Pod Insights Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard Best of Friday 2025 About this episode Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube or listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ http://www.wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ now.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript 19,742 words · 13 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Dax Shepard? We get support from Quince.
0:02 Speaker 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.
0:11 Dax 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.
0:34 Speaker 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.
0:52 Dax 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.
1:01 Speaker 01 It's a uniform.
1:02 Dax Shepard? Mm-hmm.
1:02 Speaker 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.
1:20 Dax 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 AG1. Fall is that time when your body and mind are getting ready for the winter. You're settling in, bracing for the cold. Your body's already running a deficit from the shorter days and broken sleep patterns. You don't want a nutrient deficit stacked on top of that, too.
1:56 Speaker 01 That's where your AG1 routine earns its spot. It's not fixing your sleep or your alarm time. It's giving your body what it needs so the dark mornings don't tank you before you even start. One scoop, cold water every morning before anything else.
2:09 Dax Shepard? AG1 Next Gen has 75 plus ingredients, vitamins, minerals, pre and probiotics, superfoods, backed by four separate gold standard clinical trials. Key nutrient levels improved with three months of consistent use.
2:23 Speaker 01 That's the part people miss. It's not a one day fix. It's what happens when you stay consistent.
2:27 Dax Shepard? It's an easy, everyday thing. I've added it to my morning routine and I'm going to tell you, I actually love the taste of it. It's like Pavlovian. I drink it and I know, mm, I'm going to get that little vitamin buzz.
2:37 Speaker 01 Well, that's also the thing. When you do it first thing in the morning, you already feel kind of self-esteem because you're like, I already did something good for myself.
2:44 Dax Shepard? Yes. Go to drinkag1.com/dax and for a limited time, get a free immunity bundle, including a bottle of omega three fish oil and a bottle of vitamin D3 K2 with your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro. That's drinkag1.com/dax. And after checkout, be sure to let them know that Armchair Experts sent you. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous, Best of Friday's 2025 Edition.
3:23 Dax Shepard? From episode 968, Wild Card 9.
3:31 Dax Shepard? Christina?
3:32 Speaker 02 Yes, hi.
3:33 Dax Shepard? How are you?
3:34 Speaker 02 Good, how are you guys today?
3:35 Dax Shepard? Wonderful. Where are you?
3:37 Speaker 02 I live in New Hampshire.
3:38 Dax Shepard? Oh, lovely.
3:39 Speaker 01 We're hitting some new spots today.
3:41 Dax Shepard? Yeah, we are.
3:41 Speaker 01 And I like that.
3:42 Dax Shepard? We're in the Northeast.
3:43 Speaker 02 I mean, it's fall foliage season. You can't beat this time of year.
3:46 Dax Shepard? Oh, lovely. Okay, so you have a wild card story, which are our favorites because we have no clue what you're going to tell us.
3:52 Speaker 02 All right, let's get started. So this all started in January of this year.
3:58 Dax Shepard? Recent.
3:58 Speaker 02 Very recent. And it was a freezing cold day as January days typically are in New Hampshire. This was the kind of day. That you go outside and within two to three minutes, your nose hairs feel like they're completely frozen. So I was taking my daughter and her friend and her friend's mom down to Boston College for lacrosse camp for the day. We parked in the closest parking garage that we could find to the stadium so that we didn't have to walk outside very much. So we dropped the girls off at lacrosse and then headed out to get sushi in Boston together. So I don't know about y'all, but I love a lot of soy sauce with my sushi. Yeah.
4:35 Dax Shepard? Sure, me too.
4:36 Speaker 02 So we spent about three and a half hours just enjoying a relaxing dinner out. And then we headed back to Boston to get the girls. So I forgot to tell you that I am a thirsty person at baseline. I have a water bottle with me everywhere I go. And I usually have a pink stainless steel water bottle that if I'm going somewhere for five minutes, I have it. Or if I'm gone for the day, I literally choose purses based on if I can fit a water bottle.
5:03 Dax Shepard? It's your blankie.
5:04 Speaker 02 It is. A lot of people do this.
5:06 Dax Shepard? The girls all have steel water bottles we leave the house with and then they leave them in my car. And it sounds like bowling balls running around in the backseat. Of all the blankies they have, I think it's the best, probably water.
5:16 Speaker 02 It's a good one, but when you add soy sauce on top of already a thirsty person. I was absolutely parched when I got back in the car. And of course, I had drank my water bottle as we traveled from New Hampshire to Boston, so I didn't have any water left. So when we arrived to pick up the girls at B C, as if the hydration gods had spoken. And there was a huge cooler of smart water, like the fancy alkaline kind at the camp. So I helped myself to one of those. We got everybody back in the car. I poured it through the spot of my water bottle and we continued on our way back up to New Hampshire. So it was an uneventful evening. We went to bed, alarms went off the next morning and it was Monday. So I have about a thirty five minute commute to work.
5:58 Speaker 02 And so one of my routines in the morning is that I bring coffee and water in the car. And I force myself to basically have a sip of coffee and then a sip of water. Mostly just to feel adequately hydrated and adequately caffeinated before I get to work every day. Yeah.
6:15 Speaker 02 And my nine-year-old son frequently makes my coffee in the morning. And let's just say that quality control is not his forte.
6:21 Dax Shepard? Sure, sure, sure.
6:23 Speaker 02 That's so sweet, though.
6:24 Dax Shepard? A lot of variety in each morning's batch.
6:26 Speaker 02 So on this particular morning, about six minutes into my drive, I have kind of a gritty piece of something in my mouth. This isn't super out of the ordinary for me. Again, coffee grounds are a frequent thing that I find in my coffee. So I pick it out of my mouth and it's white, not brown.
6:44 Dax Shepard? Oh, interesting.
6:46 Speaker 02 So it's not a coffee ground. But again, my son has creative freedom with coffee making. I've had candy canes in my coffee, Hershey kisses.
6:56 Dax Shepard? Are there any ceramics in the mix? Like, I'm thinking, what could be white in your coffee? Is it broken ceramics?
7:02 Speaker 02 No, it's in a stainless steel coffee mug. I continue on with my drive. I also noticed that my water tastes a little funky this morning. So I'm really wondering what is in my coffee today? Because the water just didn't taste quite right. But again, it was the fancy alkaline water from the night before. Drank my whole coffee, drank my water all the way to work. So I work in a healthcare office, and so I see patients all day long. So I had a really busy day, patients back to back. Mid-morning, I stop and I fill up my water at the water cooler. And I notice near the spout of the water, it almost looks like tiny calcifications where you put your mouth. And I think, maybe it's lip gloss? I don't know, I scratch at it a little bit. Nothing comes off. So I make a mental note to just make sure to soak my water bottle when I go home for the night.
7:47 Speaker 02 I continue through my day and head home around 5:20. So when I get home, I'm there with my 12-year-old daughter, and I bring my water bottle over to the sink. I squirt some water right through the spout where I found those calcifications, and I flipped my water upside down just to let it soak for a little bit, to get it real clean. About five minutes later, I unscrew the lid, and I dump my water into the sink. And what came out? A soaking wet.
