The Moth - The Moth Radio Hour: Kidneys, Undergarments, and Cabbies

Episode Date: May 25, 2021

A college kid has his jaw wired shut, a man receives the best gift ever from the love of his life, a young Mormon tries to extinguish her doubts, a daughter consoles her grieving father, and a New York City cab driver has a very bad day. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Hosted by: Jay Allison Storytellers: Dan Souza, Gil Reyes, Karen Duffin, Sarah Bunger, and Sam Dingman.

Attention Houston! You have listened to our podcast and our radio hour, but did you know the Moth has live storytelling events at Wearhouse Live? The Moth has opened Mike's storytelling competitions called Story Slams that are open to anyone with a five-minute story to share on the night's theme. Upcoming themes include love hurts, stakes, clean, and pride. GoodLamoth.org forward slash Houston to experience a live show near you. That's theMoth.org forward slash Houston. From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour, I'm Jennifer Hickson from the Moth. The Moth is true stories told live.

We often go to great lengths to find a specific story, but other times the stories find us, either through our pitch line, more about that later, or through the Moth Story Slams, our open mic competitions. All of the stories you'll hear this hour come from people we first met at a Moth Story Slam somewhere in America, and the stories are as varied this hour come from people we first met at a Moth Story Slam somewhere in America. And the stories are as varied as the people who show up to tell them. For instance, this one about a college sophomore who's forced to keep his mouth shut, literally. We first met Dan Sousa at the Boston Story Slam where we partner with PRX and Public Radio Station WBUR.

This is his Grand Slam winning story. Here's Dan Sousa. So this summer after my sophomore year of college, I got braces and a job at the cemetery. And that's not even the bad part. I also got my job broken on purpose. So they called it preventative surgery, which at the time sounded kind of logical and like the right thing to do. In retrospect, they should have called it, we're going to ruin your summer.

So my job had been growing out of alignment for a couple of years and it was a pretty painful process. And that's what had brought me to my oral surgeon. And I'll never forget the way he described my situation. He said, Dan, if you don't get this surgery right now, by the time you're 40, you'll have the mouth of an 80-year-old. And the reason I'll never forget it is, I remember thinking like,

what the fuck does that mean? I don't know what an 80 year old's mouth looks like. I don't want to know, and I don't even know what a 40 year old mouth looks like. I'm 19 years old, and I'm like, screw this. I'm not getting a surgery. So three weeks later, I go in to get the surgery. And I walk into the hospital, kind of a proud, confident college guy, ready for a good summer of cemetery work. And I wake up, unknown hours later. A swollen, bruised monster who thoughts like this,

bruised monster who thoughts like this Who still works at the cemetery? So they'd wired my jaw shut and you need to stay that way for the next month and a half It didn't take me long to put together a list of the things that you need an open mouth for I'll go over a couple of the highlights sneezing yawning coughing I'll go over a couple of the highlights. Sneezing. Yawning. Coughing. Open mouth kissing.

Brushing the inside of your mouth. Which to be fair makes that open mouth kissing thing completely moot. The last but not least is eating solid food. So my diet, my prescribed diet was basically as many high calorie, high protein insure beverages as I could drink to stop the hunger. Pretty much how it was laid out for me. So 48 hours in a 12 pack of chocolate insure later, and I'm in panic mode. I can't handle this. I can't talk to people. This is for 12 people. I I can't eat solid food and I can't take the taste

of chocolate any longer. So my mom jumps to the rescue, you get out of blender and my diet gets this huge jolt of variety. We're talking about cream of chicken soup, cream of mushroom soup, cream of sparigas soup, cream of broccoli soup, cream of cauliflower soup, and the list goes on and on. It was great. But when that wasn't enough, I got a little bit creative. And what I would do is I really wanted, I really want macaroni and cheese. So I'll take some cooked macaroni and cheese,

put it in a blender with some milk, buzz it up, take a sip. The first time I did that, I almost threw up. So the thing is, there's a difference between normal throwing up and throwing up when your jaw's wired shut. And the difference is that when your jaw's wired shut, you die. It's a bigger deal. It's a much bigger deal. That being said, I started as a heal.

The weeks went by and it was finally time to return to the cemetery. And all joking aside, this was actually really good for me. I spent my days at home watching food TV, looking inside the fridge multiple times a day, reading the supermarket circular and seeing the spiral of the hands and just salivating, but not really salivating because my mouth was closed. So, I go back to the cemetery and I'm out in the open and I have something to concentrate on, digging graves and mowing, which is great. So I do this for a few weeks.

