Shutdown Fullcast - The Romance Disasters Episode

Episode Date: February 11, 2020

February means Valentine's Day, and Valentine's Day means romance, and the Shutdown Fullcast means disaster. We review your tales of amorous failure and share a few of our own. Please note: if you have used the Fullcast to find love of your own, we would love to hear about it and we will not be held responsible in the event of your breakup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the shutdown forecast. Oh, it's the internet's only college football podcast. What is college football? A form of love. What's love fraught with from time to time? Maybe more frequently for some of you than others. That's correct. Love is a disaster.

Think about that as we're on the way to Valentine's Day. Inevitably, a misadventure. A temporary arrangement. of insane hormones, strange feelings, and inevitably, you know, happiness? Is that part of it, Ryan? What's weird is this is the exact speech he gave up my wedding. Word for word. Yeah.

Also, inevitably, there's, you know, ocean tides rising, the earth, like, being consumed by the sun, the sun itself dying. So in the end, I think existence itself is a romance disaster. Because the sun loved the earth too hard. Yeah, it's like, we need some space, pal. Like, listen, we've gotten along really well for a really long time. But, like, boundaries are healthy. Yeah.

Like the ozone layer. You just got to back up a little bit. I mean, really, prior to his victory in the Super Bowl this year, Andy Reid was known for poor clock management. I like to think of Andy Reid as Love, the Cupid of football, because isn't love just a four-minute drill run when you only have two minutes on the clock? that's really existentially what love always is and also i want to see andy reed with the little wings and and wearing nothing but the little you know cupid wings and the bow and arrow i knew this was

going to be like there would be a point in this episode where it got too personal i did not predict it would be this quick that's on me that already happened and that was in our email inbox yeah we have gotten some of y'all need jesus we are Now, already in the midst of the shutdown full cast disasters episode, this edition being love, relationships, romance. A master of titling, as always. You know, I'm a writer, and that's why I do a podcast. No, man, writers publish stories.

That's true. Hmm. We'll go back on my titling. But again, editing is very important. They publish stories on banner society. Bannersociety.com. I win. You did.

I win this week. Thanks. Can I say something nice about our audience before we start? I recognize that this is out of character. First of all, I've been sick for two weeks with rampaging bronchitis. So this is a great episode for me to return in which I have to do most of the talking. We're excel at planning as always. But second, I would like to be very grateful for a moment that we do not have one of those audiences full of old men that write in to yell at you about vocal fry, because this is just what I sound like today.

If you have questions or concerns about the tenor of my voice, please send them to Bud Elliott. You can reach him on Twitter at 38 Godfrey. I'm confident that anybody who listens to this show, and especially with the number of episodes I've appeared on, has gotten over any voice issues, has just sort of, like, come to terms with it at this point. One day we will come forward and say that Ryan has, in fact, been doing all of his podcasting, all of his writing, all of his hard work at bannerssociety.com. That's bannerssociety.com. He's been doing all of it and his work before. from 40 feet below the Earth's oceans surfaces in the Cousteau pod where they have to breathe helium, right, to make it balance out with the oxygen,

and that you, in fact, have a rich basso in the vein of Barry White. I am the titular sphere from the book and the movie of the same name. I do hope you come back in your next life and you're like, that actually makes a lot of sense because Spencer is the gorilla from Congo. Spencer, good gorilla. Spencer is good gorilla. Spencer, Gorilla Spencer, can we do some podcast business? Podcast business, what's that business?

Podcast business? What's that business? I'm not well-in-for-ness. It's a business. Podcast business. It's coming, yeah. Jason. I'm not ready. Jason, tell the people where we are returning to. We're returning to the land of the big mad cow himself or herself. Uh-uh, that's a boy cow. All cows are girls and boys.

I don't know. That's in the Bible. It's not. Austin, Texas. We're coming back for whichever events it's called South by Southwest in March the somethingth. Which we're told is a con of some type. And not just because in the sense that we are being paid money to attend it. Ryan, what day is this thing?

Well, so they haven't announced that fully. But it is, it will be either March 13th, 14th, or 15th. Wait, I thought we're on the 15th. We think we are on the 15th. They of course have not said that for sure. Hey, at least we know we're going, which puts us way ahead of last year. So folks, try your odds. If you think we are right, then show up on the 15th. If you, for some reason, think we're wrong despite our spotless track record, then show up on a different day. I will go ahead and redirect Scott Frostay.com to the signup spot for this show. What do you have to lose except a $600 a night room at the Hampton Inn?

The show itself is free. I have one ask of our listeners this time around. If you went to this last year and you enjoyed yourself, could you just tweet out something about the experience, something positive, and then link to Scott Frost Day.com. We take so much of you from you, listeners. You were right the first time. Yeah, I know.

we take your time we take your patience we take your belief that audio can be balanced but we ask so little and this is the only thing i'm going to ask of you is if you came to the show last year and you had a good time just tweet something out about it so other people can say yes i will also go see these idiots ryan a question what if people had a bad time that's fine too yeah actually if you had a bad time you should also tweet if you're that bailer dude who slid your hand up my arm and told me that I had to unblock you on Twitter, drop a pin with your location. This will be your year, buddy.

Yeah. This is there it happens. It'll work this time. Come back and see if you can lose your other arm. Okay, that was podcast business. I know we're on the clock here. So does anyone care if I go with my romance disaster first? Can I give us a little bit of a lead-in?

Sure. Because I have, I was just to take you a little bit behind the scenes here, beloved listeners. We divided up the labor for this show in which Ryan and Spencer have not read the responses that we got over Twitter and via email. Jason is going to read the tweet respondents, and I am handling the email respondents. And Ryan and Spencer are going to be hearing these for the first time. As I said a few minutes ago, a lot of y'all need Jesus. A number of y'all need therapy. this is perhaps our fault that we should have mentioned

that this show is a funny show and I would just like to characterize some of the stories that we will not be using today. One wonderful quote was a woman who wrote in and said of her college boyfriend, we had a very chaotic relationship, but thankfully only in the college sex comedy cinematic sense of the term.

