Armchair Anonymous: Twins

Dax and Monica talk to Armcherries! In today's episode, Armcherries tell us a crazy twin story. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dax Shepard?

  Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dax Randall Shepherd. I'm joined by Monica Lilly Padman.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Hello.

• 0:06Dax Shepard?

  And today we have twins. Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding.

• 0:10Speaker 01

  Twins.

• 0:11Dax Shepard?

  We also have a twin coming up.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  We do. I wish we had arranged this a little better.

• 0:16Dax Shepard?

  Unintentional.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  Sims.

• 0:18Dax Shepard?

  What was the other one we just had?

• 0:20Speaker 02

  Doppelgangers?

• 0:21Dax Shepard?

  Doppelgangers. We stumbled into a few weeks of doppelgangers.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  So fun.

• 0:26Dax Shepard?

  Yes. Well, twins. This is twins telling us crazy stories of being twins. And we just love them. We love twins.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  We love them.

• 0:34Dax Shepard?

  Love them. Also, we have new prompts.

• 0:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 0:37Dax Shepard?

  New prompts.

• 0:38Speaker 01

  Submit.

• 0:38Dax Shepard?

  Please submit. Please, please, please. You submit at www. armchairexpertpod.com. Tell us a crazy story about a bad roommate.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  We know you got them.

• 0:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, come on. Tell us about a time you stole something. Tell us a crazy graduation story. Tell us a crazy camping story.

• 0:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:58Dax Shepard?

  And I'm gonna throw this one in there. Am I allowed to do this, Rob?

• 1:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, whatever you want.

• 1:01Dax Shepard?

  Okay, cuz someone just suggested it in the comments and I thought it was, and it kind of pairs well. Crazy neighbor stories.

• 1:07Speaker 01

  Oh, I love that, yeah.

• 1:08Dax Shepard?

  Let's add crazy neighbors. So if you got a crazy neighbor, crazy roommate, you stole something, you graduated and went haywire, or a crazy camping story, please submit and we will chat with you.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  Yay.

• 1:20Dax Shepard?

  Please enjoy twins. We get support from Quince.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  I have to say, I am so ready for fall. I want sweaters. I've been craving a true crisp morning where I actually need a jacket. I can't wait.

• 1:33Dax Shepard?

  I'm fully there. The second it dips below 70, I'm like, this is my season. Give me the layers, give me the boots, give me a reason to wear something other than a t-shirt. And honestly, that's why I love Quince, because fall is when your wardrobe actually has to show up. And everything at Quince is 50 to 80% less than similar brands. We're talking 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters, starting at $60.

• 1:56Speaker 01

  $60. $60 for cashmere that you'd expect from a luxury brand without the luxury price tag. It's amazing. Gets me every time. It really shouldn't be real, but it is because they go straight to the factories, they skip the middlemen, and they just hand you the savings. The stuff isn't trendy. It's the kind of pieces you grab over and over because they work every time.

• 2:13Dax Shepard?

  The 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters for me are it. When I look at Steve McQueen, this man owned a couple of sweaters he wore all the time and he looks iconic.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  It's a uniform.

• 2:24Dax Shepard?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  And Quince isn't just about the clothes. They have hotel quality bedding, cookware, bath essentials, thoughtfully designed furniture. You can really go there and outfit your entire apartment or house. So if you're in need of any kind of fall refresh at home too, same quality, same attention to detail for every corner of your life.

• 2:42Dax Shepard?

  Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Armchair Expert. It's the best way to support the show. We get support from Scottsdale, Arizona. Monica, with summer ending or heading into fall, I've been researching a nice quick getaway location and I keep coming back to Scottsdale, Arizona.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  Ooh, Scottsdale's good. What's drawing you to it?

• 3:14Dax Shepard?

  Well, first of all, I have this wonderful memory of going there as a kid when I go see my stepdad when he's working out there. The weather is perfect in fall, warm, sunny, no humidity. And you can really do whatever you want with your time there. I want to do a sunrise hike through the Sonoran Desert, be surrounded by Sowaro. And then at the same afternoon, just completely melt into a spa treatment at one of their luxury resorts.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  Oh, that sounds amazing. I want to do that. Also, I was there visiting my brother once and I loved Old Town Scottsdale. It's so walkable. They have galleries and cute little restaurants and shops. The food scene alone is worth the trip.

• 3:53Dax Shepard?

  What I keep reading is that it's luxurious, but not stuffy. There's no pressure to do it a certain way. You can explore public art, check out the architecture, go off roading in the desert, or just sit and watch a sunset.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  It really is the perfect fall reset.

• 4:07Dax Shepard?

  Learn more about all Scottsdale has to offer at unwindinscottsdale.com.

• 4:34Speaker 03

  Hello.

• 4:34Dax Shepard?

  Hello. Is this Casey?

• 4:37Speaker 03

  Is this Casey? How are you?

• 4:39Dax Shepard?

  Good. Where are you, Casey?

• 4:41Speaker 01

  Look at her shirt.

• 4:42Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my God. Yeah, it looks very cute.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  It does.

• 4:44Speaker 03

  Rapping the best.

• 4:46Speaker 01

  It looks so chic.

• 4:47Dax Shepard?

  You could be a model for the sweatshirt, I think.

• 4:50Speaker 03

  Anytime you want to hit me up, I'm happy to do so.

• 4:53Dax Shepard?

  So where are you at?

• 4:54Speaker 03

  I am from Glen Ellen, Illinois. So Rob should know that.

• 4:57Speaker 02

  I know Glen Ellen.

• 4:58Dax Shepard?

  Have you gotten into trouble there, Rob?

• 4:59Speaker 02

  No, I played soccer there, though.

• 5:01Dax Shepard?

  Oh, OK.

• 5:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, not from here. My husband lived here, but I grew up in Batavia, not afar, drive.

• 5:07Dax Shepard?

  So you moved to this town for your husband?

• 5:10Speaker 03

  Correct. My husband bought a house here.

• 5:12Dax Shepard?

  OK. How long have you guys been together?

• 5:14Speaker 03

  Eight years now.

• 5:16Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my goodness. You made it past the seven-year scratchies.

• 5:19Speaker 03

  I know, right? Eight years together, less than a year married.

• 5:22Dax Shepard?

  Oh, OK. Wonderful.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Did you make that up? Seven-year scratches because seven innings stretch?

• 5:27Dax Shepard?

  No, seven-year itches, the famous saying.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  I have heard that.

• 5:31Dax Shepard?

  And I changed it to scratchies. Real time.

• 5:34Speaker 03

  I like it.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  I do, too.

• 5:35Dax Shepard?

  And you made it through the scratchies. OK, so are you a twin?

• 5:38Speaker 03

  I am a twin, so my story has to do with being a twin firsthand experience.

• 5:44Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wonderful. Let us in on it.

• 5:47Speaker 03

  I would say that we didn't grow up, my sister and I, as typical twins. I would partially blame my mom just because from kindergarten onwards, she put us in different classes. She didn't dress us alike. She wanted us to have our own personalities, have our own friend groups, all of that.

• 6:02Dax Shepard?

  Can I quickly ask, are you fraternal or identical?