The thing is, I don't work at just any cemetery. I work at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts. For those who have been there, I've got big fans of the cemetery. Those who have been there, there are a lot of famous authors who are related to rest there. Henry David the Row, Louie's my Alcott. Here's a little tip for those who don't work in the Semitari business is when you have famous people buried in the ground, you have a lot of tourists in the Semitari. And tourists tend to have a lot

of questions. So probably a couple of weeks before I'm done with my prison term, with my mouth-wired shot, I'm mowing along a stretch of land, and this woman starts walking towards me with three small children behind her. So I preemptively kind of power down the mower. I know I'm going to get a question. So this woman says, excuse me, do you know where the authors are buried?

And I know exactly where the authors are buried. I worked there. So I simply explained to her. So, if you go down this way, down on her, up over there, around the range, you'll see the author's grades. Proud of what I did. She literally takes two steps back and hides her kids behind her. And because I can't project, I mean, I'm here, I can't.

I take two steps forward and I explain again. If you go down this path here, up there, around, I take two steps forward and I explain again. If you go on this path here, up there, around the corner, that's where the authors are buried. You're welcome. And she just turns and walks away. And I realize that I'm that creepy dude in the cemetery who scares children. This is not how I expected to spend my sophomore summer. But I start to think about it, and I take a look at myself,

and at this point I've lost 30 pounds. I haven't slept more than a couple hours in night in six weeks, and I'm kind of a shell of who I was before. I don't eat dinner with my family anymore. I didn't go out with friends. It's just too painful. I can't really talk to people, so I'm just alone all the

time. So I spent a couple more weeks in the cemetery kind of going through this experience. Finally, it's time to get my jaw unwired and, you know, return to normalcy. So my dad drives me to my oral surgeon's office. He takes off the rubber bands. I get to open my mouth a little bit, and then it takes me home. And the whole right home, I talk to them like this through French teeth. I'm not comfortable with my jaw and I don't trust it. We get home to the house. My dad asked me the most important question he's ever asked me.

He says, would you want to eat? And I knew exactly what I wanted. I said, turn on the macaroni and cheese. He's like, you're going to have to open your mouth to eat it. And I was like, okay. So I sit down while the water's boiling, my hands are wet, my heart is pounding. Never been more excited to eat my entire life.

Put the bowl down in front of me. Take my fork and I stab some noodles. Put them in my mouth. I teeth crush the noodles, absolutely destroy them. Salty orange cheese goes all over my tongue, and I can't help but smile and laugh, because I know I'm back. That was Dan Suza. Dan says that his summer of deprivation ignited his passion for food and cooking.

He went from home cook to a professional restaurant cook. And these days, he's a cast member on the Emmy Award winning show America's Test Kitchen and senior editor at Cook's Illustrated Magazine, which means he gets to cook, eat, and talk about food a whole lot. Check out our radio extras page for some links to Dan's Food Science videos about cooking frozen staker, finding the optimal time to add salt to your food. This next story is from Gil Reyes. We found him at a story slam in Louisville, Kentucky, where we partner with Public Radio Station WFFL. We loved Gil's slam story, but wanted to give the story more time.

You're supposed to finish in under six minutes at the story slams. So we worked with him to develop a longer story to present in one of our main stage shows. Here's Gil Reyes. I'm sure the woman on the other end of the phone identified herself as being from the clinic I'd been to the day before. Maybe she said her name, maybe she asked if I was sitting down. I don't remember any of that.

In my memory, I just pick up the phone, and this voice says, go immediately to the emergency room. Your kidneys are failing. And as I get up and get dressed, there's this voice in the back of my head just saying, this is absurd. I'm in my 20s. I'm invincible. I'm immortal. I don't even need health insurance. I don't even have health insurance. Sure, I'd been feeling bad for a while, but my swollen ankles. That was because I was waiting tables, working double shifts, trying to save up money, not because my body wasn't processing

waterways, right. And the splitting headaches, that was because I was really stressed out, trying to get into grad schools, and not because your kidneys regulate your blood pressure. And when I finally collapsed a few days before, I didn't have any more excuses. That was when my boyfriend, Sean, made me go to the clinic. Sean and I had been dating for a year, living together for a few months. I was moving a little bit fast, but either of us could go to grad school at any minute, so it was fine. We had sort of a day-by-day mentality, and maybe we were keeping each other just at arm's length.