That is very much the spirit in which we were hoping people would write. What we got a lot of was incredibly sad, next level, traumatic shit stories followed by things like, I'll answer any questions you may have. Sure. This very beautiful line of poetry that I pulled from a story that just says, we are at best acquaintances now. Really sums up a lot of them. My favorite respondent, I think, was the guy who, his name is not John Smith, but it is, it is, it is so plain Jane Nebraska

that it might as well have been John Smith who was like, please don't use my name. Wow. His name is not quite, but almost John Smith of Nebraska. Sir, you remain anonymous. In fact, I've anonymized everyone because I know y'all didn't ask your partners

if you could share these. So thanks in advance for not doing that. Yeah. Yeah, it's okay. it's okay that you didn't do this because I got you but some of you all got some things you need to work through and this show is the place to work through

our emotional issues so I in contrast I did specifically ask my partner if I could share this story and in fact she was so worried I would tell it incorrectly that she threatened to come on the show herself or call Holly and give her a list of

demands I'm actually kind of surprised that she didn't do this so so i promised i would preface uh i would offer the following prefaces one um my my wife is completely right and i was completely wrong uh and two there is a coda to the end of the story that i i have been asked to remember to add and if i don't prod me on that oh and i'm supposed to i'm supposed to reach a handout for new listeners um although my colleague's wives do threaten to call me up on on regular occasion. Ryan's wife and I went to college together. This is not why they're married. That's another long and funny story that we've told before. That's true. But yes, I remain here with baton

raised, ready to crack his knuckles in defense of my sweet friend. So, here's the story of how I went on an accidental date while I was not single. My wife and I had been dating for probably like four or five months. Things were going well. We were exclusive. And a friend of mine from college sent me an email that was basically like, hey, I just got engaged. I'm coming to New York with my fiancé. We're having some people get together to go out to dinner, would love to see you. By the way, I have a friend who will be attending this, who is new to the city, doesn't know anybody. I think it would be nice if you could, like, meet her and get to know her or whatever, like, help her feel welcome. So I was like, cool, this all sounds fun. So I tell this story. I tell, I relay this invitation.

to my wife, to Caitlin, who's at that point just my girlfriend, and tell her what's happening. She says, you dummy, you're being set up on a date. And I say, I don't think that's true. Like, this friend is somebody who, A, is very unlikely. He's not the type to sort of set anybody up on a blind date whatsoever. And if he did, he's so like, he tends to be so concerned with like handling things the right way and social niceties that I'm pretty sure he would. would have been blunt about it. He would have said specifically, I want you to meet this person, I think you might get along, whatever. Folks, at this point, I want to offer a blanket rule to those of you out there still navigating these waters, especially the young ones. There has never been an attempt to show someone around a new city who doesn't know anyone that is not romantic

on at least one side. That's not how it works. No, no, whether you knew it or not. Unless they're in the drug trade. Okay, that's fair. They can have romances, too. I was not in the drug trade, regrettably. So I go to this dinner, and I'm honestly thinking like, this is going to be easy, this is going to be fun, I like meeting new people. I was young enough that I still liked meeting new people. And I show up, and I get there a little bit early, and I meet my friend and his fiance, they're the first one's there, and I'm the next to arrive. And they immediately start talking about this this girl who's coming and it is so clear at that moment that yes i have been

set up on a date so i rather than sort of like try to skate i lay things out pretty i'm like look i'm so sorry i didn't i misunderstood like the pretext here i'm involved in a relationship i would still like to meet your friend and like be friendly and whatever whatever she eventually arrives somebody explains it to her it's a little bit awkward but like it's not that big of a deal until the fiancé gets very drunk at this event. And the fiance starts talking a ton of shit to a bunch of other people that I don't know. The friend who's coming in from out of town is the only one of these people at this like group of 12 that I have ever met in my life. And she just basically starts dragging me for the duration of dinner. And I like just sort

of sit there and take it because, A, I have not heard this part of this story. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have, like, I, like, I just sit there and take it because I fucked up. I did, whether they know it or not, I was warned beforehand. And, like, I don't really, like, it's, the person having the worst time is the girl who thought she was coming to be set up. Like, she's, she's definitely having a worse time than I am. So whatever. So she, like, drags my ass for 30 minutes. And I, and eventually dinner comes to an end, and I leave.

And on the way back to the train, I, I call Caitlin and I'm like, Caitlin, this was so bad. She was so rude. I can't believe this happened. I'm like explaining how frustrating and shitty this was. And I don't think one person has ever felt less sorry for another person than my future wife in that moment. She did not care at all that I had had this experience. She did not feel bad for me in the slightest.

she was just adamant of like her point was just like I told you I told you this is what was happening but you didn't listen and you didn't ask follow-up questions so you deserve every bad thing that happened to you the good news is my friend did not end up marrying that woman that he was affianced to because she was just straight up terrible so that's how I accidentally went on a blind date and got dragged for I'm texting Caitlin right now to tell her that you made her the villain Why would you do this? She doesn't listen to the show. I know. That's why I'm letting her know. Fuck. That's advanced. That's friendship.

Ryan, did you at all feel like the canary and the coal mine in this situation? If it wasn't going to work out anyway? I think it helped because I did sort of confront my friend later. I was like, hey, man, what the hell? Why didn't you tell me I was being set up on this date? And he was like, yeah. My fiance really pressured me into it. I didn't want to do it.

So that's probably why I was being kind of like cagey and weird about it. So yeah, I think I was probably, I don't know if I was the canary, but I was probably one of many red flags in his journey. And now he's married to somebody else who has never tried to accidentally set me up on a blind date, even though I'm not single. So she's great. Did y'all see the telegraph interview with Bong Tunho after he won all them Oscars yesterday where they asked him at the...

the secret to his creative process. I'm pulling up the interview right now just to make sure I get the quote correctly. I try to maintain a very simple lifestyle, he says. Drink coffee, write, and try not to meet a lot of people. The dream. Yeah. And you look at that. He's got an Oscar in a fantastic air.

He's got enough Oscars to make them make out. He did make them kiss. My hair is okay, but I do not have an Oscar. Yes. Give it time. Let's talk about our other romantic disasters. All of them. But I would probably pick this one.

