We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 153. More Embarrassing Stories!

Episode Date: November 22, 2022

Back by popular demand, it’s more mortifying stories! Glennon, Abby, and Amanda share more of their most embarrassing moments – and cry-laugh in solidarity with Pod Squaders’ new and hilarious voicemail confessions.

And I continue to believe the best people are free. Bonanza. Yes. Bonanza, she said. Bonanza. Apropos of nothing. All right, we're starting with that. I don't understand it, but welcome to We Can Do Hard Things, apropos of nothing.

Bonanza. I don't know. I don't know. We are probably feeling weird because today we are doing an encore presentation of mortifying stories. If you haven't listened to the first episode of mortifying stories, you're going to need to go back. That episode has changed my life in unfortunate ways, which is that people used to stop me and say a myriad of beautiful things, but now they just tell me about the story where they shit themselves. Yeah. Like on the street.

I mean, they didn't shit on the street. They stopped me on the street and tell me this. Well, some of them did. So it's been kind of fantastic and unifying. Right? It has brought people together. So we're going to do it again. We're going to spend the next hour telling you even more and hearing more from our pod squad about their most humiliating, embarrassing, mortifying moments. And we hope that it will bring us together, enjoy once again. And also for a higher good. If you're feeling guilty like this is like watching trash TV, think of it of doing the incredibly vital work. of normalizing the human experience. That's right.

Okay? And we are also taking the step of having the LOL belly laughs, which are vital for our health. Yes. So this is basically like a yoga class and a therapy. You're welcome. That's right. I love it. We're self-helping.

Yeah. Is it okay if I just tell you a couple more I've thought of since? Oh, we're doing you. still. I just have more embarrassing. You have more embarrassing stories. I love this. Well, it just... I do too. Oh, good. I'm telling you something about this. Three of them. You have three? You guys, I unloaded all my good stuff. I, like, well, is this like less good? I have a never-ending supply. My cup runneth over with mortifying story. Oh, this is good. Okay. Well, the first story I want to tell is about my aunt Judy. Okay. It's not.

Okay. So in my family, we have- Hi, Aunt Judy. Hi, Aunt Judy. We have a problem with kitchens, especially my mom's side of the family. I don't know what happened to us, but like there's nothing goes well there. Like, we don't know how to cook. It just wasn't in our jeans or something. And so it never has been passed down the way it's been passed down in other families. And so what I think that people don't understand who know how to cook is that they have a schema in their, brains that gets activated when they walk into the kitchen or they pick up a recipe. What's a schema?

It's like background information. Okay. So what people say is why don't you know how to cook? It's just reading directions. And what I say is, well, when I pick up the directions and they say mince and dice and Julianne, I'm just like, I'm what the fuck. I don't know what all of that means. So what I'm saying is we don't have it in our family.

We don't have the background knowledge. So Ann Judy has never cooked a thing in her life. One day she decides she's going to cook for this like bake thing that. Bananza. The goddamn family has to go to. This is what Judy would say. The goddamn family has to go. They're supposed to bring a goddamn cake, right?

Because goddamn life. All right? So she tells my cousin Karen, who's like eight at the time, to run to grandma's house to get the ingredients because of course she wouldn't go to the store. So Karen has to rent a grandma's house. Right. At grandma's house. But luckily grandma has bologna and tomatoes.

So you're not going to have a lot of luck over there. Oh, I love bologna. So she goes to grandma's house. Grandma doesn't have any of the stuff. So she comes back. She says, no, I actually have to go to the store. My aunt gives her the money. She goes down to the local store.

She buys whatever. You need to make a cake. Okay. She comes back. And Judy's already pissed off. She's in the kitchen. She's got the things all laid out. She mixes the thing.

She does whatever. She adds the egg. She's stirring, stirring, stirring, stirring, stirring in the pan. Okay? And then she looks at the box because, of course, she's just making it from a box. She looks at the box and she says, God damn it. Where's the tape? And Karen says, tape?

And Judy says, yes, how the hell? I'm supposed to make a cake, but there's no tape. There's no tape. Karen, go find some tape. Karen looks all over the house for tape. She comes back. She's, we don't have any tape. What kind of tape?

Scotch tape, whatever tape. Karen runs back to my grandma's house, okay? Finds a big thing of masking tape. That's all she has. Runs back to Judy's house. Judy standing in front of the counter cursing. Karen says, I've got the tape. I've got the tape.

So my aunt Judy takes the tape from my cousin Karen and begins to tape the pan down to the counter. Against the counter. So she's covering it, like covering it, making it. It turns into like this tent. Okay? It looks like a tent of covered tape. And then Karen and Judy sit in front of the counter and just stare at this conglomeration now because it's just a mound of tape. You can't even see the cake anymore.