8:14 Dax Shepard? Oh.
8:14 Speaker 02 Stiff as a board. What? Dead. No! Mouse. No!
8:20 Speaker 02 Oh.
8:22 Dax Shepard? How?
8:25 Dax Shepard? Oh, Moni's fucking shook.
8:29 Speaker 02 Monica, I sent Emma a picture. No.
8:32 Dax Shepard? When and where did a mouse get in there?
8:35 Speaker 02 So my first thought was maybe that this was a prank.
8:38 Dax Shepard? Oh, I don't think Monica can look. There's no way looking at that's gonna do you any good.
8:43 Speaker 02 I have to.
8:45 Dax Shepard? Fuck, you're not gonna be well. I told you not to.
8:50 Speaker 02 No, no.
8:52 Dax Shepard? It's fucking enormous. We're calling it a mouse, but also maybe a rat.
8:56 Speaker 02 Ew, it's tails.
8:59 Speaker 02 It was enormous.
9:02 Dax Shepard? How could this possibly happen?
9:03 Speaker 02 My best guess was the parking garage. Because this was not a New Hampshire field mouse. It was not a tiny mouse. It was a giant city mouse.
9:13 Dax Shepard? Like Monica's city mouse, big apple mouse.
9:16 Speaker 01 I should feel bad for it.
9:18 Dax Shepard? You should. What was that weird taste? His dead mouse taste?
9:22 Speaker 01 And then dead mouse and then the white stuff. So stuff on it.
9:28 Speaker 02 The calcifications on my water.
9:32 Dax Shepard? I'm on the verge.
9:33 Speaker 02 They were bite marks. From my furry friend. No, don't call him that. No, no, do it. And this happens all the time.
9:44 Dax Shepard? Wait.
9:45 Speaker 02 What do you mean?
9:46 Dax Shepard? Hold on.
9:46 Speaker 02 So I frantically Googled it and I called my sister Andrea, who's a veterinarian and also an armcherry, by the way.
9:52 Dax Shepard? Oh, good. Well, we like her.
9:54 Speaker 02 This happens constantly for people who leave any type of water, soda can, anything in their car.
10:02 Dax Shepard? No.
10:02 Speaker 02 Overnight.
10:03 Dax Shepard? Whoa.
10:04 Speaker 01 Oh, my God. So this is a cautionary tale.
10:07 Speaker 02 It is a very cautionary tale.
10:09 Dax Shepard? It's a PSA. So you didn't have the top on it?
10:11 Speaker 02 So the size of the opening was less than the size of a dime, to put it into perspective. And I'm assuming that I must not have completely screwed the cap on. So it can squeeze that tiny? Yes.
10:24 Dax Shepard? He's like an octopus.
10:25 Speaker 01 Ew.
10:27 Dax Shepard? But I'd rather have an octopus in my water than a mouse.
10:30 Speaker 01 People eat that.
10:31 Speaker 02 Mouse water all day long.
10:33 Speaker 01 Don't say mouse water.
10:35 Speaker 02 Seven refills, Monica.
10:37 Speaker 01 What? Did you call 911?
10:39 Dax Shepard? You had filled it up seven times with that mouse in there?
10:42 Speaker 02 I think because it was so dead and its legs and arms were pushing out.
10:48 Speaker 01 Stop.
10:49 Speaker 02 It didn't shift back and forth. I don't know.
10:51 Speaker 01 Christina.
10:53 Speaker 02 So my dear husband, he is a sweet man and he bags up the mouse in a plastic bag and then puts it in a brown paper bag and sends me off to urgent care with Exhibit A in a brown bag.
11:05 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah, we're gonna, I guess, test him for things.
11:07 Speaker 01 Yeah, rabies and all kinds of ew.
11:10 Speaker 02 I had to get dewormed.
11:12 Speaker 01 Oh, what the?
11:13 Speaker 02 And treated on antibiotics.
11:15 Speaker 01 Yeah.
11:16 Speaker 02 And then subsequently replaced every stainless steel water bottle in our entire house with clear glass water bottles.
11:25 Speaker 01 Smart.
11:26 Speaker 02 That I can see all the way to the bottom now.
11:28 Dax Shepard? Yeah, I bet you'll never, ever drink from something again without that crossing your mind.
11:31 Speaker 01 I won't ever. No one listening to this will. So we just crush the stainless steel water bottle industry. It's over.
11:39 Dax Shepard? It's, well.
11:40 Speaker 01 We just ended it with that story.
11:42 Dax Shepard? Or keep your lids on very tight, because they also can't open tight lids.
11:46 Speaker 02 Or just don't leave it in your car. That's the real public service announcement.
11:50 Speaker 01 We all leave shit in our car all the time.
11:53 Dax Shepard? Well, look, I only drink out of see-through, so I'm ahead of the curve. I'll take my potential microplastic damage over mouse damage.
12:02 Speaker 02 You should probably go check all those stainless steel water bottles from one of your car desks.
12:05 Dax Shepard? There's so many in the car.
12:07 Speaker 01 People just leave them in there.
12:08 Dax Shepard? Maybe I need a cat that sweeps the car every time.
12:11 Speaker 01 It could open it with its little teeth, the lid, and then mice are very smart, so they can pull the lid back on once from the inside and twist it back up.
12:24 Speaker 02 Maybe that's what happens. That makes me feel better.
12:26 Dax Shepard? Oh my God. Did you throw up?
12:28 Speaker 02 I felt incredibly nauseated. Yeah, of course. Which obviously at urgent care, they were concerned because of stomach issues that can come up with this. But honestly, it was just me feeling disgusted.
12:41 Dax Shepard? Yeah, grossed out for sure.
12:43 Speaker 02 Oh, my God.
12:44 Dax Shepard? Oh, Lord. That made me feel.
12:46 Speaker 02 That was a lot to take.
12:47 Dax Shepard? Rough inside. Yeah. We've heard some stuff, too.
12:50 Speaker 02 This is similar to the jelly legs.
12:53 Dax Shepard? Uh huh. It's in that realm.
12:54 Speaker 02 Yeah.
12:55 Dax Shepard? You've hit the bar and it was high.
12:58 Speaker 02 Wow.
13:00 Dax Shepard? Didn't see that coming at all.
13:01 Speaker 02 I did not. And that white gritty thing was probably part of the mouse. What?
13:06 Dax Shepard? Yeah, I mean.
13:07 Speaker 02 It had to be. It's like tail fungus?
13:10 Dax Shepard? Maybe it was biting.
13:11 Speaker 02 I have fingernail.
13:12 Dax Shepard? Oh, sorry. Okay, all right. Shut it down. Monica is not in the healthcare profession.
13:17 Speaker 02 I wanna cry.
13:18 Dax Shepard? So we gotta tread a little.
13:20 Speaker 02 Can I give a quick shout out to my sister Andrea and her friend Brett, who gave us the idea for this admission?