I took one girl to prom and I really liked another girl. And rather than stop one, I took two women to two different proms. keep in mind my solution at that point was not to fix the problem but make two new problems and twice as much cost. Kids let this be a lesson that it doesn't matter. Listen, a lot of you have kids now at this point. A lot of them are entering their own awkward phases. Let this be a listen to your son perhaps that it doesn't matter what he looks like.

It's not correlative to how much he's going to get in high school. Polygamy is still on the table. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, man, band geeks got to bang other band geeks. It's fine. That's true. That's how you get more band geeks.

That's AP biology right there, friends. How did, how did, did either of these prom dates discover the existence of the other? Yes, because someone told them. Wow, who saw that coming? Wow. Information security. Mm-hmm. Did they already know one another?

No. Okay. Who was the person who told them? Did they then know each other? The person who told them. them was a third girl who had a crush on you and wasn't either of the two ones that you took to prom and wanted to stir shit up.

Listener. Your brother. You're hearing his voice right now. Wait, what? You idiot? Yep. Yep. Wow.

How did that go? The repercussions down the line weren't very good. However, I did pull it off. Okay. I mean... Yeah. And down the line, It led to some terrifying moments of, you know, I got some stuff back from one of the ladies, and it was on a box on my porch, and my mom said, is that a bomb?

Huh. Yeah. Well. But it wasn't, but it wasn't. But it wasn't. No, because we didn't date in high school. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. In Florida, nobody uses bombs because that would require using the mail, and that's where they find your weed. Yeah. I don't have any good romantic. disasters on the order of capers. Yeah. All of mine probably have statute of limitation issues. I did once get

broken up with over aim at work on my birthday. That does remind me that my brother, the villainous Todd, um, broke up with a girl on her birthday and he did not know it was her birthday. Oh, classic Todd. Super Todd move.

Jason, you got any disasters to share? I'm going to throw a quick one in and then get to the tweets, which were distinguished from the emails in that these are all already public. So you are all clearly proud of what you've done. And also, there's very little sadness here. You are just rolling around in the mess you've made in front of God and everyone. I don't have a lot of spectacular disasters. In high school, early college, I was the signal misser. Like, this was my, like, of the many, like, American male trope. this was very much mine um the epitome of this was girl and i drive to birmingham for

concert drive back hey should we stop at hotel nah let's keep going i look back the rook warrior says press on yeah i look back like um i look back at this like buddy it's not it's not a regret because like hey things you know i might not be happy with my family you know i might have an entirely different family and that would be terrible you know but like looking back it's still like at least aware of what's happening. Jason, can I, can I throw in... Two rush, diverged in a wood, and I did not know either existed. Too rush, too much, diverged,

and I kept walking. Can I throw in one reader submission right here that's right in line with that one, because it's a, it's the most beautiful case of signal missing that we got in the emails? Sure. Yeah, I stand with this person. Without knowing of course. Here's a, this story about a guy who went on a couple dates with this girl.

It went really great. On the, this is from, by the way, in the interest of anonymity, all of these are from user mat because you are all named Matt as far as I'm concerned. Ladies is Matt's too. This is all fine. So user Matt. We went on a couple dates that went really great. On the night of our third

date, she asked if I could just come over instead of going out. I came over and we hung out in her room and she put the Incredibles on the TV. She started making some pretty clear advances, but I really just wanted to watch the Incredibles since I hadn't seen in the years. Now,

there's more to this story in which a traumatic breakup ensues, but I think the disaster is right here. And so this is where I'm going to end this story. This one's on you, pal. Sorry, Matt. There were, let me spin off of that one. In the tweet side, we did get a lot of first dates

where the movie was not appropriate. You know, The Road, children of men. I took a girl to see Saw on a first date. Sure. I heard it was an intense thriller. Yeah. Oh, no. Oh, my actual first date was to see,

I think I told you guys this when we decided to do romance disasters. My actual first, like, not really date. Date in the sixth grade was to see Renaissance Man starring Danny DeVito. This person had been badgering me for a date and to this day remains one of my dearest friends, which is really big of him, considering that I did not want to go out with him, brought our Swedish exchange student, and made her sit between us during the movie. Ooh. Ooh.

I got a good. They also did not hit it off, if that's what you're thinking. I got a good one. I had a romantic weekend at Amelia Island where I cheaped out, got some hostile type bungalow shack thing instead of a proper hotel and celebrated love by getting ringworm together. Hey, put a ring on it. I did. Several.

On your butthole. Yep. So the epitome for me of the movie thing, which was a whole genre in our mentions, comes from C. Brown, ATL, where my dad, C. Brown's dad, took my future mom to see a clockwork orange on their first date. C. Brown carried on the tradition by taking his future wife to see a girl with a dragon tattoo. Just cannot wait to see what C. Brown and Mrs. C. Brown, what their future. your son decision he makes. I'm assuming like a remake of like, you know, the ring or something like that. So my, uh, my then fiancee and I got engaged on the interstate in the middle of a fight

on I-185, um, and basically decided to get engaged so that one of us or the other would shut up, which is not a great foundation for marriage, as we would later learn. But we, we tried to make up a story for my parents that made it. sound better than what we actually had done. And they saw right through it immediately. But I'm grateful that they saw through our lives because if that had not happened, I would not have found out that my parents got engaged in the car on the interstate, on the way to Gatlinburg to see a laser light show of Dark Side of the Moon.

Wow. Wow. 43 years married today. Not today, but you know. That energy is so powerful. I know, man. Oh, my God. Listen, let's talk about deterrent.

Germanism. I was never going to be anything but what I am. That's fair. To be clear, I don't consider this a disaster. My parents are gods. Oh, I just wanted to say that my God, if you had one moment where you were both at the planetarium listening to Dark Side of the Moon and you looked over and said, yeah, this is love, then I don't think you need any other proof whatsoever. The other thing is, what if you go to Salt or Clockwork Orange, or any other movie like that. And you look over and the other person goes, God, I'm so turned on right now. It's either the best moment of your life or a complete verdict that, nah, it's ain't going to be it. I think it's helpful to get clear signals, right?