In fact, I was able to convince him not to go with me to the emergency room. I mean, why should we both sit around all day for some doctors to tell me that that's not what it is, that it's something else, that it's something that can be fixed with a pill, right? So I went alone, terrified, but hiding it well. And this trait of mine, this sort of crazy independence,

maybe at best, stems from when I came out to my Southern mother from Alabama, I bapt his mom, my Catholic, Hispanic dad from Texas, growing up a teenager in Kentucky, if you're thinking this didn't go well, you're right. There were Bibles manifesting from nowhere. Even though I'd been to church more than they had throughout my life, and there was screaming and yelling,

and I left that night thinking, I'm one of the damned. Well, because they told me you're going to hell. And we didn't speak for a while over a year. And when we began to try to put our relationship back together, the damage was pretty done. I mean, how close can you get when there's this whole party or life that somebody wants nothing to do with? I remember once my dad, out of the blue,

said, I never want to meet anyone you're seeing. I don't ever want you to bring anybody home. But as my emergency room visit became a 10 day stay in the hospital, I had to let a lot of people know where I was. In fact, that hospital room is where my parents first met Sean. I learned my kidneys were functioning at less than 10%. I learned that I would probably have to go on dialysis. If you don't know much about dialysis, it's a way to live.

It's not a great way to live. It's not pleasant. It's very time consuming. It's expensive. No. What you want in this situation is a living donor, a kidney donor. You could get on the national transplant list

that is going to take time maybe years waiting with a bag packed by the door. And cadaver kidneys have other issues with them, maybe they're not the best choice. If you can get a living donor though, usually family, somebody who's a perfect match. That's the ideal situation. Well my relationship with my parents had left me a little bit wounded. I had a little bit of trouble maybe trusting people. This is one of the things I was bad at in my 20s.

It used to be at the top of the list. Now the top of the list was kidney function. But it was still up there. And I had this trouble of trusting people and accepting help. And if you have trouble accepting help, imagine trying to accept a kidney. People stepped up to get tested. My dad, despite our differences, my mother couldn't. My best friend, his dad, friends from college, high school,

work, and there was one more person who really wanted to get tested. Sean, talk about a commitment. He eventually wore me down. He said, you know, whatever happens, if we're together or not in the future, if I can do this for you now, I want to. And as the months began to pass, and I did go on dialysis, and my father was disqualified as a donor because of kidney stones. I went on social security and food stamps

because I was too weak to work, and friends were disqualified for various reasons. And I wasn't gonna be going to grad school. I spent a lot of time thinking about how I was going from 20 to 80 and what seemed like overnight comparing blood pressure medicines with my grandmother. I spent a lot of time alone sleeping mostly, but I remember this one day or made it out to the park and I was sitting alone. It was a cool day. It was a fall day. I remember this one day, or made it out to the park, and I was sitting alone.

It was a cool day, it was a fall day. And I was praying, meditating, considering this entire process. And I found this really strange piece that's hard to describe. I found this kind of acceptance of myself and where I'd been, and I thought, you know, it's fine. If this is what it is, if that was it, I'm okay with that. I can die in my

twenties. And I stopped praying to get better. And I thought about the thing that I'd want. get better. And I thought about the thing that I'd want. If I could pray for one thing, it was to feel worthy of that love that I hadn't felt for so long. And I stopped asking for time and thought about time well spent. It was December when Sean called me from work and said, I have an early Christmas present for you. And he was as good a match as my dad. And he said, would you let me give you a kidney? And I said, yes. And we spent time well. Sean's a big language geek, so we named it. Things work better when

you name them. Renee after the renal system. And Renato's for rebirth. We would tell people, we're having a kidney. And our friends convinced us to have a party. We had a kidney shower. Sean really wanted to register, but I thought that might be going a little far. Nevertheless, people brought us gifts, pajamas for recovering and bad movies. Sean loves bad movies. And we played games like Kidney Bean Bingo. for recovering and bad movies, Sean loves bad movies. And we played games like Kidney Bean Bingo and pin the kidney on Gill.