And so Judy goes, well, what the hell now? What the hell are we supposed to do now? So little Karen takes the box. And then she looks at her mom and she's backing out of the kitchen and she goes, mom, it says, tap the cake on the counter. And then she runs not out of the kitchen. Tap the cake on the counter, not masking tape. Uh-huh. The cake on the counter.

And that has now been. become family lore. Huh. Yes. Yeah. That's when you don't have a schema, then taping the cake to the counter doesn't sound any more unusual than folding something into the cake. You fold why the hell not masking tape the cake to the counter. Okay. Do you want to do one to see? Because I have a couple more. I just remembered in high school. I had this huge crush on this guy named Mike Spalding. And he was the... coolest guy. And I really, really liked him. And one time he just randomly stopped by her house. And I was like,

oh my God, this is so awesome. So he opens the door. He comes in. My mom's like, Mike's here. He walks in the living room. And unfortunately, for me, I'm sitting on the floor of the living room stuffing pennies. You know those penny rolls, the paper penny rolls. Why did we always have to do that? I don't know. We didn't always do it. It was like, Once a year, the whole coin jar would fill up and you'd have stuff pennies. And he came in a kind of, he was so funny. He kind of made a funny joke about, oh, stuff and pennies. It's like, you know, whatever.

It's odd to walk into someone's house and see them sitting within like 400,000 pennies. Then I still have a crush on him. He still doesn't like me very much. But he likes me enough to stop by another time like five months later. He comes in the house. and I'm sitting on the living room floor stuffing pennies for the second time in five months that I've done it. But both times he stopped by my house,

sitting on the floor stuffing pennies. And it was so embarrassing because I had to be like, I don't always stuff pennies. It's not like I'm always just sitting around stuffing pennies. Yeah, he's like, sure. Sure, Doyle. Anyway, that was funny. Oh, I love that.

I also remembered in college. I was in a sorority, which is kind of funny when you think about that I was a gender studies major in a sorority. And I had a boyfriend who flew in for the event and I would get like so excited for these big dances that I would be over served. And I was over-served for this. And this was in the era of like, not tights, but what were they called? Nylons? Yes.

You would wear nylons. And I would always wear nylons, but I would not wear underwear because you could see, because what's the point of underwear if you have nylons on, right? And you can see it on your dress. Anyway, we get that back to pictures. You know the big pictures of everyone in the group that is like, okay. And so they put these up in the house and the sorority house. Right. And there's the huge pictures of everyone in the sorority, everyone at the dance. And we were the first year, the youngest kids. And so we all were kneeling in the front row, except I was kneeling with my legs apart. Oh my God. In my dress. Oh, my God. With my no underwear on. And so the picture, which is everyone's like favorite picture, people live for this, right? To see everyone in the picture, except the entire picture.

in the house and then on me in my crotch is a sticker heart that the people have had to put over my vulva on the picture because everybody wants to hang the picture so they can see themselves but it's me in the front with a big red heart sticker over my vulva so I'm not flashing everyone who walks by in the house. Is there any way to get a copy? Someone probably has it. Okay. If you're listening to this, please don't post that picture. Yeah. Yeah.

That's so good. Oh, my gosh. I have a kind of an embarrassing story that happened to me in high school. One of my dear friends, and she was a teammate of mine, she was like a junior when I was an eighth grade, senior when I was a freshman. I was always like on the varsity soccer team. One of the very first like weeks of practice, she comes up to. me and says, all right, so you're the youngest of a family. I am too. I never got taught stuff.

So here's the deal. Before you come to school, you got to brush your teeth. And every night after practice, you got to take a shower. Oh, honey, she's telling you stunk. I was like, oh, okay. And you got to wear deodorant, you know, like it's just one of those things. You just, you've, you didn't have a schema for hygiene. No. You've been stinking. And, you know, we're all in close proximity. And then you get into a car, the whole shebang. And I was like, okay. So like, I was in eighth grade when I first learned that I needed to brush my teeth every morning. Brush my hair, she also said, wear deodorant and shower after practice every night. Bless her heart. And your heart, did you feel embarrassed? Yeah, it was so embarrassing. And then I think I went like the other way and I was like, you know, I was like,

oh, I like, that's like how I like it. I'm doing a thing here. I'm doing it. But now I think I'm like super sensitive. Is that why you always smell so good and you put on all the things? Yeah. Because I'm like, do I smell bad? Do you smell anything? Oh. Oh. That is those things traumatize you, I think, a little bit. Yeah. And also, I've also had a lot of teammates. that have also had this problem for whatever reason. And I just, people come to me as like the leader, captain of the team. And they're like, we got to talk to so-and-so. And I'm like, y'all.

