated human remains such as heads, torsos, arms, legs, and the entire body

according to the indictment in the case. So how did we find out? I think that they had saw how much money she was bringing in through this foundation and it just wasn't adding up right. so those like medical places or whatever they're just like we'll take it no questions asked sketchy well she had the foundation set up so it was coming through like she they thought that she was getting donations yeah getting donations from these people and saying like they i mean essentially like you pay five i mean a thousand dollars to get cremation for your family members And so she was using the funeral home as a way to get these. So she was taking in money from the people, from the families.

And then instead of giving them their actual family members body parts, she wasn't. And then keeping the body parts and then sending them out through her foundation. And probably some of the things that she got caught on already were like she was forging documents saying that these bodies were being donated to science. Yeah. Yeah. And you can't have that many bodies. No. all those bodies are gonna be donated but she was at it for a while and it was probably legit

at one point and then she was like oh i can make some money yeah with this and then faked it there was we went on like a haunted uh a ghost tour in edinburgh and one of the stories that they told us was about how like for i forget when it was but they got made into a movie and like matz has always really wanted to watch it but it was these grave robbers who would steal bodies and then do the same thing and like and it was like a very very very lucrative yeah i guess i always assumed more people donated their bodies to science than actually like do in practice how many people do you know that have died and donated their money their bodies i just thought theoretically like what am i i get well because i also didn't grow up religious like i don't have i don't know a lot

of like religious connotations i don't have any like personal ties to like your body in the afterlife and so i think now that i'm older and i know more about religion i think i know in certain religions you know in like judaism it's like there's a timeline for like of of the burial and funeral and stuff like that and so i'm sure in lots of other religions your body is part of like something in the afterlife and so like you wouldn't donate it but i always just kind of assumed that like you know a lot of religions it's more of like your spirit and your body is just your head your earthly body that gets lived so you could donate to science i guess it probably is just logistically it seems like a very easy thing but i i guess it's not

because it would be like really quick and your body has to still be like relatively healthy like oh that makes no sense unless they're studying like a certain thing that happened to your body yeah no that makes gotta be kept fresh ish like with your your organ donations they have to still be healthy organs that you donate yeah and also i'm pretty sure they are like looking for certain a lot sometimes they look for like certain things so like that they're not going to go in with the body with like blind wow let me just stop talking about this is gross to me sick pretty gross pretty sick and another fucking megan bringing us down oh i do want to attach one thing on that's not particularly a rachel of the week but i feel like it's ongoing for me that over 400 people that work

and tsa at the lax the los angeles airport have covet ongoing reporting from me ongoing story new developments every day fuck i hate that yeah and it was like this money this morning they reported it was like 250 and then when the update came it was 400 and so i'm sure since we've been recording there's more yeah wear your fucking mask sorry for yelling actually i'm not sorry don't apologize that is it for our episode everyone we hope you enjoyed head on over to the podcast app and leave a review because again it's my birthday so leave a fucking review for my birthday tell me like just how wonderful we are how amazing we are and then you can also go to our patreon so you can really be honest when you say and they're also just like so pretty

like they're just stunning absolute lookers gorgeous gorgeous girls and yeah make sure always we love to have your input for what we talk about on this podcast so if you come across something on tiktok tag us in it same thing with instagram send it to our dms either our personal ones or the shared podcast account go follow the instagram account and vote for today's episode of who you think was wrong and if you're still listening go comment on the instagram who would play you in a movie who would play you in a movie by the way no clue no clue i've been thinking about this for years and i have no clue who would play me yeah quinta she's good quinta can play oh and she and humor it would she would do it spot on like she would do it spot on same height great

and she can do that really deadpan delivery that's like her old school like mean sketch stuff like that is that could that would nail it i don't know anyone my age but you know right now my top ones that i'm told are rosamund pike alzi and millie delvey brown well i think um who i use as a placement holder for you is uh emma roberts yeah she she can do it she could do it i am pretty campy okay read the review the review says such a fun podcast from my first 101 Five stars. Megan and Melissa are two great people who give excellent advice while being aware of boundaries and helping writers navigate difficult situations. I called into their second podcast, Don't Blame Me, another excellent in all caps show, and they gave me excellent advice

that I did follow and had a successful outcome. If you are interested in the latest media hot takes or even just having a similar problem to one in the episode both podcasts are an excellent option for that they truly are two fun and honest women thank you thank you i love it when people take our advice and it works out well me too good points for us thank you so much and i hope you all complete your homework of leaving another of you for my birthday okay we'll circle back back it's a very off there's a delay there's a delay but i was trying to match you and you were trying to match me so i bet they're so fucking off yeah next time we'll be in person hopefully don't say that don't say we will manifest okay manifest okay goodbye everyone bye but am i wrong is a

production by me megan rinks and me melissa demont plus diamond imprint productions post-production by coco lorenz and production assistance by melanie d watson