• 6:05Speaker 03

  Actually, we didn't know if we were identical or fraternal to be quite fair. We were born in the 90s. When we were born, we came out, the doctor had essentially said there was one placenta, but then he also countered and said it was two placentas that might have fused into one. So he was confused. So essentially, for 31 years, my sister and I were walking around, either saying that story or just being like, we don't know, and then kind of avoiding all further questions. And it wasn't until actually 2024, my husband was so sick of us telling the story that we didn't know that he bought a genetic test off of Amazon. So we did do the testing in 2024, and the exact verbiage, I had to look it up, was the probability of this match occurring between two random individuals

• 6:49Speaker 03

  is approximately 1 in 7.46 times 10 to the 27th power.

• 6:54Dax Shepard?

  OK, so pretty good odds it could happen to anyone.

• 6:59Speaker 03

  So I would say our DNA, it's pretty similar at the end of the day.

• 7:02Dax Shepard?

  Whoa. Okay, now quickly to mom's desire for you both to have your own personalities. I understand it in some sense, like you're a parent, you're worried. You think your kid's gonna go out and need to create their own life and they can't be so dependent on another person. But then I also would imagine that's informed by someone's own disposition about how independent they want to be seen. You know what I'm saying? Do you know what her main driving reason was for wanting you guys to be separated and all that?

• 7:30Speaker 03

  I think it really just at the end of the day was that she just wanted us to develop our own personalities and have our own friendships. I think when you're a twin, you rely so heavily on your other half. Sometimes even other twins start speaking for the other one. I feel like always these dynamics kind of come into play, type A, type B. And I just think from the get, she wanted us to be two separate people when we were out in the world.

• 7:53Dax Shepard?

  Okay, and she herself wasn't a twin?

• 7:55Speaker 03

  No, they say twins skip a generation, but I think when we looked back at genetics, it was like years and years and years ago that there were ever twins on any side. So we just weren't that typical. I was the more type A, studious, riding horses, hanging out with my girlfriends on the weekend. And then my sister was more the rebellious type, got in a lot of trouble when we were younger. She was out there breaking rules. So it was a warm summer night in 2011 and I had just gotten this really weird feeling that something was going on, that something was wrong. And I had gone over to my mom and I had asked her what was going on, if she had heard from my sister at all. And she had kind of brushed me off and said, no, she's in the city with a few friends. I haven't heard from her. She's fine.

• 8:40Speaker 03

  Carry on with your day.

• 8:41Dax Shepard?

  How old would you and she have been at that time?

• 8:43Speaker 03

  We were probably 19. So the feeling hasn't subsided. The best way I could describe it, it's like an elephant sitting on your chest. It's like your anxiety being at a 12 out of 10. You just know innately that something's not right. So I go back to my mom again and I say, again, I haven't heard from my sister Sarah. I've tried calling, I've tried texting. Have you heard from her? And again, she brushed me off. She's like, no, Casey, you're fine. She's fine. We haven't heard from her. Everything is good. And I will preface this with saying, I have gotten this feeling a lot. Again, she was a rebel rouser. She got in a lot of trouble. Mind you, a year previous to this, she had been in a motorcycle, a moped accident.

• 9:23Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 9:23Speaker 03

  Down the street from her house. She was causing trouble, driving the moped. She flipped off of it, shattered her femur.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  Oh, fuck.

• 9:31Dax Shepard?

  Femur.

• 9:32Speaker 03

  And had ended up in the hospital, broke her leg. And one of her legs, now her left leg, is about half an inch shorter than her right leg.

• 9:40Dax Shepard?

  Well, tell her Usain Bolt's is also. Don't let that slow her down.

• 9:43Speaker 03

  Trust me, it did not slow her down. So I had had this feeling previously. There had been a lot of weird parallels in our life where this had come up and accidents had occurred. So if we went to bed, a dreaded phone call came about 11 o'clock at night, letting us know that my sister actually had gotten into an accident in the city. She was with a handful of friends. They were walking along the Chicago Lakefront Trail. And being underage, drunk, imbalanced, left leg shorter than the right. She's actually fallen.

• 10:14Dax Shepard?

  Left leg shorter than the right.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  That didn't, wow.

• 10:18Dax Shepard?

  I guess it's a variable we gotta consider.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:21Speaker 03

  She's a normally clumsy person and then you throw in one leg being shorter than the left and that just really adds to it. So she unfortunately had fallen from one pier on the Chicago Lakefront Trail to another.

• 10:35Dax Shepard?

  Oh my goodness.

• 10:37Speaker 03

  And had been rendered unconscious. And the phone call my mom had gotten was when she was already at the hospital. A friend had actually stayed with her and called my mom. And that was just kind of that feeling, that intuition of knowing, you know, that my other half, there was something going on. So I know there's been a lot of speculation that I've heard from you guys. Is the twin telepathy or connection real? And I can definitely say in my case that it is.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  Whoa, this is horrible for you.

• 11:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, cuz you didn't really warrant or earn any of this anxiety, but your identical doppelgangers out there.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  And she causes trouble and now you have to live in this world where you know. That she's always at risk and it's upsetting.

• 11:23Dax Shepard?

  It feels like a children's book. It's kind of also the id and the superego. What were her total injuries? How well did she recover? Is one side of her face a half inch shorter than the other now? What's going on with her?

• 11:35Speaker 03

  She recovered great. She was in the hospital and I called my mom to check in on this story to make sure all my details were lining up as well. And she had said that we had drove down there and she was at Rush Copley, which is right outside of Chicago. And she was actually sitting in the hallway because I didn't have enough rooms to put her in and that she was unconscious, I think for a brief amount of time. But as far as I know, the only screws are loose are a few, but I don't think that aided to anything.

• 12:01Dax Shepard?

  Okay, okay. And where is she at now? How's she doing? She leveled off or is she still a daredevil?

• 12:07Speaker 03

  I have her here with me.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  Oh, this is so exciting.

• 12:12Speaker 03

  Hi.

• 12:13Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wait, she's not in. Yeah, you have that thing on. You gotta get closer. Oh, yay.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  This is so exciting.

• 12:24Speaker 03

  Here's the troublemaker.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  How dare you?

• 12:27Dax Shepard?

  Have your troubles passed? Are you now a safe, law-abiding citizen?

• 12:32Speaker 03

  I'm what? I'm pregnant, so no more. I went through the rebellious phase up until probably I hit 21 and drinking wasn't fun anymore.

• 12:40Dax Shepard?

  You wore it out quickly. Well, congratulations on the forthcoming baby.

• 12:45Speaker 03

  She broke the unspoken rule we had of getting pregnant at the same time.

• 12:49Dax Shepard?

  But she's the daredevil. She's gotta go first.

• 12:52Speaker 03

  And the oldest.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  By how much?

• 12:54Speaker 03

  Eight minutes.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 12:56Dax Shepard?

  You took your sweet ass time, Casey. You were like, tell me how it is out there and then I'll decide if I'm coming. Oh, that kind of makes sense. She came first. She's like, oh, I got it. I'll come up first. I'll see what's on the other side that's unknown.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  True, true. I'll check it out for you.

• 13:10Dax Shepard?

  Do both of you listen to the show or just one?

• 13:12Speaker 03

  Both of us.

• 13:13Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay.

• 13:14Speaker 03

  She got me into the show.

• 13:16Dax Shepard?

  Cause we're like good boys and girls.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, you probably listened to Smartless.

• 13:20Dax Shepard?

  She listens to Call Her Daddy.

• 13:23Speaker 03

  I got her into it. And if I could do a shout out to my husband, huge shout out to Mike as well. But this was so exciting. So surreal to see you guys.

• 13:31Dax Shepard?