Tell Liz, she smells like shit. Y'all, I. Is that part of your job as a captain? This is a toughie. This is a toughie. We might just need to, like, so you go through a process of modeling. Like, you're modeling. You get into the locker room and everybody's like, everybody has to shower, you know?

Everybody's got to shower right now. Let's all take showers. Try to, like, get people into the mindset. That's good. Well, you smell really good now, babe. Thank you. I was thinking back, sister, do you remember, like 10 years ago or something? I had seen some situation in a magazine or online where a woman was being Photoshopped.

So, like, she posed for something and then with no knowledge of her own, they just, like, Photoshopped her up and put her on the cover. And she was so pissed. So that I got so pissed about, like, women and photoshopping and all of the things. So I wrote this, like, manifesto. It was like an op-ed or something. Yes. But it was, like, about how I, you will never Photoshop.

me in any situation. Women do not need to be made, you know, more palatable to whomever with your fancy machines. And I will appear in periodicals and media exactly the way I am. And it was this entire thing. And I sent it to sister. And then she didn't call me. And I was like, what the hell? So I call her.

And I was like, did you get my Photoshop manifesto? And she was like, I did. And I was like, well, what do you think? And she was like, it's, it's well written. And then didn't say anything else. And I was like, well, okay. So what's the plan? Like what she goes, well, Glenn, no one's ever asked you to like be in a magazine or like anything.

What do you want? Do you want me to save this just in case someone ever asks to take a picture of you? Like, what is this for? Apropos of nothing. Banana. I mean, it was like to whom it may be concerned. And I was like, no one is concerned. No one has asked you to appear in their periodical.

But if and when they do, I'll make damn well sure if they want to use a photograph in said non-periodical, they will not Photoshop it. Oh my God, it's so embarrassing. I'm sweating. If you're a business owner who knows nothing about AI and feels really out of the loop, you're not alone. In today's data-driven world, you really need to understand your customers, and NetSuite can deliver those insights with zero fuss. No more waiting. With NetSuite, you can integrate AI into your operations today. NetSuite is the number one AI cloud ERP, trusted by over 43,000 businesses. It brings your financials, inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM into one

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every style every home okay so one more like it's kind of like that picture it sister and i are on the road i have an event okay i think we were in like charleston south carolina or something and we were staying at a hotel next door to the event that I was at, that speaking at, okay? And so the hotel was a buzz, a buzz, a buzz, a buzz, a buzz. A buzz, a buzz. A banana. Right, a banana of women who, many of whom were going to the event. Okay.

So, I come down to the lobby, getting ready to go over to the event, and I'm standing next to this group of women and they like kind of look, do you know where I'm going? They kind of like look over at me. In my mind, I'm registering these people are going to the event, right? You're registering maybe these people want to put me in a periodic. Yeah, exactly. Are they photoshopping me with their eyeballs? So one of them comes over to me. And so I turn to look at her and she says, would you take a picture and then like gestures back to her group. So I, in my ever so humble, generous spirit, say, of course, of course. So I hand my sister the phone and I walk over to the group of women. I snuggle myself in the middle of their line. Okay. There's like six of them. So I get into the center of them. I put my arms around me. I put my arms around.

their waists. Okay? I smile at my sister who has the camera. My sister is shaking with laughter. Takes the picture and then I notice that the women are just being weird. They're just being weird. They're not like smiling or excited. And one of the women turns to me in the line and she goes, she goes like this.

She goes, that was weird. Could you take a picture of us? She had no freaking idea who I was. She just wanted a picture of her friends. And I got in the middle of their picture and squeezed them like they were my best friends. I would love to have that photo of all of them going like. And I just had to walk away. I just walked away.

And then sister got her shit together and took a picture of the women by themselves. Because she knew what was going on the entire time and just let me go through the shrad. Bonanza. Bonanza. Somewhere that picture exists with all seven of you, but you have a heart-shaped sticker of your face so they can block you out. If anyone asks me for a picture now, I always say of me. Yeah.

Because I'm so scared. It's a good test. Yes. I'm so scared that they don't mean it. That was weird. That was weird. Okay. So let's hear from Meredith.

Hi, Ms. Meredith. My embarrassing story was coming back into the U.S. with my Australian partner. And he was going into one line for foreigners and I was going into my line. We're in Philadelphia and we get there and the TSA agent says to, I had my passport in hand. There was a scanner and he said, face down on the scanner, I pointed to it. And I just slowly tipped my head down, putting my face on the scanner. But you guys, he meant my passport. He didn't mean my face.

And he just looked at me like, oh, God. But he looked like he'd seen it before. Like, I wasn't the first mega idiot. And then I joined back up with my partner. And I could just kept this little moment to myself. But I told him, I shared that humiliated moment where I put my face down on the scanner, not the face down of my passport. And I told him and he loves that story more than anything and won't let me live it down.