That's a very clear signal. Yeah. Two more quick ones in this burst from Beer Nye, in the form of Bill Nye, had a girl break up with me over the 2006 Ohio State at Texas game, perfectly valid, and she stole my Chappelle's show season two DVD set. Wow. Chris, straight to the heart.

And finally, to close out with, this sort of felt like the pop culture group of mine from Rachel with two A's on Twitter, there is more to this story, but I'm cutting right to the chase. We are cutting right to the writing prompt core of this story, a single sentence. I threw his butt plug onto the roof. of the Oregon Historical Society With that you can create the greatest story

ever told either Well he might have literally Yeah on the roof That's the end of This first trio of tweets

Did you say Which historical society The Oregon Historical Society Yeah Okay Cool Man that is

I really thought I had I had a slam dunk where there's a breakup after this but the part in the story that I really just want to hear more about is we took a romantic rendezvous to the Nick Sabin statue

this reader Matt does not mention anything else about this and it's all I want to know more about but no Oregon Oregon Historical Society tops this absolutely Some say it's still up there to this day a part of now it's a part of Oregon history It's like the pizza in Breaking Bad

just sitting there also the wording is important i threw his butt plug up there yeah go do that yours oh sure when it's in trouble it's his butt plug yeah that's the weirdest episode of gravity falls i have ever seen i got another one here that also sounds like it could be vaguely historical this person matt did not mention what part of texas they are from uh but in high school a girl i was dating left me for another guy one of her justifications was that his family owned more land than mine. Damn!

What kind of baronial shit stirring were y'all up to? What century is this email from? Yeah. I just assume it's Texas. Okay, counterpoint. Think about the dumb reasons. High schoolers switch

boyfriends or girlfriends. Like, I stand to inherit more land. It's a much better reason than most high school reasons. That's a really good point. I have broken up with a dude because he didn't like a play that we went to see. What play?

Arcadia. Okay. He was wrong. It's Tom Stoppard. I fully stand with you. Thank you. Yeah. Anyway, this is the,

this is the perhaps the most full cast one we got. But close runner up was the, I went out with a girl who didn't recur in my call or text. So I checked her Twitter and found she had tweeted a poll asking her followers is if she should let me down easy or rip my heart out. I voted for rip his heart out. Yeah. I think if you did that and tweeted it,

you've already chosen option B. Yikes. Spencer, I'm going to throw to you here real quick because I know that you have told stories in the past about you took a class for course credit at the University of Florida in massage. Did you not? I did. How did that help you in your romantic life?

You know, it actually did. I think it, you know, I think it helps set the mood a lot. I'm not going to say, you know, you don't want to lead with that. Right. You never, ever want to go, hey, you know what a good thing to do right now with you. Oh. Hi, I'm Spencer undressed to your level of comfort. So that leads me to this story from user Matt.

Yeah. I was trying to woo a girl in undergrad, and I thought I'd surprise. her and give her a hot stone massage. I grabbed the smoothest rocks I could find in my apartment flower bed. Jesus Christ! And put them in a pot of boiling water.

Jesus Christ! No. I regret to inform y'all, although I'm happy that we are not careening over this particular cliff. My roommate stopped me before they realized what was about to happen. The girl and I ended up dating for four years

before she dumped me at my close friend's wedding. I, wow, this is like a really good test of like, I'm trying to put my legal brain on and think like, what would, if she sued, what would the argument? Because the, the counter argument would be, you agreed to a hot stone massage that your boyfriend wanted to do in his apartment. And you asked no questions about the provenance of these rocks or their hotness. Cavayette Amtore applies here 100%. this next one from user Matt also feels like it could have come from any number of our readers because it involves a very large man and a much smaller girlfriend on winter retreat in high school the guys and girls were all roughhousing in the snow

and I saw from afar the girl I had a crush on I took a run at her and tackled her and as soon as I got up I knew I had done something wrong. I was 6'2 and over 200 pounds in high school played football and rugby. She couldn't have been more than 5'5. My friends later said they definitely saw her head snap back. She was in a daze and was later diagnosed with a concussion.

It was the greatest tackle of my high school career. She did not go out with me. Isn't it nice to know that most high school and college men are not any better at romance than literal King Kong like they have no more game than King Kong for a pretty lady Hey

Hey King Kong was at least nurturing It's not true of most high schools That's that's true That's fair They're less than king king king king king was Protective You're right Also showed Faye race and things

She could have never seen before Right He's basically this is basically Aladdin but with a gorilla he can show you the world swat some biplanes from the sky God Gorilla Spencer is really just ruining my whole day

All right I have one more specifically football themed one And then I'm going to throw it back to Jason I don't think this is a disaster at all But I did enjoy it Dated a girl for about two months Her family invited me on vacation to Disney World Jackpot free Disney World The first morning we're there

I find out that they're huge Clemson fans, and they're also one of those families that wear matching outfits to Disneyland. Clemson orange sweatpants and sweatshirts with Clemson Dad, Clemson Mom, et cetera, all written in the fucking Disney font. They had an outfit already for me that said Clemson's son. They should have said Clemson, but okay. So after walking around to the, listen, this couple. Did you say, hold on, did you say they'd been dating for two months? Yes. Wow. Okay. So I'm going to get to the end because what happens in between is frankly not interesting. A breakup ensues. But I have to include this absolute perfect dad joke that happened in here. So after walking around

the Magic Kingdom all day, we're trying to run and catch a tram back to the parking lot. We don't make it in time. And as we see the train pull away, Clemson Dad says, well, I guess we were just too tram late. In which everyone but the protagonist falls out laughing. And my dude, I'm sorry, Matt, you are the bad guy here. That joke is great. Slamming. What's wrong with you, Matt? Here's the thing.

Some of these stories are, like, anonymous enough that you could be like, well, there are a lot of six-two dudes who played football and may have tackled a smaller woman in the snow. Who's to say? This is so specific that, like, there are not that many Clemson families that have their matching Disney font Clemson gear. They'll never catch him, though, because I said his name was Matt. Damn. True. There's like a kind of them. At least nine.

I like that you were creating basically like a Thomas Crown Affair, but of just like 30s-ish white dudes who went to an ACC school. Matt, Matt is our Rosal Ghoul. Okay. It's like a Spartacus kind of thing. Yeah, I am Matt. I'm Matt. No, I'm Matt.