  So nice to meet you. We love twins. It's so fun. I don't know which one to look at, which is exciting. I'm bouncing back and forth.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  Okay, now, being a twin, do you feel like everyone's just staring so hard at the two of you when you're together? Because they're trying to determine what's different. Like, I wouldn't want someone investigating my face like that.

• 13:51Dax Shepard?

  Do you feel examined, I guess, is the question?

• 13:54Speaker 03

  I think so. I think growing up, we looked a lot more similar. But now I would say we do hang out with each other more and our friend groups have kind of evolved into one.

• 14:04Dax Shepard?

  Did you guys ever like the same boy?

• 14:05Speaker 03

  No, very different taste in men.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  Oh, I like that. Okay. Are your husbands like each other?

• 14:14Speaker 03

  I would say my husband is like her and my husband is like her.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah.

• 14:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I like that. Missing the halves.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:23Dax Shepard?

  Well, lovely meeting you sisters. This has been so fun. Take care and congrats and good luck on everything.

• 14:29Speaker 03

  Thank you so much.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 14:32Dax Shepard?

  Hello, is this Anna Marie?

• 14:34Speaker 04

  It's Anna.

• 14:36Speaker 01

  Anna, we have an Anna.

• 14:38Dax Shepard?

  We have a very close Anna. Do you hear us say Anna?

• 14:41Speaker 04

  I do. And I rarely hear people say Anna. It's usually Anna. So I always appreciate that it's the right pronunciation of our name.

• 14:49Dax Shepard?

  It's wreaked havoc in our friendship circle in a sense that, once I finally got used to that, then Anna Kendrick, I always call Anna Kendrick now. And then our friend Hannah, when I'm first around her and I've been around Anna a lot, I'll call Hannah Hannah on accident. Monica doesn't relate to the anxiety, but I certainly have it.

• 15:11Speaker 04

  It's hard, especially my husband's name is Dash.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 15:15Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 15:16Speaker 04

  That never gets messed up. I have the type of personality that's really bad at correcting people. So I'm often Anna.

• 15:23Dax Shepard?

  Bad in that you do correct them or bad in that you don't correct them?

• 15:26Speaker 04

  I'll correct the first time. And then after that, it's kind of like, I'm not sure how to do this gracefully without you feeling weird. So if you're a friend Anna has any tips?

• 15:34Speaker 01

  She doesn't because she does the same thing and I always feel really awkward when I'm there too. And someone we know well is calling her Anna. I'm like, at this point, you should know.

• 15:45Dax Shepard?

  You can make an argument for both. So one is like, oh yeah, you should advocate for yourself and insist on people calling you. So that's the one argument. The other argument that I think is just as valid is like, I don't really care. Every time I give my name at a Starbucks, I go Dex. They go Dex? I go, yeah. Every time it gets mangled, it's like, it's not worth me spending any time correcting it.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  If I was calling you Dex, you would care and you should care.

• 16:08Dax Shepard?

  Well, first of all, you never call me by my name, nor do I really call you by yours. So it becomes moot pretty quickly in relationships, right?

• 16:15Speaker 01

  No.

• 16:16Dax Shepard?

  I'm never like, Monica.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  It sounds so familiar. You do that all the time.

• 16:22Speaker 04

  No, it's awkward if it's someone I know well.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  Yes, and it happens. I'm not going to call anyone out on the pod right now, but I'm thinking about someone.

• 16:30Dax Shepard?

  Do you see the argument I'm making though? Like there is something also elevated about not giving a shit.

• 16:35Speaker 04

  I'll take that. Happy to appear elevated.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  No, you don't have to do that.

• 16:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, like, do you know, would you rather be happy or right?

• 16:41Speaker 01

  No, you'd rather people pay enough attention to know your name.

• 16:45Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, this probably files into that insecure, secure attachment style.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  You don't get to have an opinion on this. You have such a specific name.

• 16:53Dax Shepard?

  Yes, that people mess up all the time.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  Strangers.

• 16:56Dax Shepard?

  No, people that I deal with a lot that still can't help but call me Dak. Your father fucked up my name when we were together the other day. It came out because it gives you anxiety that X and he said Dak and it's like, I don't really, I don't care. I know what's going on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  Whenever he talks about you, he says your name correctly.

• 17:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  So he knows your name, but maybe you made him really nervous.

• 17:16Dax Shepard?

  I probably, yeah.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  Okay, let's get to your story.

• 17:20Speaker 04

  Really quickly, Monica, you've met my little sister.

• 17:23Speaker 01

  What?

• 17:24Speaker 04

  She works at Bucatini.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  I love her.

• 17:29Dax Shepard?

  Wait, you know her?

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:30Dax Shepard?

  You're positive?

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Get out.

• 17:33Dax Shepard?

  Well, how many people work there?

• 17:34Speaker 01

  Mainly one.

• 17:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's mostly Leah.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  She's so sweet and she's a huge armchair until now.

• 17:42Dax Shepard?

  Why's that?

• 17:43Speaker 01

  She's mad at Dak.

• 17:44Dax Shepard?

  No, I just wanted to know how you knew, like, is there only one employee? Like, if there's four women, she's how my sister works there, and you go, I love her. I'm just curious how you knew.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  She also looks a lot like you. Both of you are very beautiful.

• 17:55Speaker 04

  Thank you. We get confused for twins, even though I'm seven years older than her.

• 17:59Dax Shepard?

  That's a feather in your cap, big time.

• 18:01Speaker 04

  I know, right?

• 18:02Speaker 01

  Is she as cool as she comes across?

• 18:05Speaker 04

  She's so cool.

• 18:06Dax Shepard?

  And Anna, where are you at?

• 18:07Speaker 04

  I'm in Brooklyn, hence the no closet that I can fit into.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  You're cool, too.

• 18:12Dax Shepard?

  But for an apartment in New York, I'm digging the vibe.

• 18:15Speaker 04

  This is my little studio. My husband's studio is on the other side of that bookshelf that he built.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Cute.

• 18:30Dax Shepard?

  We get support from Superhuman. I'm someone who wants to do big, meaningful work, but the small stuff eats up my day before I even get to it. The endless emails, docs, scheduling, follow-ups that pile up. By the time all that's cleared, there's no energy left for the ambitious stuff. Most AI tools promise to fix that, but they require opening a new tab, re-explaining everything from scratch every single time. A week later, it's just another thing collecting dust in the browser. Superhuman, from the makers of Grammarly, is different. It's already embedded inside the tools people are using: email, docs, browser. It's not waiting to be found, it's already there, working alongside, clearing what's in the way, so the focus stays on what's actually worth doing.

• 19:13Dax Shepard?

  A thought partner that's already up to speed, no catching it up. It knows the style, the workflows, and it backs people up without getting in the way. At your service, not after your job. That's the difference. Give it a try for yourself. Start streamlining your workflows with Superhuman. Try today at superhuman.com.

• 19:33Dax Shepard?

  We get support from Skims. So Monica just informed me that she's a girl's girl, and I nodded like I knew exactly what that meant.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the girls who get it, they get it.

• 19:44Dax Shepard?

  Okay, but for those of us who are clearly not girls, walk me through it.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Well, you know how much I love my Skims fleece joggers because the plush fleece is so soft, it's cozy, it's really comfortable without feeling too heavy. Well, I went to friend them, and she would not stop talking about how comfy they were. She almost didn't give them back to me, which was upsetting, but I'm a girl's girl, so I let her have it.