That's so good. Face down. And she put her face to the skater. That reminds me of the passport. Oh. Okay. This is what I need the pod squad to understand. We were trying to renew Gliden's passport.

And so I texted her one day and I said, I need a picture of your passport. I have to get that to get the information off of it. And she says, okay. And she texts me back a picture of her passport, except she has sent me the, just the front. The closed blue front of the passport where it just says passport. She's like, here it is. And I'm like, thanks. The cover of the blue, when I said picture of your passport, she just sent me a picture.

of the blue cover as if there was anything that anyone was going to do with the cover of a passport. I was like, thanks. That also looks like my passport. I think that I thought I was just being tested because I thought you were asking me to prove that I had gotten my passport. Well, that wouldn't have proved it because that could have been anyone's passport. I mean, to go back to what Meredith... And the TSA agent, I will say there's two things that really freak me out. Customs and DMVs. Oh my God. There's something about not being able to like drive and not being able to get back or into a country that I actually lose part of my consciousness.

Yeah. I freak out like Tish saw it the other day because she was getting her license at the DMV. And I was like running around. and I have all the documents because clearly we just found out that Glennon is not the document person in our family. And Tish was like kind of rattled because she never sees me in this week. Like TSAs, customs. We lose your mind. We lose our minds.

We panic. It's a major power differential. And it's also like the Wild West. They can say whatever you want. There's no grievance process. There's no escalating. The DMB could be like, I'm sorry. confiscating this license and you'll never drive a motor vehicle again.

And then the rest of your life you're trying to fight. And it's because you were in the wrong line. Yeah. I just saw a tweet the other day that I thought was the funniest thing on earth that someone said, the DMV is like, did you bring the Declaration of Independence? Yeah. I mean, listen, you have to bring your whole. The whole thing.

And then they're like, you don't have it. So you have to come back and you're like, I can't take off of work. My kids are busy. Ugh. Okay. Let's hear from, I don't know who this next person is. And Glennon and sister. My mortifying story is when I was 19.

I was dating this hippie, long-haired man who was also 19. He was not a man. But he was at his family's home. And his parents were throwing a big party. They were the type of rich parents that let underage kids drink. And so we were very driven. drunk and he had the lower basement part of the house. We were drinking and hanging out and it was probably time to go to bed.

I went to go to sleep and somehow managed to like go upstairs. And his mother looked a lot like him and was in bed naked. And I crawled in bed naked with his mother and laid there for the rest of the the night not knowing that it was not him. And so the next morning, I woke up and I swing her on the bottom and said, Noah, what are you doing? I'm his mom. My God. My favorite part of that story was the way she tried to justify it. He looks a lot like his mom. Exactly. Come on. Anyone could have made that mistake, even if they weren't. and plastered.

You know, you too would have jumped in bed with Noah's mom. I mean, it often happens when people have looked like their parents. You find yourself sleeping with them. When I was growing up, one of my cousins, it was like how college, just after college, party time in my family's household. She fell asleep and went to go to the bathroom. And this is like an older, older house that I grew up in. And so there's one bathroom that served like five bedrooms upstairs. And so the bathroom was to the right.

She was so drunk that she took a left into my parents' bedroom and sat at the end of my parents' bed, pulled her pants down. No. Yeah. And my mom was like, Joanne. Joanne, what are you doing? And Joanne says, why are you in the bathroom? She was so drunk. She couldn't find her way out because she was so disoriented.

I don't know what happened after that, but that's family lore and my family. That's really good. I mean, who hasn't done that? Yeah. Who hasn't done that? Who hasn't peed in their parents' bedroom? Like, I don't think I've even done that. No, but I mean, when you think it's the bathroom and it's not?

You're like in the closet. You're like, why the bathroom is so different than I remember. It's not mortifying. That's just human nature. Exactly. So I just thought of this story. when you were talking about the sorority thing. So there was this one situation that my friend told me about.

It was a group of women that were living together. And it was in college. You remember in college or in communal living where one person flushes and all of the hot water would go away? So everyone in the shower and the same thing would like freeze. Yeah, that's still the story of my house. So because of this, there was a sign in the stall that said, don't forget to yell flush. Because that way, people who are in the shower could like step, step away from the water. But this one girl, I don't know if she's drinking or if she just, she misunderstood the sign.

So she peed and then she stood up and then she kept saying to the toilet, flush. Flush! Go down. She thought that the sign meant that the toilet was voice activated. And you have to yell flush at it until it flushed. She thinks it's 2025. That's really good. Oh, my God.