13:26 Dax Shepard? Yes, thank you, Andrea and Brett. We appreciate it. That was horrific and we love you for it. Thank you so much for telling us that.
13:34 Speaker 02 Of course, and I'm sorry, Monica. Thank you.
13:37 Dax Shepard? Well, lovely meeting you. We're gonna regroup. We're gonna regroup and reset.
13:43 Speaker 02 Bye.
13:46 Dax Shepard? From episode 860, DNA testing.
13:51 Dax Shepard? Taylor, can you hear us?
13:53 Speaker 03 Yeah, I'm sick, so I'm sorry. My voice is all.
13:56 Dax Shepard? You're gonna have to get healthy before we can talk to you. You're gonna have to call us back.
14:00 Speaker 03 I had some cold. I thought it went away. Now it's back.
14:02 Speaker 02 Yeah, these colds.
14:03 Dax Shepard? These are the new colds. They're for three months. That's just how fucking colds are now.
14:07 Speaker 03 Apparently.
14:08 Dax Shepard? Okay, so you have a wild DNA story?
14:11 Speaker 03 I do. I'm a twin. We are the babies of seven. About six, they divorced and my dad moved out with his friend girl. Went to another state and kind of left my mom to raise all of us.
14:22 Speaker 02 Oh, my God.
14:23 Speaker 03 And he made it really clear that he had left. When I was about 16, she was completely over me and my shit. And so she booted me out here to live with him, just me. Left everybody back where they were.
14:33 Speaker 02 What about the twins?
14:34 Dax Shepard? Yeah, and are you guys identical or fraternal?
14:36 Speaker 03 It's a boy, so he stayed back. We were freshmen in high school, but I was a pain in the ass. I have a 17 year old right now and my God bless her.
14:45 Dax Shepard? I know I'm caught between. So my brother was really, really challenging. And now that I think of his story and I write about it, I realize he really needed someone that had a lot of capacity to help. I just feel bad for both people in the story. Like I feel bad for my mom and I felt bad for my brother. So you probably needed a lot of help.
15:04 Speaker 03 I am so blessed by my children that I'm like, how did you do it? And she's like, I sent you.
15:09 Dax Shepard? I didn't.
15:10 Speaker 03 So she sent me here and I was nice and sassy and I was like, you know what? Why'd you leave? Like, what's your problem? Was she worth it? And he's like, wasn't the only one. For all I know, you're some jack guys, baby.
15:21 Dax Shepard? Oh.
15:22 Speaker 03 I understood that this jack guy was like a colleague of my mom's. I'd heard the name, but I'm like, you're deflecting. You're just trying to take the attention off what you're doing. I was very much not here for it.
15:31 Dax Shepard? Also, jack guy sounds like a term, like a certain kind of guy, like he works at a.
15:36 Speaker 03 Guy.
15:37 Dax Shepard? Well, that would be great, but I was thinking more like he works at a mechanic shop, like he's jacking up cars or like a jack jockey.
15:42 Speaker 03 Different industries for sure. But yeah, fair enough. He didn't harp on it. He never really had a lot of nasty things to say about my mom. He was always very kind. He's like, she loves you. But he was tired of being the only one taking the blame. And he kind of wanted to get his story out there, but then we didn't talk about it again.
15:56 Dax Shepard? And did he and the friend girl have any children?
15:59 Speaker 03 No, that happened for about a year. And then after I had my third son, my mom mailed me my baby book. And the baby book had all these like cards and crap in it. And in it, there was a literal Western Union telegram, yellow with the tear on it and everything that said, congratulations on the twins. I'm so happy. Jack.
16:17 Dax Shepard? Oh, okay. This is curious. Yeah.
16:21 Speaker 03 A little curious. I tried digging and I can't find anything and I just move on. So a couple of years later, me and my twin decided we were both going to try ancestry and 23andMe. We wanted to prove that they were full of it. And everyone said the origins are off. We weren't really doing it for DNA purposes. We were just trying to play with it. And we were kind of right, like his came up a little bit Irish and mine came up a little Scottish. And then the rest of it was just Eastern European. Didn't think anything of it. 2022, I got back in this Jack fix and I was like, I'm going to figure this out. So I started digging through 23andMe, which had matches that were like fifth cousin nonsense. So I was bored. So I was like, I'll log into my brother's ancestry because he would have different matches. And sure as shit, I open up, it says, parent, child, match, my brother and Jack.
17:04 Dax Shepard? Hold on a second.
17:05 Speaker 03 Why didn't yours say that? Jack only did ancestry. Oh, you did different ones?
17:10 Dax Shepard? They divided and conquered.
17:11 Speaker 03 Oh. I don't like to blow up my family over nothing. So I'm like, I'm going to do my own ancestry because I had done 23 so that I can catch my breath.
17:18 Dax Shepard? You told your brother, obviously. He already knew.
17:20 Speaker 03 Not at this point.
17:21 Dax Shepard? Oh, wow. Okay.
17:22 Speaker 03 We don't live in the same state anymore, so I just let it be. And I didn't know how to process, you know, that's a lot.
17:27 Dax Shepard? This is a fucking mess.
17:29 Speaker 03 I do my own ironically, Father's Day is the day I get mine back. I open it up and there is no Jack to be found. And it says that me and my twin brother are half siblings.
17:38 Dax Shepard? Wow.
17:40 Speaker 03 It's called super fiancage. I don't know how to say it. No. It's very, very rare. There's like 10 cases in all of America.
17:46 Dax Shepard? Whoa. Wow. So your mother was carrying two different people's child?
17:53 Speaker 03 Isn't that wild? At literally the exact same time.
17:56 Dax Shepard? Yes.
17:57 Speaker 03 I'm upset. Don't even know how to tell my brother that he's the only one of us seven that's not.
18:01 Dax Shepard? Well, do you know, though, the other fives, have they done ancestry?
18:07 Speaker 03 None of them have.
18:07 Dax Shepard? We don't know how much Jack was in or out of the picture.
18:10 Speaker 03 My dad has got black hair and blue eyes and my twin is the tallest out of everybody. He's like 6'1". I'm 4'11" and he's blonder and so is Jack after doing lots and lots of fun research. So then I decided to go crazy on my ancestry and connect some more dots and just try to make sense of it. And I couldn't, I couldn't connect any more dots. So they have these things called DNA angels. I don't know if you've ever heard of them, but like huge shout out to them. They do it for free. They'll log into your ancestry and they'll help you connect some dots from fifth cousins all the way down to like maybe who your grandfather's father was. So I call them, I'm like, help me. So she logs in and about 10 hours later, she calls me and she's like, I'm really sorry, but you're not your dad's either. What?
18:51 Dax Shepard? Oh, plot fucking twist.
18:57 Speaker 03 Stop. She's like, it's one of these three men. They're all brothers. They connect to a grandfather that my DNA connected to.
19:03 Dax Shepard? Mom was busy.