• 20:05Dax Shepard?

  Great, great, great.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  So the sleep sets are awesome because they are very soft and comfortable, but they're cute. If I'm in my sleep set, I feel fine about going down the street to pick up my food. I'm still looking cute, but I'm comfy and I'm cozy.

• 20:20Dax Shepard?

  Roger.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  A really fun thing to do is if you're going on vacation with your girlfriends, to get matching Skims pajamas. I've done this with Callie, and it is so fun. First of all, the pics are so cute, but also it's just fun and friendship.

• 20:33Dax Shepard?

  So a girl's girl is looking out for your friends with better loungewear. I get it. Am I one of your girls now?

• 20:39Speaker 01

  You are. You and the other girlies can shop my favorite loungewear and pajamas at skims.com. After you place your order, be sure to let them know we sent you. Select podcasts in the survey and be sure to select our show in the drop down menu that follows.

• 21:00Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so you have a twin story, and it's not that you're confused for your sister that works at...

• 21:06Speaker 01

  Bugatini.

• 21:06Dax Shepard?

  Bugatini.

• 21:07Speaker 04

  I have three siblings, and we're each three years apart. And we grew up moving around a fair amount, but most of our childhood was spent in London because of my dad's job.

• 21:17Dax Shepard?

  Was he MI5? What did he do in England?

• 21:19Speaker 04

  He worked in telecom, and this is the early 90s, so that was a different time for telecom. But because of the nature of his job, he was not around that often. And since we were all pretty little and in a new country, my mom was pretty overwhelmed taking care of us all solo. So we were fortunate enough to have a live-in nanny. The way the setup worked is we lived in a house. That had what the British call an in-law apartment.

• 21:45Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 21:46Speaker 04

  So the bottom street level had a bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, like a whole separate entrance. So when we would have these nannies, they would live in the basement. It was private. We would never go there. And they would go in through the street level and we would go up the stairs to enter the house. We primarily worked with this one babysitting agency. And as you can imagine, it was kind of hit or miss, like we had some freaks.

• 22:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 22:14Speaker 04

  But one babysitter that we had, I was obsessed with. She was young. Most of these nannies, it was their first time living independently. And oftentimes they'd just move to the UK and it was like, ooh, my own apartment, big deal. And this one nanny, she was probably early twenties and she'd just moved to London. And she had like long glossy brown hair. She was soft spoken.

• 22:34Dax Shepard?

  Where had she moved from?

• 22:35Speaker 04

  From South Africa. So she had a South African accent.

• 22:38Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, very fun.

• 22:38Speaker 04

  She was just very cool. And as a lot of young girls do with their nannies, I idolized her and just wanted to be her and thought she was so cool.

• 22:47Dax Shepard?

  How old were you at this time?

• 22:48Speaker 04

  I was seven. Brother was like nine and then my other sister was six, my other sister was three. I loved her, but there were a few things that didn't really jive. Most of the time she had like a really nice florally smell, but sometimes she stunk a cigarette.

• 23:05Dax Shepard?

  Oh, cigarettes, okay.

• 23:06Speaker 04

  At that age, you're like, oh my God, smoking, like, oh, so it was very noticeable. My siblings are all like, I think she smokes, but it was weird because it wasn't consistent. And also she seemed to be very forgetful. She would not remember our nighttime routines or we'd tell her something the day before and she wouldn't know what you were referencing. We started to think like, maybe she wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. This was maybe a little difficult for her to keep track of all the kids. And you know, my mom was very present, so she was also aware of this, but she was just so grateful for the help that she was like, oh, I'll let it slide. But yeah, she would forget where to pick us up at school or forget.

• 23:45Speaker 04

  We were all vegetarian because of mad cow disease. My parents were like terrified of us getting mad cow disease.

• 23:52Dax Shepard?

  Sure, sure.

• 23:52Speaker 04

  So she'd forget that.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, that's like a huge thing to. Forget.

• 23:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, or like one time she got us candy with gelatin, which we weren't allowed and we were like, like it was very exciting. Like we fully took advantage of these little things she would.

• 24:06Dax Shepard?

  Quickly, did you ever notice, I'm sure she loved that you had such an affinity for her. Did you ever notice that sometimes she was connected to that and sometimes she was not? Or was it that across the board?

• 24:19Speaker 04

  I was very shy and quiet, so I don't know how much she picked up my little crush.

• 24:24Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 24:25Speaker 04

  One night my mom was coming home and witnessed her like putting a key under the mat in front of her door, which my mom's like young girl living alone for the first time, maybe boyfriend, girlfriend. She's having someone over, but still didn't jive the idea of the key to the house being out. And then she started throwing parties in the basement.

• 24:44Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 24:45Speaker 04

  Not ideal. And then the smoking was like one of the house rules, like don't smoke in the house. So there are a few things working against her, but again, my mom was just so happy to have someone around to help that she was like, we'll figure it out. But one night my dad came home really late from a trip. He was exiting the taxi and because it was night and because her apartment was street level, if the curtains are up, you could see everything. And so as he was getting out and about to go up our stairs, he saw her in the kitchen and was like, oh, she's home. And then like out of frame into frame, another woman appears and she's identical.

• 25:23Dax Shepard?

  Yes, the prestige.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  It is the prestige.

• 25:27Dax Shepard?

  The prestige, she was living the act.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  And it's parasite all at once.

• 25:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 25:32Speaker 01

  Hiding in the basement.

• 25:34Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 25:35Speaker 04

  So yeah, the next morning my mom confronted her and said, are you two people?

• 25:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:40Speaker 04

  And yeah, she didn't deny it. It was a great way to get a two for one rent in London and two for one job. But yeah, that was the reason she never knew what was going on because it's two women taking care of us.

• 25:51Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my God. One was a smoker, one was not.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  You'd think they would, if they're going through all this trouble of really coming up with this scheme, which is a good scheme. They would talk and be like, so they're vegetarian.

• 26:03Dax Shepard?

  Right, but that's if you're the type of person that isn't pulling like a fun scam and in your twenties in London, throwing parties in a house, you know, you should like, they've kind of already demonstrated that's not their MO.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  I should do a scam.

• 26:15Dax Shepard?

  I know, but that's the paradox. You can't because you want it, but you would be really good at making sure you guys have the same story.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  Dang.

• 26:23Dax Shepard?

  How did mom and dad handle this? For me, I might be like, cool, two for one.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  But they've been lying and tricking and betraying in you. You can't.

• 26:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think just the idea of a stranger having taken care of your kid and lived with you for five months. I think that was enough to say, maybe this isn't the right fit. So they told the agency. So I'm not sure what happened. I don't know what their next scheme was.

• 26:47Dax Shepard?

  I think they met identical twin boys and they lived happily ever after.

• 26:51Speaker 04

  I hope that for them. They were very cute girls.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  Of course they were. You don't get away with this for that long without being cute.

• 26:58Dax Shepard?

  I wish you had their info. I do want to ask them if they saw the prestige. Did you see the prestige?

• 27:03Speaker 04

  I did. What year did that come out? Cause this was like 96.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  Oh, it was after that.

• 27:08Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow. Not terribly long after. It was like 2007, I think.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  Christopher Nolan owes them some money.

• 27:14Speaker 04

  Maybe it was based on them.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  That's wild.

• 27:17Dax Shepard?