And we got this big red velvet sheet cake shaped like a kidney. And we wore medical masks and we cut it together and fed each other pieces and took lots of pictures. And the day of the surgery came in May, and they had us both ready, and our gurney is ready to go, and we're there, we're surrounded by Sean's family, and my family, my parents are there,

and my mother starts crying. We never talk about this, but we cry the same way. We scrunch up our cheeks in the same way, and we hold back those tears, and I can see it in her face when she's trying to work something out. And she leans down and takes Sean's hand and says, thank you. And I think, I think she's seeing him differently. And maybe she's seeing me differently. And the surgery goes

great. And we recover together for weeks and weeks in a strange little honeymoon. A year later we get a card in the mail. Now it's not unusual for my mother to send cards. She sends cards for the strangest occasions, even though they live 15 minutes away. But this one was addressed to Sean. And it said what a blessing he is, and it recognized our anniversary. And they asked us to go to dinner with them, like couples do with their parents.

And I never asked for any proof because you're supposed to rely on faith, but I have a family where I have parents, and a partner, a perfect match where I had a boyfriend, and a 10-inch scar across my abdomen to remind me every day that I am loved. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. at Stage 1 Family Theater and co-artistic director of Theater 502. He and Sean live in Louisville with their dog Herman. To see some photos of Gill and Sean from their kidney shower, visit the RadioXters page at themoth.org. And Gill's health so far so good. When we come back, an explanation of a place called outer darkness. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts,

and presented by PRX. This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX, I'm Jennifer Hickson. We met Karen Duffin at Story Slams in both San Francisco and New York before tapping her to tell a main stage story in Durham, North Carolina. Karen travels a lot for work. The theme that night was Eyes Wide Open. Here's Karen Duffin, live at the mouth. So I was sitting on a picnic table with my boyfriend and the sun was setting behind us and it was romantic and my head was in his lap and it was a very special relationship

because he was the student body president and I was the vice president of the student body. And somewhere in the middle of our term we had managed to fall madly and love with each other, and we'd even started talking about marriage. And that night, as we were talking about our relationship again, he paused and leaned into me, and he said to me, you know what, Karen? I know that you believe in God, but I'm not sure if you believe in the church. And I froze because I was in love with this man. And I knew that this question was a deal breaker because the two of us were students

at Brigham Young University, which is a private Mormon school and we were devout Mormons. And that is the central premise of the Mormon church that it's the one true church and the only church, a true church on earth and the one path to happiness. And Mormons don't casually believe this. In fact, there's kind of nothing casual

about being a Mormon at all. It's a lot more like a lifestyle than a religion. There's like a long list of things you're supposed to do, like spend hours and hours at church activities every week and give 10% of your money. And there's a longer list of things you're not supposed to do like drink coffee or get tattoos or wear spaghetti strap dresses or have sex before marriage. But the thing about these rules and devout Mormons is that most devout Mormons don't mind

because of this central premise of the church, because say, if it's God's church then these are God's rules and surely those are going to make us happy. And I was happy. I loved being Mormon. I had been grown up Mormon. My family was Mormon. I didn't mind the rules.

I loved my tribe. But I knew that I couldn't express this doubt to my boyfriend that I had begun to have over the past year, because Mormons don't express doubt. my boyfriend that I had begun to have over the past year. Because Mormons don't express doubt. I mean, saying that you're not quite sure if the church is the one true church would be a little bit like one of you

running around the Worman Hatton on 9-11 and being like, you know what? America's not that great after all. You just, you don't do it. I mean, if you express a little bit of doubt, you might get sent to the Bishop's Office to chat about it. And if you express a lot of doubt,, you might get sent to the Bishop's Office to chat about it. And if you express a lot of doubt, you might actually get kicked out of the church.

And if you get kicked out of the church, there's a very special hell waiting for you because Mormons have two hells, little known fact. There's one regular hell for you lovely people. And then there's a special hell for people who are devout and leave the church. And it has a special name, and that name is Outer Darkness. So if you're devout and you leave the church, you're not going to hell.

You're going to like the scary backwoods behind hell. So between knowing the consequences of my doubt, but most of all, because I loved this church and I loved this church and I loved this man, I wasn't ready to start speaking these doubts out loud. So I think I hedged and I mumbled something about, you know, maybe we make it too complicated, but I know one thing and I know that it makes me happy

and that was true. So our conversation went on and two weeks later, he broke up with me and I was devastated. And I was sure that even though I hadn't expressed this doubt out loud that it had cost me this relationship, and I was determined that that doubt would never cost me another thing again, that I would find my way back to that certainty. I decided that I was going to become a varsity Mormon. And the way that you become a varsity Mormon is by going to the Mormon temple.