19:04 Speaker 03 She sure was. U S Y busy. So I just started at the top of the three men. He's the oldest out of all of them, closest to my mom's age. His name is James. And about two hours into researching, do I not land on a photo of Jack, James, my mom, all at a conference the year of my birth? I mean, there's like 10 of them, but those three were in the middle. It's like my mom was in the middle and Jack and James.
19:29 Speaker 03 And I continued to find out Jack was the president of this company and they were like the trustees.
19:33 Dax Shepard? Okay, now hold on.
19:35 Speaker 03 Was it a threesome? I ask that question a lot. I've done so much investigating. The only thing I don't know is do they take turns? Right.
19:41 Dax Shepard? Yes, yes, it was one night and then the next night.
19:43 Speaker 03 Did she like go down to the bar after? Exactly, because it would have to be that fast.
19:48 Dax Shepard? There's a lot of permutations here.
19:50 Speaker 03 I think it was an orgy. Even if she hyperovulated, the studies show it has to be within like a couple of days.
19:56 Dax Shepard? Okay, so have you discussed any of this with your mom?
19:58 Speaker 03 No, I haven't confronted her.
19:59 Dax Shepard? You haven't?
20:01 Speaker 03 I told my twin, which kind of like ruined our relationship. No. So he called Jack because I'm sitting on it for months. And then he comes out here for our birthdays and I'm like, so guess what? And he's like, mom got Eiffel Towered. And I was like, that's not funny. What's that mean?
20:15 Dax Shepard? What does that mean? She knows a lot of code words.
20:17 Speaker 03 Just think about an Eiffel Tower.
20:18 Dax Shepard? Oh, oh, sure. Like a wobbly H, saw horse. Yeah.
20:22 Speaker 03 I don't get it. Oh, oh, oh, oh, I do, I do. He calls this guy because I had this guy's phone number. Mind you, both these two men are married 50 years plus. So they were married to these women and they still are. He calls him and he's like, hey, guess we parent child matched on ancestry. And Jack's like, your mom and I agreed we'd never have any contact with you. So bye. Oh, my God.
20:42 Dax Shepard? Well, he's afraid.
20:43 Speaker 03 Sure. And I'm not out here to hurt anybody. He could have been like, here's a few medical things you might need to know. Exactly. Minimally, I'm sorry that this happened.
20:49 Dax Shepard? Here's 5,000 bucks.
20:50 Speaker 03 Well, Jack had no kids.
20:52 Dax Shepard? Maybe he thought he was sterile.
20:53 Speaker 03 Well, he knew about us, though.
20:54 Dax Shepard? Oh, and he sent a telegram.
20:56 Speaker 03 But he doesn't probably know that I'm James's. He probably thinks he has me and my brother out there.
21:02 Dax Shepard? He's like, okay, I don't need to talk to you, but is your sister going to call? Because I need to tell her. I don't want to talk to her either.
21:07 Speaker 03 Your sister calls, it's going to be a longer conversation. He's not my dad, so I can't say anything to him. And then I looked up mine and he was once upon a time the Supreme Court Justice of a southern state. So I decided to leave that alone. Holy moly. And he's got kids and grandkids and I'm not ruining anyone's life. It doesn't change who I am. But are you like, what am I?
21:28 Dax Shepard? So yeah, what impact does this have? Because we've talked to some people today who have had this experience. And some of them are like, it doesn't matter. It's cool to know. And that's still my parent and I don't really care.
21:38 Speaker 03 Yeah, I went to a conference on it. They're called NPE, non-parental event or non-expected parent. And a lot of people are just crying like, the mailman's my dad and my mom lied my whole life and it's my identity. And I'm like, no, it's not. You are who you are. Your blood's blood. You know, I grew up with step siblings. My kids have had a stepdad. I don't identify with who was in the room that night. I identify with who I turned out to be and the people that cared to stay in my life. I have great relationships with people that are blood and that aren't.
22:02 Speaker 01 Yes.
22:03 Speaker 03 I'm bummed. And I can see why my mom always had just this undercover, I'm not so sure about her, get rid of her. She just didn't like me.
22:09 Dax Shepard? I can't imagine though, that she assumed the twins were from two different men, even though she had sex with two different people.
22:15 Speaker 01 There's no way.
22:17 Speaker 03 That would just not only spoil her, your dad left and cheated. Not only did he do that, but you doubled down. You know, and to tear down a woman, early, late seventies, it's just like, what's the point? I told one of my sisters, the other sibs don't know, and she's like, you've got to tell her. And I'm like, no, I don't.
22:33 Speaker 01 I mean, the only reason I think to tell her is like, she is a medical marvel.
22:37 Dax Shepard? History.
22:38 Speaker 01 Literally. I mean, there probably is just 50 cases this has ever happened.
22:44 Speaker 03 Yeah, I think that they said in just America, there's 12. And then the other countries, there's more, but you don't have a lot of documentation on this. How many twins both do it? You just assume one's DNA is the other's.
22:55 Speaker 01 Wow.
22:56 Dax Shepard? This is twisty and turny.
22:59 Speaker 01 Growing up though, did you think you and your twin had twin abilities?
23:05 Dax Shepard? Well, they did share a mom.
23:06 Speaker 03 Right. And like, we shared a room and we shared a lot of time together. And I always thought we had this special bond.
23:11 Dax Shepard? Are you left-handed?
23:12 Speaker 03 No, my little boy is though.
23:14 Dax Shepard? Maybe he'll be president.
23:15 Speaker 01 Sure.
23:15 Dax Shepard? Over index.
23:19 Dax Shepard? What a story.
23:20 Speaker 01 Oh my god.
23:21 Dax Shepard? That's a barn burner.
23:22 Speaker 01 Thank you so much for sharing it.
23:24 Speaker 03 Yeah, you guys, it was super fun. I do need to give a shout out to one of my friends, Rebecca. She actually used your story to ask about dyslexia and she gives it to her students at the elementary school she teaches at. And she loves, loves, loves you guys. She got me interested in you guys' podcast.
23:38 Dax Shepard? Thank you, Rebecca.
23:39 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's lovely.
23:40 Dax Shepard? Shout out. Well, lovely meeting you.
23:42 Speaker 01 I'll be thinking about that one for a while. That one's gonna stick.
23:45 Dax Shepard? Yep.
23:47 Speaker 01 Have a great day.
23:48 Dax Shepard? Take care, feel better.
23:49 Speaker 03 Thank you. Bye.
23:59 Dax Shepard? This episode is supported by Helix.
24:02 Speaker 01 Dax, is there anything better than crawling into a perfect bed on a cold fall night? Candlelit, hoodie on, maybe even some rain outside. The dream.
24:13 Dax Shepard? That's the dream. You just described one of my ideal fall nights.
24:17 Speaker 01 I know. And thanks to Helix, my bed actually lives up to the vibe. All I had to do was take the Helix Sleep Quiz and within two minutes, they matched me to a mattress built for exactly how I sleep. I have a midnight mattress. It also has cooling technology, which I really
24:33 Dax Shepard? Increasingly so.