  Anna, that was tasty. You guys had a real life prestige happening in your house. I wish they would have had a little fun with it, like play hide and seek with you.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  Ew.

• 27:27Speaker 04

  They could have. Who knows?

• 27:28Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. And then they pop out from somewhere that would be impossible.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Then these people would never trust anyone ever again.

• 27:35Dax Shepard?

  Or they would think they had a version of Mary Poppins, like she's magic. She could be in any room of the house.

• 27:41Speaker 04

  Few places at once.

• 27:42Dax Shepard?

  Actually, I hope they graduated to more complex crimes with bigger payouts.

• 27:47Speaker 04

  I hope so too. Maybe it'll end up being another story on here.

• 27:51Dax Shepard?

  What age did you guys then leave England?

• 27:53Speaker 04

  We moved to New York when I was in middle school. So 12.

• 27:58Dax Shepard?

  Did you happen to listen to Amanda Peet's episode? Yeah, this is kind of her story. She was over there in England and then came back to New York.

• 28:07Speaker 01

  God, you guys are so cool.

• 28:09Dax Shepard?

  I know. Did you have an English accent when you came back to New York?

• 28:12Speaker 04

  I did, because I learned how to speak in London, but I got made fun of pretty bad. So I tried to fit in. The most embarrassing thing is that, at least in our school, because I went to a British school, when you raise your hand in class, you don't do this, you do this.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Oh, you raise one finger.

• 28:28Dax Shepard?

  For the listeners, not a whole hand.

• 28:29Speaker 04

  When I first started school in New York, I did that and got made fun of.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it doesn't look good.

• 28:35Dax Shepard?

  It looks uppity. It's almost like in another thing.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  And another thing I want to say.

• 28:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 28:39Speaker 04

  There are a lot of moments like that.

• 28:41Dax Shepard?

  Well, Anna, it's delightful to meet you. For someone who's shy, you did a great job. You must have outgrown your shyness.

• 28:47Speaker 04

  Sometimes. I'm definitely the least likely of the siblings to have done this.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  Oh, good for you.

• 28:53Speaker 04

  Thank you. My sisters listen as well, Leah and my other sister Sonia, so they were like hyping me up.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Oh, how cute. I'm probably gonna go to bucatini today.

• 29:03Dax Shepard?

  Give her a feedback.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I'm gonna say you did great.

• 29:07Dax Shepard?

  All right. Well, have a great rest of your day. Take care in Brooklyn.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Now I do think you're a twin. Like Lincoln thought, and now I think it. Ew!

• 29:18Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I love it.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  No!

• 29:20Dax Shepard?

  What's the other part of me doing right now? Riding a motorcycle around?

• 29:23Speaker 01

  No, that guy is like sick.

• 29:24Speaker 02

  He's looking in windows.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, while you're doing work.

• 29:28Dax Shepard?

  While I make the money, he's out peeping in windows.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:32Dax Shepard?

  We would probably work out an addict schedule. It's like you can make a mess of your life in six months increments, and then you gotta tag back in.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  What if your twin wasn't an addict? That would be really interesting.

• 29:42Dax Shepard?

  It wouldn't be my twin. I'd be like, you're not my twin.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  I know. And then he's like, I'm your twin dude. I look exactly like you. We have the same mom.

• 29:48Dax Shepard?

  Okay, now don't you need another one? He's like, no, yeah, you're not my blood.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  So then you'd kill him? You killed your twin!

• 29:56Dax Shepard?

  Because he wasn't an addict.

• 29:57Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 29:59Dax Shepard?

  Cute shirt, Scott!

• 30:01Speaker 01

  Oh my god, the cutest sweatshirt around.

• 30:04Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Why'd they say shirt? I'm so embarrassed. It's clearly a sweatshirt. Scott, I'm sorry.

• 30:09Speaker 05

  It's okay. I'll let it slide.

• 30:10Dax Shepard?

  Where are you, Scott?

• 30:12Speaker 05

  I am Portland, Oregon.

• 30:14Dax Shepard?

  Okay, Portland, or Beaverton, or Wilson?

• 30:17Speaker 05

  Downtown Portland, up by the zoo.

• 30:20Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay, great. And how long have you lived there?

• 30:22Speaker 05

  Since 2011.

• 30:24Dax Shepard?

  And where'd you come from?

• 30:26Speaker 05

  So I came from California by way of Colorado, which we'll get to in the story.

• 30:30Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wonderful. All right, Scott, tell us your twin story.

• 30:34Speaker 05

  So I'm an identical twin. My brother is my identical twin and his name is David. He will feature prominently in this story. So we look very similar, especially when we're younger. People would often confuse us. Friends and family could tell us apart if we were standing next to each other. If we were on the street or something like that, people would struggle, right? They'd confuse us. If we were in a class and they knew Scott was supposed to be there, it was pretty clear who was who. But, you know, we would routinely confuse people.

• 30:57Dax Shepard?

  Scott, when the people that knew you were looking at you and they could tell, were they observing personality differences? Or were there a few key subtle, physical things they saw?

• 31:06Speaker 05

  This is a really good point, Tex. Just as a public service announcement, on behalf of all twins, regularly, people get super excited when they could tell twins apart. So excited, in fact, they want to tell you how they could tell you apart. I know how everyone could tell us apart. They'd say, my face is fatter, you know, my brother's the sad twin.

• 31:24Dax Shepard?

  Oh, always pejoratives, it sounds like.

• 31:27Speaker 05

  Someone always came out negatively.

• 31:29Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 31:31Dax Shepard?

  I was more looking for like, oh yeah, you have a small scar on your eyebrow. That's not bad. That's cool.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Inherently, though, so like, maybe they didn't say that. Maybe they said, well, David has a thin face. No, just like, there's a thin face. And then you heard it.

• 31:45Speaker 05

  They definitely said fatter face.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  Okay, that's rude.

• 31:48Dax Shepard?

  Well, this is bygone era, I guess.

• 31:51Speaker 05

  The service announcement is, I don't need to know how you tell apart me and my brother. Keep yourself super happy for you, but always there's something different.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  This is a good PSA. I like it.

• 31:59Dax Shepard?

  That is good.

• 31:59Speaker 05

  I'd look at my watch or something else, you know, but it's fine. People found lots of different ways to tell us apart. I think we look very different. We have different personalities, but I have proof that people confuse us often. As we'll get to in the story. So as a twin, you know, I had lots of little crazy twin stories and they kind of accumulate over time. And it's kind of your norm. I have a couple I wanted to share that kind of show some of the stuff that you deal with as a twin. So even as adults, we live on different coasts. So I live in Portland, Oregon. My brother, he lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. We still manage to confuse people unintentionally. My brother's a chemistry professor at Wake Forest.

• 32:32Speaker 01

  Oh, shit.

• 32:33Speaker 05

  He has lots of students and one of his students was visiting Portland with her family. And they were on a walk in our neighborhood. I was also walking in our neighborhood.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  That is sim. That's weird.

• 32:43Speaker 05

  Yeah. And so she looked at you like, that's my chemistry professor. And her parents were like, no, that's not the person clearly lives here. And their parents convinced her, no, she was crazy. And then months later, my brother had casually mentioned that he has a twin brother living in Portland. And she was like, I knew it.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  Wow. Good for her. That's fun for her.

• 32:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, small world.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  Mystery.