I love public subs. From the children of my master, whom I also taught Madden 14. I too have a fishing shirt. Let's see, Jason, what you got? I call this pair business relationships, okay? From Shocker Saman... I already am terrified of this, but go ahead. This first one is good.

The second one is my second favorite of all of the tweets. Freshman year, I was in a 12-person tent camping out for two months for spots at the Duke Carolina game. My girlfriend was also in the tent group. We broke up two weeks into it and then had to cohabitate, sometimes alone, for six more weeks. to see ACC Basketball. And like, you cannot leave because now you've let down the entire group. You can't stay there alone because you'll go mad out there in the wilderness. Someone will overpower you, take your tent.

Like, that's how bloodthirsty these people are for ACC basketball. So you need the strength of two. You have to watch each other's backs, even if you actively despise each other's backs because you've broken up. So, talk about take and went for the team. This is why you can't get divorced on the Oregon Trail. Like, the game won't let you because they're like, where are you going to go? Where you're going to do? You got to stick together.

You got to hope one of you dies of dysentery. You know, someone probably... The original divorce. Someone probably did that. Got divorced on the Oregon Trail? Yeah, no, two people probably hated each other so intensely that one of them just said, fine, I'm going to go die of dysentery by myself. No, no, you stick around.

because if you wait long enough, you, poof, 150 pounds of meat. I'm taking the salted meat with me, Enoch. No, no, I'm going to assault Enoch and take him. Wow. My beloved husband, Enoch, after he dies. Now I understand why they didn't have this feature in this children's computer game. Enick has died of divorce. Next from Brassah Farras, which I'd put in the Hall of Fame of these if I had one.

I once went on a date with a guy who taught piano, To the mother of two kids, I babysat for. All right. I love the convolutedness and I love, all right, what a sweet, innocent guy. I think I've got this. Okay. Over dinner, he explained to me he was interested in starting a new business model of dealing legal drugs only out of the trunk of his car. What part of Tennessee is this?

He took me out to ask if I wanted in. This tweet, I would guess, is most relevant. related to Georgia because brass fast is a proud UGA alum go dogs could be South Carolina too I mean this is just some fucking like this is uh

the the uh what are they the fucking the two goofballs on Parks and Rec that like you know coming up with bullshit schemes Jean Ralphio yeah yeah this is a Jean-Ralphio scheme I've ever had this is an entertainment 720 yeah I love it legal drugs only

it's perfect Which I'm pretty sure that's illegal too, right? Yes, yes, it's 100% illegal. You have skirted nothing. You might as well just sell heroin. Unless the plan is to resell over-the-counter drugs. Unless it's fucking pepto-bizball. Hey, I got Zyrtec here.

Hey, hey, hey, I got ZerTech. Is this like a situation where you park outside the dorms on Sundays, like a real low-fi version of those hangover nurses in Vegas? Maybe. I guess. I just love, I need a partner and we need to be romantically linked. Let me guess. He didn't have a car.

He has the trunk. This absolutely raised like he did not have a car. The storefront is the trunk of a car. So, oh, maybe what we need here is a getaway driver. We need someone to relocate the car. I think what Holly's suggesting is that he's the ideas man but didn't have a car. Yes, that's absolutely what I'm suggesting. I'm the brains of this operation and you're the Buick.

Right. my this this reminds me of and i am not changing on this because it works my uh my now deceased uncle bubba uh he and that was his nickname was bubba uh he once was married for five days before he's one of those people you go oh those celebrities crazy celebrities married for five days nope he just skipped the celebrity part went straight to the only being married for five days. He once came to me and said, hey, do you want to help me sell natural gas? And before he finished the sentence, I said, no. Hey, do you want to help me sell natural gas? No. Was he siphoning? Like what fucking jars of it? Wait, no. Is he like a recreational fracker? Better. It was, I said,

well, where do you? I said, no. And he goes, well, you know. No, but I have follow up questions. And the follow up questions were, were, is this a pyramid scheme? And he said, I don't know what that is. So yes, check. And I said, how does it work? And he goes, well, I buy some from someone else. And then I sell it to someone. So I would sell it to you, and then you would sell it, and we'd just make money.

Yeah. So what's the problem? Yeah. Yeah. And that was, that was, I said, that's a pyramid scheme. And he goes, no, no, no, it goes this way. Drew a little line. No, you're saying three dimensions.

I'm in two. It's two-dimensional. So the line is going up from, is going up diagonally to the right from the bottom. That just looks like profit to me. Yeah, it's more of a ski slope. You like skiing, don't you? That's just stonks. Yeah, stonks. Like, literally, my uncle came to me and did the stonks diagram.

I was like, what do you think about that? Is that a business model? Which side is this uncle on? The maternal side, believe that. Whoa. Swerve. Curpoll. When you go on a date and the premise of the date is to get a co-conspirator for your

legal drugs out of my trunk scheme. Do you lead with that, or do you try to have, like, a good date and then end with it? I think what you do is you're sort of walking through, in your own mind, a job interview, right? Like, so where you work? Where'd you work for that? Where'd you work for that, you know? See, I think the key is to make it seem like it was their idea the whole time. Well, yeah, ideally.

Like start talking about legal drugs. Oh, boy, you're right. It would be a great idea to sell those out of the trunk of a car. You know what I could go for? The office that goes everywhere. There's just nowhere in the parking lot to get them. Pretty fucked up. I feel like my ask me about my plan to sell legal drugs out of the trunk of my car edible arrangement is raising a lot of questions already answered by my ask me about selling legal drugs out of the trunk of my car edible arrangement.

I would also like a Vanisited on Info Legal Drugs Only shirt. Sure. Right. We can do that. We can do that. That was the end of this tweet burst. I have another UGA story from user Matt. Valentine's Day came, and I was scheduled to work at my after-school job at Best Buy.

Early in the day, my boyfriend offered to bring me dinner since I was on a short shift and couldn't leave, and I asked for a Cajun Filet biscuit from the Bojangles down the street. The store closed at 9, so when 8 p.m. rolled around, I tried to call him to see if something was wrong. He didn't answer. I texted. No answer. I kept calling, and eventually, he picked up the phone. He had been playing PlayStation with his roommate all night, and apparently forgotten I existed. I was pissed and also really hungry since I hadn't eaten dinner. I told him I didn't want to see him that night.