24:34 Speaker 01 I need it. I have to have it. And I heard that you're supposed to sleep at a cold temp optimal sleep. It's very, very helpful.
24:44 Dax Shepard? She is not wrong. I have one too, and it's been such a game changer for sleep. And I love that they make it so easy. Free shipping right to your door. And with their happy with Helix guarantee, you'll get a full 365 nights to try it. A whole year to live in that cozy. They've got over 20 mattress models, so no matter how you sleep, they've got one for you.
25:04 Speaker 01 And it's not just us saying it. Helix has been named the most awarded mattress brand by Forbes, Wired, and more. You gotta try it for yourself.
25:11 Dax Shepard? Go to helixsleep.com/armchair for 20% off site wide. That's helixsleep.com/armchair for 20% off site wide. helixsleep.com/armchair. We get support from our sponsor, Lily. For adults with obesity or with excess weight and weight-related medical problems, it's time to find out about Foundo or for Glee Pro. Foundo is a once daily prescription GLP-1 medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off.
25:50 Speaker 04 Foundo should not be used with other GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Foundo is safe and effective for use in children. Don't take Foundo if you're allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had majorary thyroid cancer or multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Stop and call your doctor right away if you have an allergic reaction, a lump or swelling in your neck, or severe stomach pain. Serious side effects may include inflamed pancreas and gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes, if you're nursing, pregnant, plant to be, or taking birth control pills, and before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. Taking Foundo with an insulin or sulfonylurea may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and may cause kidney problems. Once daily Foundo is available by prescription only
26:32 Speaker 04 in 0.8 milligram, 2.5 milligram, 5.5 milligram, 9 milligram, 14.5 milligram, and 17.2 milligram tablets. Learn more at foundo.lily.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX. Now is perfect to talk to your doctor about Foundo.
26:47 Dax Shepard? We get support from Instagram teen accounts. So, we talk a lot on this show about how the world is different now than when we were growing up. And one of the biggest differences is obviously social media. And I think a lot of people wonder, okay, what's actually being done to make it safer for teenagers?
27:03 Speaker 01 Which is a fair question.
27:05 Dax Shepard? Yeah, so Instagram has got something called teen accounts, and they come with automatic protections built in by default. So, anyone between 13 and 17 is automatically placed into this experience. They get age-appropriate content settings, contact limits, so that by default, only people they're already connected to can message them. And time management tools, daily time limit reminders, and also sleep mode that mutes notifications from 10:00 PM to 7:00 AM.
27:31 Speaker 01 Sleep mode is genius.
27:32 Dax Shepard? Right, and here's the thing. For anyone under 16, a parent has to give permission to change any of those settings to be less strict. The guardrails are on, and Instagram keeps building new safety features to create age-appropriate experiences for teens.
27:48 Speaker 01 I am really glad Instagram's helping to give parents peace of mind with teen accounts.
27:52 Dax Shepard? Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com/teenaccounts. 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.
28:09 Speaker 01 Yeah, but the girls who get it, they get it.
28:11 Dax Shepard? Okay, but for those of us who are clearly not girls, walk me through it.
28:15 Speaker 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.
28:32 Dax Shepard? Great, great, great.
28:33 Speaker 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.
28:47 Dax Shepard? Roger.
28:48 Speaker 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.
29:00 Dax 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?
29:06 Speaker 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.
29:22 Dax Shepard? From episode 959, weddings, part two.
29:30 Dax Shepard? Jake, where are you?
29:31 Speaker 05 I am in North Carolina.
29:33 Speaker 01 Oh, my God.
29:34 Dax Shepard? God, this is crazy.
29:35 Speaker 01 Okay, we had a South Carolina, a North Carolina.
29:38 Dax Shepard? And Canada.
29:39 Speaker 01 Canada. We'll throw that one out as an outlier and then another North Carolina.
29:43 Dax Shepard? You all are getting married down there.
29:45 Speaker 05 Well, this did not happen in North Carolina.
29:46 Dax Shepard? Oh, it didn't. Okay. We rescind that then. All right. Yeah. Tell us about it. Wait, are you wearing a Red Bull shirt?
29:53 Speaker 05 I am, yeah.
29:53 Dax Shepard? Yeah, Max Verstappen's god.
29:55 Speaker 05 That's right. I was an avid listener of F1 with the RS.
29:59 Dax Shepard? I appreciate it.
30:00 Speaker 05 This is actually about my wedding and my wife's. So a little bit of background, we both grew up and still are Mormon or LDS. Grew up going to nine hours of church a week or so.
30:11 Dax Shepard? You did a mission?
30:12 Speaker 05 I did not. So I guess not the whole nine yards.
30:14 Dax Shepard? Okay, eight yards, yeah.
30:16 Speaker 05 But we met when we were in school, dated for a couple of years, decided we wanted to get married. We were both really excited. And we scheduled our wedding for the end of the summer so that we could live together when the semester started and then we could do a little honeymoon. And we structured our wedding day so that it was the temple in the morning at like nine AM so that we could get the most amount of pictures outside because it was hot. And then we had a brunch with friends and family. And then we had like a three or four hour block and then our reception later in the day. Before the wedding, we had rented an Airbnb for the day of so that we could kind of hang out during that three or four hour block. And then after the fact, we could sleep there and then honeymoon was next day. So the day of the wedding, I roll out of bed probably eight fifteen,
31:00 Speaker 05 eight thirty, and I can get there on time. Wife's awake at five AM doing her hair and makeup with her friends and she's having a good time. No problems.
31:10 Dax Shepard? You Latter Day Saints are an industrious bunch, like waking up at five AM to get the hair and makeup done?
31:16 Speaker 01 Oh, but that's wedding. That's wedding standard.
31:18 Speaker 05 I think that's wedding.
31:19 Dax Shepard? Okay, that's too early.
31:21 Speaker 05 I mean, it was at nine AM.
31:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's at nine. It's only four hours.
31:25 Dax Shepard? It's early.
31:26 Speaker 01 And all the bridesmaids have to get their makeup and hair. It's a whole thing.
31:29 Dax Shepard? Okay.
31:29 Speaker 05 Start of everything goes pretty well. Temple goes well, pictures goes well, no issues there. Brunch is fine. And after brunch, like I said, we have our three or four hour little block. So we decide we're gonna go hang out at the Airbnb for a little bit.
31:43 Dax Shepard? And you were virgins?
31:44 Speaker 05 Yes.
31:45 Dax Shepard? Oh, my God. So I know exactly what I'm doing the second I leave temple.
31:48 Speaker 05 We kind of talked about it the day before. We said, oh, should we bang right here in this hour block?
31:54 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
31:55 Speaker 05 And she was like, oh, we've waited so long. Let's just wait till later. And I'm like, no problem. But we get to the Airbnb, we're hanging out, we both change into like some sweats. And as we're changing, we kind of like open the suitcase and we both kind of make eye contact and then we see the condoms in the suitcase. She says, should we just do it? And I said, yes, of course.