She thinks it's 2025. Okay, let's hear from Terry. Hi, this is Terry. Back in 2001, Raleigh, North Carolina, just had a baby. in the hospital and back then, you know, the preacher came to the hospital to, like, welcome the baby. And I was asleep and my mom had come in. And the preacher came to the door.

Of course, my mom woke me up like, the preacher's here. So I kind of woke up. I was worried that, like, my boobs were like going to hang out of my nursing gown. So I was getting that all situated. Anyway, he came in. He apologized. He woke me up. I said, no, no, it's fine.

sign and he like said a prayer over a family and he went down I guess to kiss my forehead and I thought he was going to kiss me so I puckered up and I kissed him on the lip. Nope. Literally right there in front of my mom. I kissed the preacher on the lip and my mom was like, what did you do? And I said, I thought he was coming in for a kiss. I didn't know. So anyway, so I kissed our picture on the lips of my family at the hospital with a baby one day old.

Oh, my God. That's beautiful. Terry. Oh, God, how awkward. It's so awkward. He was coming in and I just went for it. Sister, remember when our first big, huge meeting with all of the fancy people in New York and they were on that big Zoom or something. And when we were leaving the meeting, I said, okay, bye, I love you.

Yeah, that was really awkward. Yeah. Because we had just met them like five minutes before. It's not like a team we had worked for. And it was a dude. And it was dudes. And we didn't even end up working with him. No, which we could probably guess why.

Apropos of nothing. But I ends. Okay, bye. I love you. I mean, but how often do, I do that so. often because when I got off the phone with the kids every time, it's like, okay, love you bye. I know. Okay, love you by.

And so I'm on the phone with some Joe Schmo and I'm like, okay, love. From Verizon. Yeah. And you're like, love you bye. So weird. All right. Let's hear from Shannon. My name's Shannon.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I had a little boyfriend that I was very promiscuous with. And we were being. teenagers hooking up on the couch, you know, watching a movie, air quote, and I thought my parents had gone to sleep. Well, all of the sudden, my boyfriend is on the floor underneath the blanket, doing things, and I hear rustling in the kitchen, and I turn around, and my dad is standing there. And I don't know what to do. I'm trying not to enjoy. what is happening. So I start kicking my boyfriend and screaming,

did you find the remote? Hurry up and find the remote. Yes. Quick thinking. Yeah. I'm still mortified telling this story 10 years later. Shannon is a genius. That is a genius.

Sometimes you just got to say something that makes it plausible for everyone to pretend that's what was happening. Exactly. That dad was. Like, that's exactly what Shannon's doing. What a helpful boyfriend she has. Always looking to find the remote. I have a hilarious story that I have to leave anonymous because it's so, it's so funny.

One of my friends was hooking up with somebody on a rug. And, you know, there's like a sexual maneuver where you pull somebody closer to you with their, with their knees. You pulled them closer to you. Okay. Well, she was on a rug and she was naked. And the rug, it was like a shag rug. Okay.

Apropos of everything. They were shagging on a rug. So it was a shag rug. Do you see what we did there? And so she ends up in the hospital. Because the threads of the shag get stuck and get embedded into her vagina. No. No. And it blows up. No. Yes. Wait, the shag expands. No. So her vagina swolled up. From the shag rug fibers. Yes. Are we sure it wasn't something else? They had to go in there

and pull out the little shag fibers when she got to the hospital. Do you think that's how it's got its name, the rug? The shag rug. I don't know. Oh my God. This show is brought to you by Alma. When I first tried to find a therapist, it felt like a scavenger hunt with no map, pages of names, long wait lists, voicemails that never got returned. I remember thinking, if this is what it takes just to talk to someone, no wonder people give up. So when I found Alma, it felt like someone finally turned the lights on.

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So, you know, I did the whole concentrating really hard and not necessarily. my stop pole thing. And the whole time this guy that I was seeing is like, text me like, hey, come over. Hey, come over. And I was like, yeah, yeah. He's like, you can just do an Uber. I was like, yeah, yeah, I can do that. I'm like, I've never ordered an Uber before ever. This is like, 2014. Uber just got to gain still. We're real excited. So I go to order an Uber and I'm like, it's not working. I don't know what's happening. Like I put in my name. I put in just want to go. And they're like, for a job with Uber. We can't wait to hear more about what you are the driver. work for us now. I was like, you know, I did not order a car. And that is my most

my first. Thank you. Oh, by the way, I was graduating with my master's degree that day. I will say this. Oh, she accidentally applied for a job. Yes. I will say this. So there are some apps that are hard to navigate. They're all. Yeah. And you're like, I, I don't understand how to do this. Also, I went to the University of Florida. So go Gators. Go Gators. Go Gators. Go Gators. Oh, that's good. All right, Kristen. Hi, my name is Kingston. So I was in grad school at a fairly small university that didn't have a robust program yet for the degree I was getting. And so we did teleconferencing classes.