Because Mormons have churches that anybody can go to and then they have temples, and not only do you have to be a Mormon to go to the temple, you have to make an even longer list of commitments. And when you go to the temple, it's like Mormon mecca. It's the most sacred place on earth for a Mormon. And when you go there, you're dressed in white, it's beautiful, it feels sacred, and you make vows. You vow literally that you will give your time, your talent, your money, and everything that you have to the church.

And while you're there, after you've made these vows, you get something that you may have heard of as the Mormon underwear. And this is essentially a cap sleeve under shirt and underwear that goes to your knees. And the reason why your Mormon friends don't think it's funny when you make fun of their underwear is because it's actually the most sacred symbol of their faith. After you make these vows in the temple, you put on these undergarments,

and you commit that you will never take them off again, except for things like swimming and showers. And you wear them as a constant reminder of your commitment. So a couple of months after our breakup, I invited my closest friends and my family, and I went to the temple for the first time. And it was this beautiful August day. I'm in the temple and this gorgeous building. We're all dressed in white. I make these vows and I get the underwear

and we leave the temple and sometime after we left the temple somebody took a picture of me with my friends and I look radiant in this picture, I look so happy. So about a month later I moved to San Francisco and I took my vows, I took my underwear and I took this picture and I hung it up Francisco, and I took my vows, it took my underwear, and I took this picture. And I hung it up in every apartment I lived in as a reminder that I may not be 100% sure, but I knew that it made me happy, and that was good enough for now.

So when I moved to San Francisco, I got a job as a speechwriter for the CEO of a really large company, which meant that I started traveling the world. We went to dozens of countries together. And the more I traveled from Japan to Switzerland to Canada, to China, to France, the more I traveled, the more wonderful happy people I met. And this small group of us who traveled together

became like my family. And the more wonderful happy people I met, the more it seemed improbable that there could be just one true way. And it even started to feel a little bit insulting to me. And these doubts began just as they began to bubble up and be kind of overwhelming. My boss called me and asked if I would be willing to take a job in India. And I said, yes, immediately.

And I told myself I could go to India on one condition, that I could not take these doubts with me. I had to make a decision one way or the other. Am I in or am I out? So I rented a cottage on the coast of Northern California, and I drove up there alone, told no one why I was going. And I asked myself this question, do I believe that this is the one true way?

And for years, I told people I went up there so that I could find an answer to this question. But I think looking back that this is the one true way. And for years I told people I went up there so that I could find an answer to this question, but I think looking back that I knew the answer for years. And I was at the cottage actually to find courage, because I knew what answering that one question no would mean. It would mean that I was handing over all the answers and all the certainty that I had had for almost 30 years of my life. And it

also meant that I might lose everybody that I loved. But I knew that I didn't believe, I knew that I had to leave the church. But when I moved to India two weeks later, I left without telling anybody, I had made this decision. Nobody even knew that I had ever doubted. And India, I'm telling you, if you're looking for a place to run away from difficult decisions, India is your country. Because this country is this beautiful sensory hyperbole of sights and spells and sounds and people and this beautiful chaos outside my window was nothing. It helped to drown out the terrible chaos in my head.

And it was also 10,000 miles away from anybody who would care about my decision or know that I was Mormon. So I was able to start living into it without being judged or inspected. And I started asking myself, if I stop going to church on Sunday and my solo good person, and what does faith mean to me?

And how do you order coffee? I mean, honestly, I'm telling you there is nothing more confusing than standing in front of a coffee menu for the first time in your life when you're 30 something and wondering what the hell is a cappuccino. As I began to step into this decision I decided it was finally time for me to start telling people, which is what I was the most afraid of. And because I was 10,000 miles away, I got to do it the sort of tacky way, you're not supposed to share big news over email or text, but I had no choice. So I opened up an email, I think I wrote 15 different versions of it, trying to explain, hoping that they would understand why I had made this decision. And then I stared at that send button for a hundred years.