• 33:00Speaker 05

  So we have lots of things like that, even as adults. We just find out that we, you know, confuse people. But growing up, we were very similar. We had a very shared childhood. We did very similar things. We had the same friends. We were very close to each other's best friends. Then we went to UC Davis in California and we both were majors in chemistry. You know, we lived together, but then we decided that we both wanted to go to grad school. And we're trying to figure out what we're going to do. And we're kind of like, all right, we're going to have to like separate at some point. My girlfriend and I at the time, we were trying to figure out which grad schools we were going to go to. And David is doing his own thing. And we had one school in common, which was the University of Colorado in Boulder. My wife Rochelle and I decided we're going to go to Boulder. And then a month later, my brother independently decided like, all right, this is the best school for me. So we ended up going to the same grad school. The programs we were in were different though. His was biochemistry. I was physical chemistry.

• 33:44Speaker 05

  So we had different classes. We really didn't overlap much. And we didn't see each other that often because I was looking at my girlfriend.

• 33:50Dax Shepard?

  Was that part hard? You had been so inseparable. Did you feel any kind of missing feelings? Or was it fine because you were in love?

• 33:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think it was like a new experience. We were still physically in the same school. So I knew that he was close by. We could still go do stuff. And so I think it was really comforting to have him by. But we were kind of doing our own things. There was some tension there. It was like, hey, do stuff with me. I was like, oh, we're going to do something.

• 34:11Speaker 01

  Did he have a girlfriend or it was just you with the girlfriend?

• 34:14Speaker 05

  At the time it was just me and I got married before he did. And then ended up buying a house, getting a dog, like doing all the stuff. And so we really were differentiating. But even then we'd still manage to get confused because we TA these large gen chem classes, right? With hundreds of people. And so I'd be walking on campus and someone would be like, hey, Dave, do you wave? And just hope they go away? Or do you have to have the conversation, which is always awkward?

• 34:35Dax Shepard?

  This is a version of being famous, Scott. Like you're getting to experience a little bit like they're yelling Dave, which would might be your character name from TV. You're like, I'm not Dave in real life. I'm Scott in real life. And then you're obliged to have a conversation explaining what you're doing there.

• 34:49Speaker 05

  And it's always the same. It's like, oh. Oh, we were trying to talk to my brother. Okay. Yeah, I'm a twin. That's crazy. I know. What's your name?

• 34:55Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 34:56Speaker 05

  I would tell him you said hi.

• 34:58Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  God, what if you hated your twin? Your life would be miserable.

• 35:02Dax Shepard?

  You'd probably not be at the same school as them, luckily. You know, you would distance yourself.

• 35:07Speaker 05

  Even as we're trying to separate, like, we still have crazy stuff. Like, I ended up breaking my wrist playing soccer, my left wrist. A week later, my brother broke his same left wrist.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 35:16Dax Shepard?

  Ski, wow, wow, wow.

• 35:17Speaker 05

  So then we had matching casts walking around. Like, we're trying to do our own thing, but we're still having the same shared experience.

• 35:39Speaker 05

  Okay, so those are smaller examples, but there's one incident that kind of stood out that I wanted to share today, even though I don't remember all of it. So soon after I moved to Boulder, I wanted to start like a soccer team. And they had this coed soccer league. You know, I decided to sign me and some friends up. The team was mostly made up of grad students, undergrads. It was kind of like a ragtag group of people, rough fit, not super competitive. And so we decided to set up a team. Boulder, in general, is a hyper competitive place that permeates all aspects of life. Have you guys been to Boulder? Do you know what I'm talking about?

• 36:09Dax Shepard?

  No, this is shocking. I think of Colorado as being very laid back and smoking weed and rock climbing and snowboarding.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  But like a lot of outdoor sports, though, right?

• 36:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, what you find is generally there's people that are world class at anything they're doing. And then there's lots of people trying to keep up. If you spend any time there, it's very clear, you'd figure this out. And so it's a largely, it has thirty six teams in it, which is like a lot for a coed soccer league, for adult league. And they were broken up into six divisions, within they used a promotion relegation system, kind of like you'd have in the premier league. The structure of it's competitive.

• 36:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 36:38Speaker 05

  And then on top of that, they had teenage referees that were generally apathetic and underpaid, right? So you're setting up the situation where there's going to be tension in the system. But it was a coed league, so we're like equal men and women on the field. That generally lowers testosterone level a bit, so you'd think like this is going to be fine.

• 36:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, buffers it.

• 36:54Speaker 05

  Let me take you now to a warm spring Wednesday evening in two thousand nine. The game was at this like large field complex, so lots of games. Going on, everyone's rushing to make the five forty five game start time. It's midweek, so it's hard to get players there. So I asked my brother David, who's not regularly playing on the soccer teams like, hey, can you help cover? Come play for the team. We need some players. We had worked our way up. So we're like mid tier in this league. So we're not in the most competitive league, but we're not at the bottom anymore. We've done enough to like get right in the middle of the divisions. So most of the games are pretty chill. However, it was clear once the game started, this was not going to be a chill game. Tensions are already high, fouls happening, but refs aren't calling things. They're disinterested in controlling the game.

• 37:31Speaker 05

  As things happen, people are getting more and more excited. And there was one person in particular, one big dude who was being extra aggressive. And he was pushing, fouling, doing stuff that was really ramping everything up. And for the sake of the story, let's call him Beefstick.

• 37:47Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great, great, great, great. Yeah.

• 37:48Speaker 05

  Fake name. David was playing defense throughout the game and oftentimes he was interacting with Beefstick, right? They were really going at it and getting into it. And my brother and I are rule followers, right? We follow the rules, Monica.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  I appreciate it.

• 38:03Speaker 05

  I get so angry when people don't follow the rules, as does my brother. And so in this instance, my brother was going to be the fair police. He's going to be a bit more assertive, playing defense, and he committed a strong, but not malicious foul. The ref called it, but this did nothing to help with the tensions, right?

• 38:16Dax Shepard?

  Didn't de-escalate anything.

• 38:18Speaker 05

  It escalated, in fact. And I was doing my best to stay out of the drama. And at one point, after he had fouled Beefstick, he checked out of the game. He subbed out. And I was still on the field. I was drilling the ball, kind of off balance, trying to get around a player. All of a sudden, bam, hit a brick wall. I was tackled. I didn't see it coming. And I was laid out on the ground and like the back of my head hit the grass. And at this point, I don't remember much of the story. So it gets a little blurry and I had to fill in details from other people. What I heard is I played another five or 10 minutes. Like there was a commotion, people were angry, tensions were still very, very high. This did not help. I kept playing and then I eventually checked out of the game, laid down and was immediately like disoriented and confused. This is 2009, so concussions are not top of mind. People are not so worried as they are now.

• 39:03Dax Shepard?

  It's a skin knee still.

• 39:05Speaker 05

  That's right. Luckily, there was someone there who had some medical training who was recognizing symptoms, though it was pretty odd. I was trying to text my wife to figure out how we were going to meet up. I didn't know how my phone worked.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 39:16Speaker 05

  Understand it. I didn't know what day of the week it was. It was weird for everyone. And people on the team started realizing how serious this injury was, including the other team and our friend Beefstick. Finished the game. Everyone was frustrated, but you know, afterwards you're shaking hands, you're saying good game to everyone. And I didn't, I was still just sitting down, figuring out where it was. And Beefstick came up to my brother. He's like, uh, sorry, I confused you for your brother out there. Implying that he actually meant to take out my brother.

• 39:44Dax Shepard?

  Concuss your brother.