And I was in the program with my boyfriend. And so we were the only two people taking the class at our university. So one time we were in this room and we were fairly new to dating. and it was fun. And so we're all set up waiting for the class to start. We're a conference in and muted or so I thought. So I turned to him at one point. And I said, you know, I could blow you under this table and no one would know,

which never in my life have I said before or after or done. All we hear is Merced, could you please say? Turn your turn your mics off. And we both died a little bit that day. But we're still together. Two kids later. So sometimes mortification brings you closer together.

Oh, honey. Oh, God. Do you know what that reminds me of? What? All right. Sister, do you remember? Of course you do,

because it's probably etched in your soul forever. But when Abby and I were falling in love and we were trying to do things methodically in terms of going public. Okay. Oh, okay. You were trying to do things methodically. Yes. We were nothing but just drunk in love.

I don't know why I did this. I still to the day, do not know why I did this. But we were on like a tour. And I was in charge of all of these things. And so my publisher sent me the bios for all the people who were going to be speaking at one of the nights. you were going to be speaking at one of the nights. So your bio was in the list of bios, okay? I, for some effing reason, as a joke, I think you were there, like, with me or something at the computer probably because we were, like, attached at the hip.

I took your bio and took out half of the paragraph and added my own spin to it. So it was like Abby Wambach, you know, FIFA World Player of the Year, Olympian, blah, blah, blah, blah. hottest human in the universe. I want to marry her. I want to sleep with her. I want to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, just this funny, like, thing. And then showed it to you. And then I fucking sent it to my publisher.

You forgot to delete that part. To my entire publishing team. I sent it. Yeah. So I'm, I press send. How did you find out? Well, I freeze and I don't move. I'm just staring at the computer like,

And then, if you remember this, we were in the little office in my old house. I just crumbled to the ground. I just lay on the floor. And then the phone rings, okay, within seconds. And it's sister. And she's just like, what the absolute fuck? Like, we are, we have been working so hard to do this right. And then you sent like a porn paragraph.

to our entire team. So then I couldn't, I had no words. I just, I don't, I mean, so then I think we sent another email that was like, whatever you do, don't open the previous email. Yeah, that works well. It's like everyone has disregarded your email until you send an email that says disregard prior email, at which point everyone goes back to look at the prior email. Have we ever even talked, have we talked, have we,

talk to Whitney about this. I hope Whitney, Whitney, Whitney's my editor, who's been through low, so many things with me. Actually, one more Whitney's story. Whitney Frick, I love you. Whitney Frick has been with me since the very, very, very beginning. On my first tour, for Carriand Warrior, your first book. For Carriand Warrior, I went to New York City. I didn't know what the fuck I was doing at all, okay? Somebody said, just be camera ready. Just be TV ready. TV ready, as if that many things to me, I was watching a lot of real housewives back then, right? That's what I did. That was my TV. So to me, to be TV ready meant you had four pounds of Botox, you had 60 pounds of makeup, you had eyelashes out to your, you had extensions in your hair,

you had huge boobs, you had, listen, I just made myself into a real housewife, okay? Part of my real housewife outfit was these chicken cutlets that I used to, Stuff in my bra. Okay. They were not actual chicken cutlets, but do you all know what we're talking about? Those silicone little packets that look like chicken cutlets. Yeah. Right.

So I went to New York City, did the Today Show, did an entire segment about how we should all show up as ourselves, vulnerably, and be real. And I did that in my entire real housewife, you know, with my fake boobs. And by real, I mean real housewives. Like, I could not move my face. And I was like, we need to embrace who we. are. That's fine. I can't even think about it. Then I flew to the next place and I forgot my chicken cutlet boobs in my drawer, which I was like at the hotel, which I was like, how am I going to be TV ready without my boobs? So I had to call Whitney, who barely knew me at the time. And I was

like, fancy New York editor, I just need you to go back to the hotel and just get my boobs. And I just need you to send them to me at my next hotel. So she, Whitney, as one of her very first act, of love delivered my boobs to the next hotel. Yes, she did. She had to like overnight them to Chicago or something. Okay, let's move on. My name is G. And I wanted to call about a prosthetic penis story.

Yeah, you do. So basically I was in a house with me and my partner and two of our friends who were together. And long story short, after we sex with our prosthetic penis, I went in the shower to wash it. And I don't know where my brain was, but I washed it. And then I, you know, it could stick to the shower wall. So I stuck it to the wall so I could wash myself. And then I forgot that I had stuck it to the wall and I left the shower.