32:15 Dax Shepard? Yes, we should have done it a long time ago.
32:18 Speaker 05 I haven't said anything to get in her pants.
32:19 Speaker 01 Of course.
32:21 Speaker 05 Things start progressing and she says, yeah, we can do it. Just make sure my hair and makeup, make sure nothing gets messed up. And I said, yeah, of course. Hundred percent. Definitely.
32:30 Dax Shepard? Yeah, I'm so good at this.
32:31 Speaker 01 I definitely know how to do this without doing that.
32:33 Speaker 05 Exactly what I'm doing.
32:34 Dax Shepard? I'm not gonna come in five seconds, but anyways, let's go.
32:37 Speaker 05 That's right. Things start happening. First base, second base, third base. I don't even hardly last to second or third base, so we're there.
32:45 Dax Shepard? Sure, sure.
32:47 Speaker 05 And then it's time for the main event. And I'm like, okay, great. Put a condom on, takes me a second. I've never done this before. Put some lube on, put some lube on her. We're like, okay, you ready? She's ready. We probably spent two to three minutes just trying to find the right angle that doesn't hurt.
33:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
33:05 Dax Shepard? Angle of approach, as we say in off-roading.
33:07 Speaker 05 Bless her heart. I'm sure it still hurt. And looking back on it, it definitely did not feel how it feels today.
33:15 Speaker 01 Well, these are the first time experiences. This is what happens.
33:18 Speaker 05 Neither of us knew any difference. We were having a great time.
33:21 Dax Shepard? You ended up in her butt. Is that what we're saying?
33:23 Speaker 05 No.
33:23 Dax Shepard? Oh, I misinterpreted that.
33:25 Speaker 01 It hurts the first time.
33:27 Dax Shepard? Okay, okay. I just, I heard a lot of lube and I didn't know the angle. I got a little confused. I'm so sorry.
33:32 Speaker 05 We're in the right hole.
33:33 Dax Shepard? Okay, great, great.
33:34 Speaker 05 Things start moving and 20 to 25 seconds later, I'm approaching the finish line.
33:40 Speaker 01 By the way, real quick, she's also glad it's that fast. The first time, it hurts. You just like, wanted to be done.
33:48 Speaker 05 Couple of thoughts run through my head. I think, okay, I shouldn't finish inside. She's not on birth control, so I don't know if the condom's gonna break. So I think, okay, that's out. So I think, okay, I'll pull out and I'll finish on her stomach.
34:02 Dax Shepard? Yeah, wonderful. It was romantic.
34:04 Speaker 05 Yeah. The thought of pulling out and finishing in the condom didn't even cross my brain.
34:09 Dax Shepard? Right, right.
34:10 Speaker 05 I pull out, I whip off the condom. And again, there's no communication with her at all. I blast off. When I say blast off, the mouth that came out, I have never seen before or seen.
34:25 Dax Shepard? Yeah, this is 23 years in the making.
34:27 Speaker 05 It was absurd. But the first blast hits the headboard, probably a foot above her head.
34:33 Speaker 01 This is a real Spider-Man situation.
34:35 Speaker 05 I'm like, okay, let's point it down a little bit. Second blast hits her directly in the face.
34:43 Speaker 01 Oh, no!
34:44 Speaker 05 Eyes, nose, mouth, hair. Third blast hits her in the neck, in the hair. Fourth blast somehow was stronger, hits her again in the face. And then all the subsequent blasts hit her in like the stomach.
34:57 Speaker 01 Why are there so many blasts?
35:00 Speaker 05 It's 23 years.
35:01 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
35:02 Speaker 01 Yeah, you're right.
35:03 Speaker 05 And then in this 10-second span, a lot of things happen. I get like, super dizzy.
35:08 Dax Shepard? Oh.
35:09 Speaker 05 And I lose hearing in my left ear. Just the left.
35:14 Speaker 05 And my wife, like I said, hit her in the face, mouth, nose. Some of it got in her mouth and she can't really breathe. So she immediately starts gagging and retching. And I'm still out of it. She immediately starts throwing up on the bed. And she's like stumbling around because some is in her eyes. She's trying to make it to the bathroom. She throws up on the bed in the hallway, on the floor of the bathroom, and finally makes it to the toilet.
35:43 Dax Shepard? Were you guys like, this is why they told us not to do it?
35:46 Speaker 01 They're like, yes, sex is horrible.
35:48 Dax Shepard? No wonder.
35:49 Speaker 05 And we knew it was gonna be bad. We didn't think it was gonna be that bad. But when I come to, I kind of go in the bathroom and I try to console her. She's like crying, laughing, throwing up. I'm confused because I was out of it.
36:04 Speaker 05 I try to help her clean up as best as we can. And then we both kind of freak out because some of it like dripped down and got her in the lady area.
36:14 Speaker 01 The lady area.
36:15 Speaker 05 So we're freaking out and we're like, oh no, is she gonna get pregnant? So we doordash like a plan B. And she takes that and spends the next three hours trying to fix her hair and makeup. It was a tough scene.
36:30 Dax Shepard? Now, okay, so later that night, you want to do it again, I bet.
36:35 Speaker 05 Yeah.
36:35 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
36:36 Speaker 01 Yeah, but she doesn't.
36:38 Speaker 05 I don't think we did. I don't really remember. But what did happen after we got to the reception, she like cleaned everything up and she looked great. And one of her friends came up behind her and was like, hey, you got something in your hair. And I was like, oh shit. And she had a big dried thing of semen in her hair.
36:55 Speaker 01 No.
36:57 Dax Shepard? Something about my hair. You have some gel in your hair, honey.
36:59 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's a classic.
37:01 Speaker 05 Really, the icing on the cake was that the plan B made her sick for like three days of our honeymoon.
37:08 Speaker 05 She was in a bad spot. But that's actually where we started listening to Armchair Anonymous.
37:12 Dax Shepard? Oh, no kidding.
37:15 Speaker 01 Wow, it really worked out for us, I guess.
37:17 Speaker 05 There you go.
37:18 Dax Shepard? How long ago was this?
37:19 Speaker 05 Three years.
37:20 Dax Shepard? I imagine you guys have had lots of beautiful lovemaking now.
37:23 Speaker 05 Yeah, took us a second. We got it.
37:26 Speaker 01 Throwing up.
37:28 Dax Shepard? It was a set piece. In a comedy, I could have made five minutes out of that whole sequence easily.
37:32 Speaker 05 Great. I love it. The victim's here. Can she come and say hi?
37:36 Dax Shepard? I'd love to see this poor gal.
37:38 Speaker 06 This is so cool.
37:39 Dax Shepard? There's the victim.
37:42 Speaker 06 We had a marital smack who would tell this story better. I said, I would tell it better because I was the victim. But he said, no, I'll tell it better.
37:50 Speaker 05 You need a first person view.
37:52 Speaker 06 But then he ended up submitting the story, so he got to tell.
37:55 Speaker 05 Feed her to it.
37:55 Dax Shepard? Oh, well, he did a great job.