• 39:46Speaker 05

  The takeaway I have from this, it's like in life as a twin, normally it's fun. People confuse you, you get a good story out of it. Everyone has a good time. However, if you're playing in an ultra competitive coed soccer league in Boulder, Colorado, that is not the case. You do not want to be confused with your brother. I had to go to the ER, had to get x-rays, a CT scan.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  Twindom can cause CTE.

• 40:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you might pay for the crimes of your brother.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 40:10Speaker 05

  Right. That's my crazy twin story.

• 40:12Dax Shepard?

  How often do you see David now? Just like on holidays?

• 40:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, on holidays it's hard, man. We each got two kids. Airfare is not cheap, right? And flying across the country, it's an ordeal. We try to see each other, you know, once a year.

• 40:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I don't know why I feel, yeah, I feel sadness more than say my brother and I being separated. Cause I feel like if you have an identical twin, you're so close.

• 40:33Speaker 01

  Different. Have you had telepathy?

• 40:35Speaker 05

  Our joke is we have telepathic powers, which means we don't have any ability.

• 40:40Dax Shepard?

  Pathetic.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  Oh, that's funny.

• 40:43Dax Shepard?

  And are you a teacher?

• 40:44Speaker 05

  I work at Intel. As my brother say, I sold out. He's fighting a good fight.

• 40:49Dax Shepard?

  Well, when there's two of you, one can afford to get a little cage and the other can pass it forward. Oh, well, Scott, lovely meeting you. Please send our love to David. He's a part of the stories.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  Are you actually David? Is that going to be the big reveal?

• 41:02Speaker 05

  There was a suggestion to have my fake name be David. But I spent enough of my time trying to get people to get to know my real name. So, you know.

• 41:12Speaker 05

  A couple of shout outs. So I just wanted to say that I look forward to all the new episodes like you. Dax, look forward to F1 Weekend. And Dax, I really appreciate the role model you put out there for men with the parenting vulnerability, how you carry yourself in the world. It's important to have role models out there and I really appreciate you put yourself out there.

• 41:27Dax Shepard?

  Thank you.

• 41:28Speaker 05

  My wife often references you about things that I could do better.

• 41:32Dax Shepard?

  Oh, no.

• 41:32Speaker 05

  Improve on, you know, differently.

• 41:34Dax Shepard?

  Tell her the grass is always greener.

• 41:36Speaker 05

  Can I bring her in?

• 41:37Dax Shepard?

  Yes, yes, yes. Hello, what is your name?

• 41:40Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 41:41Dax Shepard?

  Oh, and there's little people.

• 41:43Speaker 03

  Rochelle, and then this is Avery and Ryland back here.

• 41:47Dax Shepard?

  Oh my God, hi guys, they're so cute.

• 41:52Speaker 03

  My daughter and I listen to Armchair Anonymous all the time in the car on the way to kids' activities. We love it.

• 41:59Dax Shepard?

  Oh, thank you.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  I think she can listen to this one.

• 42:02Dax Shepard?

  All right, well, our love to everyone there. So nice meeting you guys.

• 42:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, nice to meet you too.

• 42:07Dax Shepard?

  Okay, take care.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  Pair of twins is like pair of jeans. It's like you shouldn't say that.

• 42:13Dax Shepard?

  Is that what we say? Pair of twins?

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I said it, it just came out.

• 42:18Dax Shepard?

  You can't say a set of twins because a set is three.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  You can't say anything.

• 42:23Dax Shepard?

  You can't say it.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  Anything these days.

• 42:25Dax Shepard?

  You can't say, well, you had another thing you can't say these days.

• 42:29Dax Shepard?

  Hello, is this Amy?

• 42:30Speaker 03

  This is.

• 42:31Dax Shepard?

  Has there been an avalanche of pillows?

• 42:33Speaker 03

  It's a beach blanket. I'm in a closet.

• 42:36Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay, with a blanket.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  Wow, you really doubled up.

• 42:40Dax Shepard?

  In a very soft chair. Is that a soft chair?

• 42:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is a very soft chair.

• 42:44Dax Shepard?

  And what's your shirt say? I'm very nosy.

• 42:46Speaker 03

  Black Label.

• 42:47Dax Shepard?

  That's a coffee, right?

• 42:48Speaker 03

  It's a skateboard company.

• 42:50Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 42:51Speaker 03

  It's related to my story.

• 42:52Dax Shepard?

  Oh, that's a great name for a skateboard company.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  Do you feel a little?

• 42:55Dax Shepard?

  But there is Black Label beer.

• 42:57Speaker 01

  I know, but you should know skateboard.

• 42:59Dax Shepard?

  I should, I should. But in my defense, I stopped skateboarding in probably 92.

• 43:04Speaker 03

  I mean, they were big in the 90s.

• 43:06Dax Shepard?

  Oh, fuck.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  Oh my God.

• 43:07Dax Shepard?

  What if it turned out I never skateboarded? We found that out. It was all revealed.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  It was your twin.

• 43:13Dax Shepard?

  Okay, Amy, where are you?

• 43:14Speaker 03

  I'm in Benton Harbor, Michigan.

• 43:16Dax Shepard?

  Get out of here. Okay, so Amy, you have a twin story?

• 43:21Speaker 03

  I do have a twin story. Well, a quick twin fun fact is that me and my sister were born on April Fool's Day, and my parents did not know they were having twins until seven days before we were born.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 43:32Dax Shepard?

  Real April Fool.

• 43:34Speaker 03

  Real April Fools. We had the same heartbeat the whole pregnancy.

• 43:37Dax Shepard?

  Whoa.

• 43:38Speaker 03

  And then at the very end, we moved and then they heard too. I mean, this was 40 something years ago, so like, technology wasn't there.

• 43:45Dax Shepard?

  Wow.

• 43:45Speaker 03

  Anyway, so this story takes place in Indiana. My sister does not want me to tell you the town or the college that it happened at, but her name's Amber, by the way. So it was about 2003 ish. She was like in her senior year of college and she was going to be married and moving out to California. She lives in San Diego.

• 44:02Dax Shepard?

  Can I ask if you're identical or fraternal, or is that part of the story?

• 44:05Speaker 03

  We are identical and I did send pictures of us.

• 44:08Dax Shepard?

  Oh, oh, oh my God, yes. Oh, you guys are so cute.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  I want a twin. Oh.

• 44:16Dax Shepard?

  Tie dye phase coming. Very identical. You nailed the stereotype. Okay.

• 44:21Speaker 03

  I had broken my foot dropping in, like I was learning how to skateboard at that time. So I was dropping in, rolled my foot. I had just moved to the college town that she lived in because she was going to leave the state after graduation. So like I moved down there. I was just working at this local hardware store and I was learning how to skateboard, broke my foot. I like walked around on it for a solid two days because I'm poor. I don't have insurance because I just started this job and at some point I'm like, I gotta go get this checked out, but how am I going to pay for it? And then my sister was like, well, just take my school IDs to the student center.

• 44:56Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 44:58Speaker 03

  And I'll be free. And everybody's like, yeah, that's like such a great idea. Let's do this. Nobody thought that this would be a bad idea.

• 45:05Dax Shepard?

  I'm signing off on it right now. I think it sounds great.