He took that as an indicator that I was working up the nerve to dump him. So he got in his car to come to the store and I left to try to avoid him. This ended up being something of a moderate speed car chase around Athens as he kept calling me to try and find out where I was going. And I kept yelling at him for being an enormous dipshit. Let me love you. This is Mark Cuban trying to resign D'Andre George. Jordan, right? Considering this is in Athens, I'm amazed this didn't lead it, this didn't end in a

dual arrest, but I do have another story from user Matt that involves the police. Matt is so busy. I know. I'm excited because I can think of several Mats who actually listen to this show, and I'm like, ah, they must be either hating or loving this naming convention. Their name is Matt. They're used to this. That's fair.

My girlfriend's 17-year-old sister took us to the movies. this was a high school date. My date and her sister got into a shouting match in the theater. I forgot to mention in the setup. This dude has a broken leg and is on crutches at the time. Well, at this point, nothing's wrong. He's got a broken leg and he's on crutches, but the sister with the driver's license is taking him

and his girlfriend to the movies. My date and her sister got into a shouting match in the theater. They took the fight outside, leaving me and my crutches watching high school movie the musical you know what you know what i'm talking about that thing after maybe 10 minutes i crouched out to the concession stand where i found that the sisters were in mall jail i was allowed to bail them out because the cop felt bad that i was a on crutches b without another ride home c on a first date the story does not end there that they didn't have to call their parents

to bail them out, that she tried to kiss me. My zipper got wrapped up in the fur of her jacket and I yanked back so hard that I fell over due to the crutches, dragging her down on top of me. Her sister whipped around to see her sister laying on top of me on the ground of the parking lot. The back of my head was bleeding profusely and my day's eye landed squarely

on the stubby area of a crutch that goes under your shoulder, detaching her retina. Oh, no. I got five staples in my head and a concussion diagnosis. And that's why you don't bail people out of mall jail. You let them stew. No, you got it. Man, also, what a great beginning to

a relationship if you had, right? Yeah, I left you in mall jail, but you needed to simmer down a little bit, catty. I love how, I don't know if this one had any sort of, and then we lived happily ever after, but like, at least on the tweet side, there were tons and tons and tons of these where an ending nearly that ridiculous ends with and then we had three kids and now we are married and we love each other very much there were so many of those i got one of those um jason do you want to read one of those or do you want me to no go ahead i actually didn't grab any of those i don't think but yeah i've i've got a long one but it's a good one uh my girlfriend would always make it a hat this is very full cast oh god this is an animal disaster and a holiday disaster and a relationship disaster with a happy

the ending. My girlfriend would always make it a habit, says Matt, to put her makeup on in the car on our way to dates, events, and whatnot. Knowing this, my plan for proposing to her was to attach a note to my passenger side visor with a ring tied to a string at the bottom of the note. This is a great plan. This is cute. I had everything in place for a Sunday afternoon. Sorry, one second. Podcasting is a visual medium, and I just turned my screensaver on. I had everything in place for a Sunday afternoon. I would pick her up at her parents' house and on the way to Sunday lunch at her grandmother's place,

she would start putting on her makeup as usual, flipped down the visor and see the ring. I got everything set up, showed up to her parents' place, and as we were walking towards the front door, her mother ran into the house, holding her brother's dog in her arms. Apparently the dog had swallowed a wasp,

and before we could even gather ourselves to do anything, the dog died in her arms on the living room, floor. While the family grieved, I went outside and took all the stuff off the visor. And needing to figure out something quickly, I called an audible. And instead of lunch at the grandmother's house, I took the girlfriend away from the chaos of the house to the restaurant where we had our first date. I neglected one thing, however, and that was to figure out that the restaurant was closed on Sundays. As I pulled into the empty parking lot, my stomach sank. I then proceeded to tell her about everything that I had planned and abandoned before

anti-climactically pulling the ring out and placing it not on her finger but in the palm of her hand. She said yes and cried tears of joy before calling me an idiot for canceling my well-thought-out plans over the death of a dog that she didn't really like. I probably should have added that I asked for her to add for his daughter's handed marriage by taking him to WrestleMania. It will be eight years of marriage this. August as soon as that happened this whole thing was going to be fine yeah that was

so there is a lesson to be taken from this story that I firmly believe in and that is that if you're going to propose you should not overly plan out the the circumstances under which you will propose you should like put a lot of thought into the ring and you should put a lot of thought into like you know making sure that this is a thing you're ready to do and all the like, responsible adult things, but, like, you should just have the ring with you and wait for a good moment, because the more you try to, like, plan it and shape it and make it perfect, like, here's my thing. Diarrhea can come at any time, and you can't fault your partner for getting diarrhea.

Not if you've got a buddy with Emodium out of his car trunk in the parking lot. You're right, and then you propose next to the mobile pharmacy where you got the amodium and love each other for I think asking like it's most frequently going to be like 22 25 year old male to wait for the perfect moment. I feel like that's very incomplete advice. But generally I agree. I don't think you have to wait for the perfect moment. You just have to wait for a good moment. Wait for any moment. Okay. Like I proposed my wife on a trip in Ireland and I didn't decide like, okay, it's going to be at this place on this day. I just carried the ring around. And when it felt like there was a good moment to do it, I did it. That's it. Okay.

That's all I did. And it was great. So we're going to put this in terms like, you know, dudes of that age. Ladies can propose too, but I assume a lady would have a better grasp of when the right moment is. You know, it's sort of, you know,

you're playing mad and you're in the pocket as the receiver open. If they're not, you tuck it and run. That means hang on to the ring. Don't force the throw. Don't be a hero. Don't take the sack. You just get rid of it, you know.