So a few minutes later, our other friends went to take a shower. hour and we're all hanging out in the living room and we heard a scream and she said who left there just in the shower and turns out she you know doesn't see very well in the shower and she went in and like it hit her in the head and that was definitely a mortifying story that thank god I was with my queer friends who understood you know the situation better but I guess you guys might enjoy it up. Oh, if I had a quarter for every time, we got hit in the head with a dick in the shower. I would have four cents. Can we please, please title this episode, who left their dick in the shower? It's so good. G, gee, you were right. We did enjoy it up.

I just want to say, that was amazing. I didn't know that you could get a prosthetic penis or a dildo to stick on the shower wall. Well, for sure, we're Googling that after this recording. You definitely can. There's like, there's all kinds of structures, right? But you just, but do you hook it on the wall? No, it's a suction. Cups situation. I see. I see. Oh, my God. I just effing remember something. Oh, my God. Okay. Do you remember Abby Wambach when we, when I was doing a speech in Kansas City and there was so many people in the audience and it was at a church. Oh yes. I know what you're going to say. And I was in the middle of an impassioned plea. I was trying to get everybody like galvanized and fired up. And so I was trying to say what we all do is we continue to put our fists in the air or something.

I don't remember this. But you will in a minute. But what I said to the entire audience was what we do is we continue fistic. Oh, yeah. And then I launched my fist into the air. We continue fisting. And the entire crowd went silent. It was in a church too. In a church.

And then burst into. tears laughing. And the most embarrassing part was I had no idea what they were laughing at. I didn't know what fisting was because I was so new. Do you remember that? Yeah. Okay, sorry. Carry on. How about Jocelyn? Hey, my name is Jocelyn and I'm just responding to the podcast, literally. a small girl coming out with my mom and aunt from Chuckie Cheese. We get into the car. We're all ready to go. My mom is having trouble getting the car started.

And my Aunt Fran, God lover, is eating peanuts off the dashboard. Suddenly goes, I can't remember these peanuts being here. My mom and my aunt. They have now put all of the children in the wrong car. Everybody starts screaming, trying to get out of the car. really quickly. And all your stories today brought that story back to me. And I just remember my hands.

I don't remember these peanuts on the dashboard. I appreciate Aunt Fran. I love someone who sees a bunch of peanuts on a dashboard and is like, yum. Peanuts on the dashboard and begins eating them. And then later says, I don't remember these peanuts on the dashboard or else I would have eaten them on the way to Chuck E cheese. Do you remember when mom was following Grandma, Grandma Alice, in the car? And she pulled up and they were trying to get into a parking lot.

And you know how the parking lots have those like rails when you get close enough, they open. But you can't like go through them. Oh yeah, yeah. So like their entrances, the arms go up and the arms go down. Right. Yeah. So my grandma saw the size. on the rails that said pull up, pull up.

And so my mom found my grandma. Her car was parked in front of the rails. And she was standing trying to pull up. The gate? Pull up. The rails. She was pulling the arm up because she thought that's what it meant. Yeah.

And you had to pull it up. And then it would be, yes, that's right. Pull up to poor grandma in her car. Remember how she would drive. Like she lived in the same town for 50 years, okay, to go to four places. To church, to the mall, to the bowling alley, and to the golf course. Right. Okay, notice there was no grocery store in there.

No. Please see aforementioned bologna and tomatoes. But she would go church, mall, golf course, bowling alley. So one day she has to go to the mall and we're getting in the car and she gets like, the mall's probably 25 minutes away. we get like 10 minutes on the road and she's like, damn it, I made the wrong turn.

So she turns around and drives all the way back to the house. And then she pulls in and she pulls out again and we're like, Grandma what? And she's like, oh, I only know how to get from the house to the mall. If I make a wrong turn, I have to go back to the house and start over. Do you understand how much? I just, I feel so seen by that story. So much just feels genetic.

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So I was in high school at the time and I was at a Mexican restaurant. And you know how you don't really want to be the person that's like butchering a word that's not in English? You know, you like try to be a little respectful, you know, give it your best effort. And so I was like really geared up to be like, I'm going to say the Spanish word. I'm going to try. And so when the waiter came, I said I would like a taco plate. And then he said, do you mean a taco plate? And that's when I realized that it wasn't in Spanish.

It was just plate. And flate isn't correct either. So I had to say, yes, a taco plate. But at this point, my brother and my sister had heard and were just dying laughing. And it was just mortifying. And, I mean, I probably thought about this for like once a week for the last 15 years. Yeah. A taco plate.

Of course. Remember when you walked into the department store in Florida and very fancily said to the lady behind the desk, we're looking for the brand Fromme. Do you have anything from Fromme? And she pointed and she goes, do you mean frame? I was like, yeah, that's exactly what I mean. Frame. Let's hear from Sing.