• 45:07Speaker 03

  Why pay for it if we don't have to? And then also because it's Indiana, the two days before I was skateboarding, the two days later, I was brushing snow off of my car to go to the doctor's office. So, well, the student center. So I'm oblivious to this being a bad idea until I walk into the student center and my sister's a senior at this point. So she's lived on campus for four years. She knows everybody. As soon as I walk in, it's like, hey, Amber, hey, Amber, what did you do? I don't know if she has known these people for five minutes. I don't know if they're her neighbors. I have no idea who they are. So I go up to the desk, the person at the desk is like, oh my God, Amber, what did you do? And I'm like, I broke my foot.

• 45:47Dax Shepard?

  This is really fun to think about. You're moving through the world and you're like a fraud.

• 45:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:51Dax Shepard?

  You're playing a character. Yep.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Exactly that. You're in a really big scheme.

• 45:57Dax Shepard?

  And everyone that's coming up to you is gonna induce panic.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:01Dax Shepard?

  And then you start thinking, how would my sister act right now?

• 46:04Speaker 01

  This is a lot of stress.

• 46:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's like Twilight Zone.

• 46:07Speaker 06

  It was like immediate stress. So I get through the front desk. I'm like, I've made it. That's gotta be the hardest part. I get into the room and they're like checking out my foot and like my heart is racing. And they're like, Amber, how are you doing with your thyroid medication? Are you keeping up on your thyroid medication? I'm like, uh, I don't actually know what milligram of that medication I'm on. I have no idea what it's called. I have no idea. And they're like, who's your primary care doctor? I'm like, I just switched doctors. I'm not sure what their name is.

• 46:35Dax Shepard?

  Were you also thinking, oh shit, I should be on thyroid medication. My identical twin needs it.

• 46:40Speaker 06

  No, actually, our health journeys are so opposite. That's a whole nother story. I even did a DNA test to make sure we were identical twins. We're so different, but spoiler alert, we are. So they're like, well, you should really get that checked out. That's concerning. Your heart should not be racing like this. Well, of course, obviously I'm lying my ass off. So I did make it through that. But then from there, I have to go to a specialist. I'm having to do it all over. Fill out the forms. They say Amber's name on it. I have to go to several different doctors and pretend that I'm Amber and listen for the name Amber. And it's like, all right, Amber, you're ready. And I'm like looking for Amber and I'm like, oh yeah, that's me.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  Real life parent trap.

• 47:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. Or body switch comedy too.

• 47:21Speaker 01

  It takes two parent traps.

• 47:23Speaker 06

  So then I get through that, but then work is requiring me to have like all these doctor's notes for missed things that they all say my sister's name on it. So then I'm like altering doctor's notes to say my own name because I'm like, this says Amber. This does not say Amy. But also again, 20 something years ago, they're like, eh, my prescriptions all had my sister's name on it, all my follow ups. But I mean, at the end of the day, I did not receive a single bill.

• 47:49Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  Wow, it works.

• 47:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 47:52Speaker 06

  10 out of 10 do not recommend. It was very short-lived, the stress, but it was a very, very stressful.

• 47:57Dax Shepard?

  You didn't have surgery or anything? Would they throw in a cast at some point?

• 48:01Speaker 06

  I was on crutches for about 12 weeks. So there was like physical. Therapy and once I was off of campus, they had no idea who I was. And then my sister has this broken foot on her permanent health record, but I redeemed myself because I started skateboarding again last summer and I broke that same foot.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 48:19Dax Shepard?

  That's redemption.

• 48:22Dax Shepard?

  Time to go to Amber's town. Do you guys live close?

• 48:26Speaker 06

  No, she lives in San Diego.

• 48:27Dax Shepard?

  Is that hard?

• 48:28Speaker 06

  It's very hard. Yeah, we talk like 500 times a day. We probably see each other like once a year. And she has texted me like 50,000 times. She's like, I've never been so jealous in my life.

• 48:40Speaker 06

  She's like, I want to be on Armchair Anonymous. I'm like, wow. That's the only crazy twin story we have though.

• 48:46Dax Shepard?

  That's great. Well, this is nosey. So it's she went to college and you didn't. How do you explain that?

• 48:51Speaker 06

  I always tell people that I feel like we were raised by like two different sets of parents because we could not be any more different. Our voices are exactly the same and our mannerisms are exactly the same, but our personalities are very different. Like I was like really stressed out about this. I'm like, oh my God, I'm going to puke. And she's like, no, just be excited, you know? But like our health journeys are different.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  Dax has an idea that twins live the exact same life.

• 49:15Dax Shepard?

  I mean.

• 49:16Speaker 06

  You really do.

• 49:17Dax Shepard?

  I want that to be the case, of course. It's more exciting. I just think it's fascinating how much nurture gets in there. Yeah.

• 49:23Speaker 06

  I say nature versus nurture all the time because our real dad did not raise us like he was not in the picture until we were adults. And my sister's personality is identical to his. I'm more like my mom, but I don't think that has anything to do with her being there. But it was like my dad raised her solely and my mom raised me solely. She's very artistic, like she's musical. I can't draw. So opposite.

• 49:46Dax Shepard?

  I actually like it as much as it's fun to think you're identical. I'm always a little disappointed that it's so much nature as a parent because you want to have some sense that all this energy you put into it has an impact.

• 50:00Speaker 06

  An entire year will go by and like we won't see each other and then she'll come to my house or I'll come to her house and we'll be in the bedroom getting dressed and we'll have the exact same polar bear underwear on.

• 50:10Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow.

• 50:11Speaker 06

  We'll have the exact same mascara or little things like that are very random, but so different in every other way.

• 50:16Dax Shepard?

  How about your taste in men or women?

• 50:18Speaker 06

  Well, we both have been married and divorced and married again. And we both only had one kid. So like she has a daughter and I have a son. We both had C-sections. That's very similar, but like she married somebody a lot like my biological dad. And I married somebody more like my stepdad.

• 50:34Dax Shepard?

  Oh, it's all wild.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  So interesting.

• 50:37Dax Shepard?

  Well, Amy, lovely meeting you and to give our love to Amber. Sorry she couldn't join in.

• 50:41Speaker 06

  I will. Shout out to my husband for being so supportive of me being nervous. And then one of my very good friends, Ladonna, is number one armcherry. So she's like, I would absolutely die if you say my name.

• 50:52Speaker 01

  Oh, shout out.

• 50:54Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, shout out to everyone. Well, lovely meeting you.

• 50:56Speaker 06

  Good to meet you.

• 50:57Dax Shepard?

  All right. Take care.

• 50:58Speaker 01

  Bye.

• 51:00Dax Shepard?

  Oh, Michiganers.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  I want to get tricked by a twin. I mean, I am by you.

• 51:06Dax Shepard?

  Well.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  As I just figured out.

• 51:09Dax Shepard?

  Trick, though.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  Really good trick. You won't even finally admit it.

• 51:13Dax Shepard?

  I will on my deathbed because you'll be visiting me dying. And then I'll tap you on the shoulder and go, don't worry, only one of us is dying. One of us is healthy.

• 51:23Speaker 06

  That is so scary.

• 51:25Dax Shepard?

  But you're not sure which one.

• 51:27Speaker 01

  Ew.

• 51:28Dax Shepard?

  The one you went to Michigan with or the one you went to Minnesota with?

• 51:34Speaker 02

  Do you want to sing a tune or something? We're going to have a theme song.

• 51:37Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay, great. We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go. We're gonna ask some random questions and with the help of armcherrys, we'll get some suggestions on the fly a rhyme dish, on the fly a rhyme dish. Enjoy.