Just throw the ring away. Throw the ring into a pond and buy a new ring. Live another day. put it finance a new ring yeah and if the ring is thrown back at you by the way signs signs yeah i i do really like my favorite part of that is the placing the ring in the hand for some reason like this is one of those things you see on twitter people describing a normal thing and they're like you know it like uh accountant boring no power whatever and then like tabulator of numbers powerful mysterious like this is the that version of handing someone a ring like this how this is

a haunted amulet. Yes, it's like, I entrust you with the power of the ring. You know, like putting on her finger, like, that's patronizing. She can do that shit herself, you know? Well, and listen, y'all have all been married. Putting a ring on another person's finger is fucking awkward. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

I've never, like, yeah. Like, can you bend her knuckle a little bit, you know? Yeah, especially because it's literally a ring they've never worn before. So you're not 100% sure it's going to go, like, smoothly. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of like the haunted amulet approach. Yeah, haunted amulets way better.

Especially because haunted amulet, no matter what way you are. it's going to fit right might be haunted counterpoint it's going to fit fashion before supernatural concerns additionally I always thought take this gauntlet yeah you can't win with the ring because either it's going to be like

a little too tight your finger must have gotten bigger wow or it's going to be wow this thing is just hanging off my finger how big do you think I am yeah it's bad no matter what yeah I got you these crocs and with these I will propose That's honesty

So I Enlist the friends of your partner For the love of God Before you buy jewelry Do your fucking intel Yeah also step into these sweatpants And be mine I thought you'd never ask

On this side of the sweatpants You're but a bachelorette On the other side part of a family With these drawstrings that we unite Is they're not of love The cinching of the drawstrings. And now we are bound. Now that I've decided that my second husband will be exorbitantly wealthy and my third one will be just for fun like a rodeo clown.

Ryan, please officiate my next two weddings in that voice. I will do that. I will do that. You're welcome. I'm pretty sure. Well, I know I propose at the mall seconds after we bought the ring. It was like, I'm not picking out a fucking ring. You're the one who has to wear it.

So you tell me which one to buy. So she picks it out, hands it to me, I hand it back. That's the proposal. But I would guess I put it in her hand. I would guess I did the powerful thing. And then later we found her skin was allergic to the ring so she doesn't wear it anyway. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

We've been married forever. It is a ring of power. Yeah, it's invisible. And which is awesome because now I don't have a husband anymore, but I get to keep it. I support this plan. Damn. You know, that is a question, by the way. If you get divorced, are there people who ask for the ring back?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. If it's a family thing. Really? Yeah. If it's a family thing. You've been in Florida too long. If it's a family thing or if you weren't married all that long, like there are people who call that person.

If you break an engagement, you're supposed to return the ring, blah, blah, blah. But I paid for both my rings. I'm going to keep them. They're spark for your shit. I'm pretty sure legally, this does come up in law school. And I'm pretty sure legally you are not, like, required to give it back. Fuck no. Y'all, you are not the Habsburgs, right?

When you're like, oh, that was my great. that was my great aunt Mary Macy's I'm happy I'm happy that he's going to now make the Habsburgs an Ole Miss fan group What about that doesn't work I just appreciate this allyship thank you

Yeah having had an empire at one point No that part doesn't work I cannot imagine like Things Things go south wanting the ring Back no that thing No especially if you're like oh that belonged to My great great grandmother

right i'm like what what if it's a powerful amulet you will want that now it is cursed yeah now it's cursed they don't want that there is one woman in these stories who i can tell you almost without a shadow of a doubt would have pulled this kind of shit i am not going to read the story here because it is long and frankly terrifying uh but it involved a long time reader in front of the program Matt being I'm going to say cyber-stalked by a woman who he too

got roped into a I'm going to a friend of me wants to show this wants to show her friend around town and this friend turns out to think it's a very romantic situation and I'm just going to read the text of one of the Facebook messages that she sent him

in the aftermath of their one dinner and then I'm going to tell you something that I found about this woman because I got fascinated and Googled her. Okay. I wish you well, and I hope that you go to manners school. To learn how to treat women better. I am a former Miss Samford and a Samford ambassador.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. I at least deserve to be treated with respect. Y'all, when I got to that part, I Googled this woman. She wasn't even a former Miss Sanford. You're a first runner up. Wow. You're a first runner up. Wow.

that's that's who needs to go to manor's school yeah manor's school first of all how do you go through that many pageants and still think it's called manor's school fucking cotillion yeah did you debut or not what the shit this is why you were first runner up because they asked you a question what was your fondest memory going to manor school

I'm not even going to get into this entire story but at the end of it when I got into it I just googled this woman to see like what her pageant platform had been first runner up i'm i'm i'm a polk i don't too i feel like pageants are one of those things and i can say this because i did like an alternate version of this in speech and debate where like you did pageants no no i did speech and debate but it's the kind of thing that is like pageants for ugly people the accomplishment yikes i was in speech and debate Fuck, that's so accurate.

That hurts so much because it's true. Just go on. I'm dead. Next story. Your wife is lovely, so you know it doesn't matter if you did speech and debate. Yeah, we didn't date in high school. Okay, point taken. Some of us were only pretty for like 11 minutes.

And it was a hot 11 minutes. You got to catch somebody. He made a count. Yeah, that's right. After that, it's all negotiation, man. Maximize your window. You'll have three children between you, I'm just saying. Let's see.

Okay, here's a burst. There's three quick ones. And then my number one ranked Twitter story. Any of these y'all want to break in on? Feel free, go ahead. I'm just going to run. So from Sedna 51 on Twitter, broke my thumb trying to impress a guy at Laser Tag.

He wasn't impressed. Then, oh, how dare you? This fucking dirt bag. Girl do better? No, like, fuck this dude. Here's the thing. Matt, you better come back here. Laser tag is so dark.

Like, I don't know how you can impress somebody at laser. Right? I assume that she was doing like a dive roll or something or he was doing a dive roll. She probably saved his fucking life, this dirt bag. Yeah. I'm sorry. This piece of shit. Matt he's out there

We're coming for you Matt He's out there lonely crying every night From the ori you know Excuse me Went on a date to Chili's on the night of 4th of July Instead of watching fireworks We broke up exactly a year later Oh no

The most patriotic of relations Like fucking born on Captain America of relations I hope they broke up at the Chili's as well Jason I have to break up in here because I just remembered my romance disaster at Chili's no no I think

I said this on locked Twitter before I know I've told this story to Dan Rubinstein before you get there I just want to point out you know this story already the dumped person in the Chili's relationship probably has unironically said at some point I want my baby back

please continue um so what I thought you were going to say when you said the night was that I went on a first date to Chili's the night of 9-11 and...