And finally, I hit send. And over the next few months, I hit send again and again and again. It was copypaste. Hey, guys, I'm not Mormon anymore. Forgive me. Again and again. And for the most part part people were incredibly shocked and they

weren't mad at me. They were like the worst version of mad. They were disappointed in me and they were sad and my mom cried and asked me if I was a lesbian and but for the most part I have to say the people were kind. But I didn't realize, though, was that a year and a half later, when I moved home from India, I would discover that California felt more foreign to me than India had ever felt. India was like a dress rehearsal for this decision, because in India, I had never been Mormon.

So there was no real absence of it. But when I moved home to California, it was suddenly like moving home to find my village was deserted, because everything in my life when I left had been Mormon. As I started to struggle with this kind of all over again, I began unpacking my condo. And there was a box that I cut open and didn didn't have a label on it and I opened it. And in that box was my Mormon underwear. This commitment that I had made, I wondered if maybe this was what it was like to like find your wedding ring two years after a divorce.

And I just, I stared at this box and I didn't know what to do because you're not actually supposed to just throw out Mormon underwear. There's a ritual associated with it kind of like throwing out an American flag. I just wasn't sure if I owed it that ritual anymore. I mean, everything I had done to that point, the coffee, the not going to church, not reading the book Mormon, none of that felt as real a symbol that I meant it when I said I didn't believe anymore as throwing out this box

Everything else felt like I was like redecorating my faith and this felt like I was burning the house down So naturally I closed the box and put it to the side and unpacked the rest of my house and ignored it For as long as I could until it was the last box in the house and I stared at it as long as I could until it was the last box in the house. And I stared at it, and I picked it up, and I walked downstairs, and I threw it in a dumpster. And I felt guilty about that for years. But I knew so little about who I was or what I believed at that point,

but I knew that I wasn't that anymore. And I would discover over the next few years as I started from scratch trying to answer all these questions that the church had answered for me. As I answered question after question, I began to feel less lonely. I mean, I had lost my village, I had lost my tribe, but I kind of gained the rest of you, because what I learned is that the rest of you are asking these same questions. And frankly, you're also a little bit unsure of the answers.

And really, the best thing that any of us can do is find a way to ask the questions and learn how to hear our own answers and to find the courage the best we can to live into them. Although it's been years since Karen left the church, parts of this story were still hard for her to talk about. There are still some things about being a Mormon, she really misses. When we return, a father who can't stop talking, and a New York City cab driver with some very bad luck. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the Public Radio Exchange, PRX.org. You're listening to the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jennifer Hickson.

This next story is from the Chicago Grants Lamp, where we partner with Public Radio Station WBEE. This is Sarah Bunger with the story that won the competition. The story is about her father and an unusual variation on the Birds and Be bees conversation. It's mild, but parents of young kids who may be listening, take note. Here's Sarah Bungle. Thank you.

My dad can't stop talking. For the last eight or nine weeks, he's been talking nonstop constantly about anything and everything. But mostly, mostly he talks about my mother. He tells me how he's not allowed to make the coffee in the morning because she's very territorial about the cuisiner coffee maker. And how a couple of times a month they go out to Sunday breakfast and she'll get a waffle and she'll get biscuits and gravy and they'll share.

And every single time she looks at the menu and says, I don't know what to, I can't decide. Everything looks so good. And she always gets a waffle. And she always gets biscuits and gravy. And they always share. He cannot stop talking. And I'm sure this has everything to do with the fact

that she died 35 days ago. There was a minute or two after she died that he stopped talking. We were devastated, and there was nothing left to say. Or so I thought, the day after she died, we were going through some things, and we found that she had saved lots of memorabilia, things like the wristlet that I wore in the hospital the day I was born, and a series of four napkins on which my dad had written her message when they were sophomores. It reads, Dear Marsha, I love you so much if you don't marry me soon, I'll go crazy because I know I'll lose you.

Love always and forever Steve. PS, your neat. So when he finds all the stuff, he gets pretty emotional and he starts talking again. I go over to his house the day after the funeral, I'm pretty worried about him, and the moment I enter that door, he starts talking. He tells me about how they met when they were nine years old, and he was helping his grandfather deliver a refrigerator to her house, and how he asked her out three times sophomore year before she finally said yes. And then the story takes a decidedly different turn.