37:57 Speaker 01 And he was specific about the amount of sprays and that was all really important detail.
38:03 Speaker 05 Lack of communication.
38:06 Dax Shepard? You must have been thinking, this is terrible, right? Why do people do this?
38:10 Speaker 06 At first, I was like, it's gonna get better, though, right?
38:13 Speaker 05 We started at rock bottom. You can't go much lower.
38:16 Speaker 06 I was mostly just worried about the rest of the wedding day. I was crying. I was like, it's my wedding day and all my hair and makeup is messed up. Like, this is the worst. We should have just waited until after all the wedding festivities.
38:29 Speaker 01 Don't you think, though, a lot of the people at the wedding, they've been in your position, they've done this exact same thing?
38:34 Speaker 05 We got some side eye as we were leaving the brunch. We were like, no, no, no, no, no. Then we showed up and everybody kinda.
38:39 Speaker 01 Yeah, they knew.
38:41 Speaker 05 They know.
38:42 Speaker 01 They know.
38:43 Dax Shepard? There's something like, as disgusting as the story is, it's so wholesome.
38:46 Speaker 01 It's sweet.
38:47 Dax Shepard? Isn't it? It's like, very mixed messages. It's like, so endearing, yet it's disgusting.
38:51 Speaker 01 It's nasty.
38:52 Dax Shepard? Yeah, I don't know that I've ever seen even in pornography, that volume and duration.
39:00 Dax Shepard? Well, it's lovely meeting you guys. You're adorable couple.
39:03 Speaker 05 We're big fans.
39:04 Dax Shepard? Oh, thank you. All right.
39:06 Speaker 01 Have a good rest of your day.
39:07 Speaker 05 You too.
39:09 Dax Shepard? From episode 887, First Responders.
39:15 Dax Shepard? Hello, is this Daphne?
39:17 Speaker 07 Hi, it is.
39:18 Dax Shepard? You're in your closet.
39:20 Speaker 07 I tried to follow the rules.
39:21 Dax Shepard? Are you allowed to tell us what state you're in?
39:23 Speaker 07 I'm in Wisconsin.
39:24 Dax Shepard? Oh, okay, great. Okay, so you have a first responder story.
39:29 Speaker 07 I do. So this was when I first started. It was within my first couple of weeks working as an EMT. So it's pretty green. Also, for a little bit of context, when you first start, at least at the company I worked at, there's such a hierarchy. When you're new, you're doing all the work nobody wants to do. So all like cleaning up the GI bleed. Oh. Picking up the heavy parts of the patient, changing diapers, like all the crazy stuff that people who've been there longer don't want to do. That's entirely on you.
39:57 Dax Shepard? Can I ask what led you to the job in the first place? I'm a little bit curious.
40:01 Speaker 07 Mine was a little bit untraditional. I actually majored in philosophy, but my college job, I was an outdoor trip leader. So I had to get a wilderness first responder certification and just really fell in love with it. Oh, amazing. So after college, I tried a couple of jobs and nothing really stuck and I ended up going back to get my EMT because I just loved my first cert so much.
40:21 Dax Shepard? Are you a bit of an adrenaline junkie?
40:23 Speaker 07 I would say so. Working in emergency, you kind of have to be, but at the same time, it also tames it a little bit because you see all the crazy shit that can happen.
40:32 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
40:33 Speaker 07 I'm like a moderate adrenaline junkie, I'd say. Are you watching The Pit? No, but I've heard it's good. You're gonna love it. And pretty accurate.
40:40 Dax Shepard? But that's like asking us if we watch a show about podcasting.
40:44 Speaker 07 Yeah, like Only Murders in the Building. Yes, I have.
40:46 Dax Shepard? Good point.
40:47 Speaker 07 Yeah, I mean, it's a great show. So the partner who I was paired up with, you could tell that he had one foot out of the door, was ready to retire and go to Boca and spend all his money gambling years ago.
40:59 Dax Shepard? What is the average career expectancy? I don't feel like I see a lot of older EMTs.
41:05 Speaker 07 I was told that their turnaround rate is like six months.
41:09 Dax Shepard? Wow.
41:10 Speaker 07 So it's pretty quick. Also, the place where I worked, it was a lot of people who they were starting as an EMT, but they wanted to go to med school or PA school or nursing school. This was kind of like the first step to get some experience.
41:23 Dax Shepard? Gotcha.
41:23 Speaker 07 So we get a call and the call is super vague. It was just for a sick person. And that was also a red flag because usually the more vague the chief complaint is, the more unhinged it is when you actually get there.
41:35 Dax Shepard? Oh, interesting.
41:36 Speaker 07 We go to the apartment. The elevator going up is teeny tiny, like it barely fits my partner and I and the stretcher in there. We get all the way up, knock on the door, introduce ourselves, walk in, and immediately when I open the door, I'm hit with this wave of just a blinding smell. Oh. And a smell that I had never smelled before up until this point.
42:00 Dax Shepard? Never smelt it.
42:02 Speaker 07 My god. And it smelled like a mix of hay, like from a horse poop, sulfur. Oh. And burnt anything.
42:11 Dax Shepard? Oh, interesting.
42:12 Speaker 07 Oh, hay.
42:15 Dax Shepard? Hurry. A horse trots out of the bedroom.
42:17 Speaker 07 Oh. I would have taken that over what happened. Oh, no. So all of a sudden, we see the patient, he stands up, he has a walker, he's walking over. I could tell he's walking a little funny, like his gait is a little off, but nothing too crazy. And he's wearing what I thought were black compression socks and the lower part of his legs looked a little different from the rest of his body. But who am I to judge? Sure.
42:42 Dax Shepard? Right. Is he wearing shorts?
42:44 Speaker 07 Yeah, he's wearing like basketball shorts. And also as he's walking over, the smell's getting stronger and I hear this kind of squishing sound with each footstep. No, no, no.
42:56 Dax Shepard? Oh, this is bringing me back to that bar in Canada.
42:59 Speaker 07 I know.
43:00 Dax Shepard? Oh, wow. Okay. Do you guys remember that one?
43:04 Speaker 07 Oh my god, no one can listen to this. Okay.
43:06 Dax Shepard? Okay, squish, squish, squish. Different colored legs.
43:09 Speaker 07 He's squishing his way over. And then I go over to help him. I want to give him a hand. When I get over, I look down and I realize, oh, those aren't compression socks. That's completely necrotic tissue from the knee down.
43:24 Dax Shepard? His legs are dead.
43:26 Speaker 07 Oh my. They're gone. Oh. And that squishing sound was them sloughing off with each step, like tissue coming off. No, no.
43:38 Speaker 01 Stop.
43:39 Dax Shepard? Oh my fucking, this is like as close as you can get to discovering a zombie.
43:45 Speaker 07 The top seventy-five percent of his body was a normal, average Joe. Bottom half was some shit out of The Walking Dead.
43:51 Speaker 01 Okay, I have to be honest, I thought it was gonna be that he cut off his legs and he put horse legs on.