For America. That reminds me. Which is really fucked up because it happened in the morning. Well, I mean, like, you know, that evening, you're like, you're like, I've been watching Aaron Brown for 18 hours. You know, I've got to get out of the house.

So I had a one-night stand the night of September 10th, 2001. Oh, no. Yeah. And with an ex-boyfriend of mine that I had broken up with before. and, you know, it was drama school. Things happen. I ended up sleeping over at my ex's place on September 10th, 2001, woke up to his mother calling to, like, tell us to turn on the TV.

And so, like, I staggered a consciousness, and it's, oh, God, I'm back at this dude's fucking apartment. What did I do? And then I walk out into the living room, and New York is on fire on the TV. scream. And he, I'm trying to think of a graceful way to say this because it was not fucking funny. But he attempted, he then attempted to use this as, uh, he didn't exactly use the words this is a sign that we should be together. But that's where he was going. Oh, boy. There were, I feel like there was a lot of like, we need each other to get through this. Yeah. No, it was, it was very much that. And I was like, I had been planning to sneak out before dawn. And it

Like, don't you hate it when you're planning to sneak out of a guy's bed before dawn? And instead, you wake up and America has just suffered its worst terror attack in history. Every time. This makes me realize to go back a little bit, there's somebody who planned an engagement for September 11th, 2001 and was like, nope, I'm going with it. I don't, I have to. The plan is in motion. We are going to get married at Mariah Carey's Glitter or die trying. Anyway, this guy then went on to date a friend of mine that he told her and me that he defaulted to her because she looked like me. So, also the only person I've ever seen actually cry outside my bedroom window.

Don't do that. I want to know how many people were conceived on September 11th. If you are currently, what, 19 years old? Oh, Jesus Christ. If you're currently 18 years old and listening to this and your birthday, is around what? That would be June? Yeah.

June of 2001. June July. No, of 2002. 2002. Okay. So if your birthday's around then, right, then there's a good chance that your parents were like, you know what? We've got to do this because the terrorists, they wouldn't want us to bone tonight.

But you know what we're going to do? We're going to sell our twin towers standing above all of this. Jesus Christ. Hey, why isn't this show on the bigger audience? You know, I thought my real life story was bad enough, but I should have known that I could count on you to scoop up that fumble and power on. Run into the wrong end zone.

And power on down the field into the wrong end zone. Yeah. I don't know why that didn't come to mind when we were coming up with romance disasters, probably because I buried it so deep in my self-conscious. Yeah, that's whoof. I think in the great statistical stuff, on 9-11 babies, we need to account for jaw rule being all over the pop charts at the time.

Like, obviously, that's a factor. I'm sure pregnancies were increasing nationwide regardless of 9-11. Yeah. Oh, God. I feel so, I feel so much worse now that I've remembered that that happened. He was from Franklin. It's time to feel even worse. He must just ask to start in Franklin.

Yeah. From Glenn Matthews with two Fs, I got dumped by an RB's. employee in an Arby's parking lot. It was literally an Arby's. Sir, this is an Arby's. Sir, this is a breakup. Did you ask for one last sandwich? Hey, it's in your way here.

Excuse me, this is not Arby's anymore. It's my bees. God, talk about a turnover. And finally, my single favorite one from Spaced God on Twitter. I had the beats. Tornado killed power at my house on Halloween. So I went on an impromptu date with a girl to a Christian rave in a barn.

After 30 minutes, she introduced me to two guys. She said she was going home to have a threesome with. This was also my birthday. oh and that's why we have to take care of the infrastructure okay the power goes out look what happens this is why Halloween is our most our most sacred holiday i think i think space god also followed up that uh he did not know there would be a barn or that the rave was christian i assume he also didn't know about the threesome she was going to have with people who are not him but would have said that listen lock in sexual disasters

is going to come later this summer. That's our summer episode. I feel like it's like Vacation but on Halloween. Say yes to everything. All right. I'm going to now share my favorite. And then for those of you

who've made it all the way through this episode, we have a special treat, which is a warning from me to you. This is from user Matt. Christmas came and I was invited to spend it in the next few days with my girlfriend's extended family. I met everyone and worked my butt off

to make a good impression with them because I had high hopes that we would be seeing each other a good bit in the coming years. We drove home afterwards, and when we got to my neighborhood, she told me that she needed to break up with me. She had gotten coffee with her ex the day before I got into town, and she realized that she still had feelings for him. And in her words, there's a new teenage mutant Ninja Turtles movie coming out this year, and I can't imagine not being able to share that experience with him. Valid I've heard worse reasons

See doesn't he has more land Seem way better than that See this is why I wanted to bracket it like such Tell me of your father's rolling timber places Versus you know they really did not capture the darkness of Raphael The way they did in the old days But what's the dollar per square foot Murray tell me about that

Really think about value more like secret of the coos wow no that's not even the worst thing I've said in the last 10 minutes okay you made it to the end of the episode I have a special treat for you which is a warning I give every year do not go to the website to buy flowers

this is how you buy flowers for your sweetheart are you ready go to a flower shop that is in your town if you live in a different town from your sweetheart find a flower shop that is in their town and call them. All you have to do is tell them how much money you want to spend. Let them do the rest. These are creative professionals.

They're going to do a lot better work if they're doing something that they like to do. Tell them what your budget is. If there's anything specific, like my boyfriend hates tulips, she has a lot of pollen allergies, so maybe I want a nice succulent arrangement. She loves purple, so lots of purple, whatever. give them a budget tell them if there's something you really like or dislike let these people work

that's it don't pick out the shitty vase online with the roses that are going to be delivered by FedEx or whatever it's bad it's bad every time go look at these companies mentions around Valentine's Day do your homework and you'll actually spend a lot less money and get something a lot better

because I love you guys and I don't want you to fuck this up okay but you could also come to my house and buy strictly legal flowers from the trunk of my car. A division of strictly legal drugs, LLC.