And he said by the time they were seniors, they'd been dating for a while and you know Sarah, it was time to go all the way. Up until this point he'd been making eye contact with me, but now he averts his eyes. And he starts to tell me the story, he starts to tell me about the night. It was New Year's Eve, 1969, he says. It was Scott Powell's house party, it was freezing when she takes him by the hand and leads him to an upstairs empty bedroom. This story had just gone from Gidgetit and Moon Doggy to Rizzo and

Kinniki in like 2.5 seconds and I am not ready for it. And that's when I find that I've been holding my breath a little bit and in my head all I can think is I can't hear this. I am not supposed to know the stuff. I'm the daughter and he's the dad and if he tells me this, it's gonna change everything and I can't have that. I have already lost one parent. And so I say, dad and it cuts me off. And he said, you know Sarah, I've never had a best friend.

One that I like told all of my secrets too. Not since I was 12. And we both know he's gonna tell me the story. And we both know it's going to tell me the story. And we both know it's going to change everything. But here's the thing, he has to tell someone, he has to talk. So he goes for it. And he tells me every detail, guys like every detail. He tells me the first part of the story and I found myself saying, it's not that big a deal, dad, it happens to lots of guys. And then he tells me that my mother said, well, you know Steve, there are things I can do to help you out.

And in my brain, I'm screaming because I have just heard the words that preface my father's first blow job. And Vinnie says, you know Sarah, I let your mother think that I had been with a lot of women before her. That she was just one of a dozen in our senior class. But it wasn't true. I was her first, just like she was mine, and I never told her that. And I don't know why.

I don't know why I did that. In this last part, he says, with half-helled backsobs, the kind that makes you shudder. And I guess if you were looking at a certain angle, and you had tears in your eyes, maybe because you were a daughter who missed your mother, it might look like he was spending off bullets at that moment. And then it becomes clear to me why he's telling you this. He needs absolution for this withholding from her.

And so I listen. Of course I do, because I can't lose another parent. That was three weeks ago, and things are different now. But he has somehow compartmentalized them so that sometimes I'm his daughter, like when he tells me he has to have my Christmas list before Thanksgiving. And sometimes I'm his best friend, like when he tells me that she visited him the other night in a dream. But it was real Sarah, he said, we text every day. He can't stop texting now. And I called him on Friday because I was worried about

him, and he's super excited because he found a series of racy letters that they exchanged when he was stationed off the coast of Cuba about the time I was born. I can't wait to show them to you, he says. I have so much to tell you, he says. And all I can think to say is the thing that I always say to him now. Tell me everything.

Thank you. That was Sarah Bunger, just about a month after her mom passed away. Sarah's a high school English teacher in Chicago. She says that her dad has continued to text her daily, and he texts about everything, the weather, his dogs, the house, but mostly, mostly about her mother. Our final story is from Sam Dingman at the New York City Grand Slam in Brooklyn. Sam won that night.

Here's his story, live at the mall. I had been living in New York for a couple of years, and my acting career was not going quite the way that I had envisioned. Specifically, the extent of my theatrical experience was origin going quite the way that I had envisioned. Specifically, the extent of my theatrical experience was originating the role of Nightclub Patriot number 3 in the off-off Broadway debut of Sex in the City the Play. It was time to make a change. So I thought, I want something safe, I want something secure, but I couldn't find anything like that. So I became a taxi driver.

And at first, that was actually great, because I turned out I was actually like a little bit good at it. And I remember this one night. I was driving home. I was driving along the Grand Central Parkway in my cab. And I looked out the window just as I got to the bridge. And I saw the New York City skyline, and there was all this purple and orange with the sun going down and I thought that's New York City

man There's crazy stuff going on there with crazy people doing crazy things all day long and in some small way It can't happen without somebody like me a cab driver and then I actually said out loud I belong here And it was the first time I'd ever felt that way. And the idea that I could be happy doing something besides acting hit me really hard. But then a few months later I was struck by something else, a Jeep Wrangler, which hit me at 40 miles an hour as I was pulling on the 79th Street, and to make matters worse, it was being driven by a woman with no seatbelt on and a baby in her lap. Fortunately, somehow everybody was okay, and a few minutes later I was standing on the sidewalk, and I was filling out a police report. And she came

up to me and she was crying, or baby was and she said can you please just talk to my husband please and she handed me a cell phone. So I said okay and I took the phone and I said hello and this voice says hey my friend I understand what a little bit of an incident. I was like, yeah, we did. He goes, well, my wife, she doesn't have a driver's license. So my insurance company, and I'm not going to like this too much if you know what I'm saying.