Hi, friends. My name is Singh. This is a story about I was a teenager. I grew up in Denver, Colorado. I don't know, about 15 of my closest friends and I all went to Red Rocks to see a concert. It was amazing and shirts are off and the sun is out and my friend is sitting in front of me. and he, I can tell, has one of the most satisfying back peels from a sunburn you have ever seen. I can't help myself.

And eventually, an impulse comes to me, and I reach over, and I grab it. And I remember it was from his left shoulder. And I started, I think I only have one hand on this point. But the most satisfying sheet of skin came off in my hand. And then my friend turned around. And it was not my friend. It was just some guy looking at the woman who peeled his back. And the only thing that I could think of to tell him was, I'm sorry.

I thought you were coming. Oh, my God. Imagine like. And it was not my friend peeling the skin off of someone's stranger's back. And what is this? What is this? Some people are so into this stuff with other people's bodies. Abby and I have a major, I have to call marriage on it.

Like, she wants me to pop her zits. Oh my God, I can't believe you don't want to pop people's zits. It's irresistible. I know. Especially the ones I get on the back from where my sports brought is and it's sweaty. No. And I get them and I can't reach. No.

And I'm like, I just need your help. And she's like, no. It's a boundary. It's a boundary for me. I say to her, I need you to help me. I need you to help me not be. completely grossed out. All right, let's hear from Jeannie.

Hello, Lovelies. My name is Jeannie. I am a French teacher at an elementary school here in Canada. And in my 50s, I seemed to no longer be able to hold my pee very long. So I went into the bathroom and thought I had locked the door and was doing my business sitting on the toilet. When I heard the kindergarten coming through in the hallway, all 30 of them, and you know how kindergarten's everything. So they must have touched the little handle that says open and the door slowly opens ever so slowly. And I can now, I'm in full view as it opens through all the kindergartens

coming through, sitting on the toilet. I don't know what to do because I can't get up. Close the door. And I decide I can just sit there and be kind and wait. So I waved to all of them coming by ever so slowly as they all said, Bonjour madame, beaum, beaum, bonjourne, beaam, bojo madame. And the sweetest part is that these three and four-year-olds are so untainted that they did not think of a big deal whatsoever. It was just a teacher sitting on a toilet and an opportunity to say, bonjourn.

Oh. Then she just thought so quickly it was like, well, out of all of my options, my best one is just to wave to the chair. Elgin walking by. Because she's stuck. She can't get up because she's in mid-pee and it's impossible to stop midstream. That's so great because the kids don't even know yet that that's a big mortifying moment. Yeah.

You know, maybe she made peeing a little less of a future mortifying moment. If anybody ever walks into me while I'm on the toilet for the rest of my life, I will just say, Bonjour madame. Monsieur madame. Bonjour madame is our new prosthetic peon. Yes. Bonjour madame may have a taco plate. And who put a dick in the shower?

So what I would like to say to the pod squad is thank you for spending this hour with us. Don't forget this week before we meet again that when things get hard, we can do hard things. Yes. See you next turn. And we want to do a holiday edition of embarrassing. stories. Let's do that. So maybe embarrassing stories, maybe beautiful stories, your best holiday stories. Send them. They can be also your worst holiday stories. But anything brutal, beautiful, brutal, as G. Bird says, or hilarious. Send it to us. Call us and tell us about it at 747-200-5307.

I'm excited about this. Oh, sorry. Say the numbers. and say the boring numbers. Okay. 747, 200, 5307. Okay. So, you know how like really good holidays are good holiday and then like really bad holidays are good story? It's like that. So just think of the moment that you have with your family that you remember the most. It can be because it sucked or can be because it was beautiful and send them our way. We're just going to get through the holidays. year by sharing the stories that makes that make us pee in our pants a little bit and feel less alone. Well, everything makes me pee in my pants because three children. Just call and sneeze and that'll make me pee on my pants. Also, please try to get it in

about under two minutes so that we can actually play it. We listened to all of them. Yes. But we can only play the ones that aren't 35 minutes long. You all, you just call us and then you just leave the phone on all evening. You just talk to us for hours. It's amazing. It's our favorite to listen to those voicemails. It's our favorite. But for these two minutes, please.

Two minutes, please. Okay? We love you. Pod Squad. We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye. I give you Tishmilton and Brandy Carlisle.

I came out the other side. I chased. desire I made sure I got was mine and I continued to believe that as I'm a cause we're adventurers and heart breaks on map a final destination we'll lack they stopped asking this day never had to be too hard to be too hard A brand new star Things fall I continue to

The best people are free Took some time But I'm finally fine Those were adventurers And heart breaks A final destination asking directions to places

they've never been and to be so hard to play and too. We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. Be sure to rate,

review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts, especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. if you didn't, don't worry about it. It's fine.