I did know what he was saying, because it was exactly what he was saying. So he says, he says, listen, I want to make you a little deal. I run this kind of independent body shop up here in the Bronx. Why don't you bring the cab up here?

I'll fix it up at $375. Everybody wins. So I thought for a second, and I realized if I took the total taxi back to the garage and showed it to my boss, Sonny, I was going to lose my job and my life as I knew it was over. So I said to this guy, okay. And I gave him my phone number, he gave me the address of the garage, I hung up and I handed the cell phone back to his wife who was as shocked as I should have been that I had taken this

deal. Then another very fortunate thing happened, which is that I got back to my cabinet wouldn't start. And that meant that I had to call the garage's tow truck and that meant that it took me back to the garage. And I remember I got there and there was this big ramp off the street, this big ramp that went up and ended at Sonny's office. And I remember walking up that ramp with my head hung, just thinking to myself, that's it, man, New York wins. I can't do this. But then I showed Sonny the police report

and he was thrilled. He said, this is great, I'm gonna put in the insurance claim right now, here, then he gave me the keys to a brand new cab and sent me right back out like nothing had happened. So I was back working immediately, and I was driving around, and a couple hours later my phone started to ring. And I thought, this is karma.

I did the right thing. I'll bet that phone call is from the casting director of the public theater. It was not. It was the husband of the wife, the woman who had hit me. And he was not too pleased with my decision to turn him over to the insurance company. And this is the voicemail that he left me. You motherfuckin'. You think you're gonna get away with this?

I got your phone number. I got your medallion number. I'm gonna find you think you're gonna get away with this? I got your phone number, I got your medallion number, I'm gonna find you and you're going down. Now I got this message right as I was sitting in the worst traffic jam of my entire life on 41st Street and just as it ended, a coach USA bus lurched into my lane and smashed into the side of my taxa.

Meaning that I had now in the same day wrecked two taxis and incurred the wrath of a small time mobster. And I just lost it. I started pounding on the steering wheel and screaming, what the fuck is wrong with this city? This is a nightmare. I thought I'd belong here. I don't belong here. I'm going't die here!

And my life has been worth nothing! I was so upset that I forgot I had a passenger. And because this is New York City, her response to her cab driver having a psychotic break was to go like this. So that night, I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to go home, I was so scared, so my friend was having a birthday party. I went to the birthday party and I drank so much.

And I said to her, my friend was having the birthday. I told her the story and I said, isn't that crazy? I'm probably going to die. And she said, Sam, that is crazy. You're probably going to die. She said, listen to me. my company is hiring an administrative assistant. When you get home tonight send me your resume. I was like, okay, so I did, and three days later I was an administrative assistant. I never got back in the driver's seat of another taxi ever again. And thank you. I appreciate that. And so it's my family.

And now for six years I've been filing expense reports and sitting on the phone with travel agencies and I'm safe and I'm secure and I've never again been in as much danger as that day on 79th street. But I've also never felt as good as I did that night on the Grand Central Parkway. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That was Sam Dingman. Sam still has a day job at an office. He performs all over New York City, acting and telling stories. And you can find a link to his podcast on our radio extras page.

Sam asked if he could offer a takeaway to his story. Here it is, always tip your cab driver, even if the cab is surly or disaffected. Sam says he can guarantee he or she has definitely had a weirder day than you. Starts grinning the news. I'm nearing them to. I'm even too late. Do you have a story you want to tell?

You can pitch us your story by recording it right on our site or call 877-799-Moff. That's 877-799-6684. The best pitches are developed from mock shows all around the world. That's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time, and that's the story from The Moth. Your host this hour was Jennifer Hickson. Jennifer also directed the stories in the show. The rest of the most directorial staff includes Katherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Janess, Meg Bolls, and Maggie Sino. Production support from Whitney Jones.

Most stories are true, is remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Mothavans are recorded by Argo Studios in New York City, supervised by Paul Ruest. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from the Chandler Travis 3-O, Brad Meldow and Pat Muthini, John Zorn, Leo Kotky, and Cat Power. You can find links to all the music we use at our website. The Moth is produced for radio by me, J. Allison, with Vicki Merrick, at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour was produced with funds

from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. And Water Radio Hour is presented by PRX. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, TheMoth.org. you