43:57 Dax Shepard? Oh, Monica, that's a very.
44:00 Speaker 01 Because of the hay.
44:02 Dax Shepard? And then there's a horse in his bedroom with the human legs. Did you just swap them? It was a transplant?
44:07 Speaker 01 He wanted to become a centaur. He was a little mentally ill.
44:10 Dax Shepard? His fucking foot is falling apart as he walks?
44:13 Speaker 07 Yes, it looked like a mudslide. Every shade of yellow, red, brown that you can imagine.
44:21 Dax Shepard? How old were you at this point?
44:23 Speaker 07 Twenty-one.
44:24 Speaker 01 No, you're too young to have seen something like that.
44:28 Speaker 07 I keep my cool. I'm not here to judge anybody. I'm just here to get you to the hospital safely. So I take him to the stretcher and my partner looks at me and he's like, I'm not touching that. And I was like, okay, I'm not surprised. So I help him into the stretcher and he obviously needs help getting his lower half up. I'm trying to think of the most gentle way to go about this. You know, I don't want to cause any more damage. So I go down by his ankles and lift his legs up. And as I do, I feel my fingers squish into him. It felt like jam.
45:00 Speaker 01 No!
45:01 Dax Shepard? Jam.
45:02 Speaker 01 Why?
45:03 Dax Shepard? Of course, preserves.
45:04 Speaker 01 Is there bone?
45:06 Speaker 07 The bone's not out yet, but it doesn't look like it's that far away. So we get back to the elevator. My partner doesn't get into the elevator. He's like, I'm taking the next one. You got this, jam.
45:16 Dax Shepard? This guy's a real piece of shit. A fucking twenty-one-year-old girl. He's like, deal with it. I'm in Boca.
45:23 Speaker 01 I'm already in Boca.
45:25 Speaker 07 Yeah, so I'm squished between him and the elevator wall.
45:29 Dax Shepard? Can I ask what his demeanor is? Because I have a story very similar to this from an ER doctor I know who had someone get brought in that was a shut-in and they had a lot of necrotic flesh. And I don't think they knew, they were kind of just embarrassed. Like, what was his vibe?
45:45 Speaker 07 He was in a great mood. He was chatting up with me. I'm trying to banter with him a little bit, but it's so thick and literally blinding. Like, I was having a hard time opening my eyes. Oh, my God.
45:55 Dax Shepard? Did he acknowledge that his legs were dead?
45:57 Speaker 07 Verbatim, he said, "Oh, it's just a little leg pain. No big deal." Wow.
46:18 Speaker 07 We got into the ambulance. It's a hot summer day. And also, this ambulance has no air conditioning, no ventilation, nothing. And my partner, of course, has me sit in the back with him and closes the only window between the front and the back. Oh, boy. I'm trying to bandage this up, trying to do anything to make him more comfortable, but it's just soaking through. Nothing's working. He needs extensive wound care. We just need to get on the road and get him to a hospital. And of course, he wants the one that's the farthest away from where we are. And in the ambulance ride over, ambulances have no suspension at all. And we're going on the highway. And this is oozing. The amount of liquid that's coming out was insane.
47:00 Speaker 07 So I'm just being jostled around. It's splashing everywhere. Like, it felt like being at a water park. Stop! That I did not sign up for. Oh, my God. And can you wear a hazmat suit? Looking back, I probably should have. But at that point, I don't think I even knew where those were, the ambulance.
47:19 Dax Shepard? He might have been a little disassociated, like, let's just get through this.
47:22 Speaker 07 Yeah, it's just every body fluid you can imagine, plus chunks of tissue.
47:26 Dax Shepard? No!
47:27 Speaker 07 Don't say chunks! I'm trying all the tricks for the smell, too. At that point, the smell is the least of it. But I was sticking alcohol pads in my mask and rubbing hand sanitizer on the outside, just trying to do anything while also still trying to be discreet, because I'm not trying to make this guy feel bad about himself. He's already going through it. I'm just like, okay, this is my life for the next. Hour.
47:49 Dax Shepard? I would've said, no, you're going to the one down the road.
47:51 Speaker 07 I wish we could, but I think at that point, it technically would have been like medical kidnapping or something crazy like that. I feel like take them where they don't want to go.
47:57 Dax Shepard? Okay.
47:57 Speaker 07 So we get to the hospital finally and we roll him in and we're doing the handoff report to the nurses. We're talking to them. My partner finally comes in like puffing his chest, giving a report, like he did everything. As he's giving a report, I noticed he's starting to pause between words and then his face is starting to get really red and then he starts going, he runs into the hallway and vomits everywhere and completely misses the trash can. Oh my god.
48:29 Dax Shepard? Bozo.
48:30 Speaker 07 We do the handoff. That's done. I walk into the hallway. There's vomit everywhere and there's tracks from the wheels of our stretcher, like bits of leg. Oh. And blood and pus.
48:42 Dax Shepard? This is like SARS or something.
48:45 Speaker 07 Wow.
48:45 Dax Shepard? Do you ever get any follow up? I want to happen to these people. Like, do you see the ER people a month later and go like, what happened?
48:53 Speaker 07 Yeah. I didn't do that with this guy. I have however seen patients in the wild before after I've taken care of them and that's always crazy.
49:01 Dax Shepard? Do you say hi? You don't say hi?
49:03 Speaker 07 I don't say hi, but there was this one guy who had his throat slit and he didn't want to go to the hospital.
49:09 Dax Shepard? Oh.
49:10 Speaker 07 And he was bleeding out of his eyes, ears, nose, and I was like, you have to go. But he refused and he was his own person mentally. So there's nothing we could do. And I saw him biking like three weeks later.
49:20 Dax Shepard? Oh, so he made the right call.
49:22 Speaker 07 Wow.
49:22 Dax Shepard? Wow, that's good.
49:23 Speaker 07 They call that AMA against medical advice.
49:26 Dax Shepard? You learn that up at?
49:28 Speaker 07 Yeah. Yeah. You have to sign a form. It's very official, but I spent the next three hours cleaning out the hallway. You had to clean it? I wasn't gonna leave it.
49:37 Dax Shepard? You're a good person.
49:38 Speaker 07 You're an angel.
49:39 Dax Shepard? What about the puke? Did homeboy clean up his own puke?
49:42 Speaker 07 Yes. And then with the ambulance, there was no equipment or anything for me to use. So I was just wiping that up with paper towel, disinfectant wipes.
49:50 Dax Shepard? Yeah, you gotta call dispatch and go like, hey, we need about an hour to clean up.
49:54 Speaker 01 And we need to blow up this ambulance.
49:57 Dax Shepard? And we need to fire Mike and send him to fucking Boca. I can't believe you didn't quit your job after that.
50:02 Speaker 07 I came close. I thought about it, but you kind of know what you're getting into.
50:06 Dax Shepard? I mean, do you? I can't imagine you think like, I'm gonna show up and someone's legs are gonna be falling off real time. That's really out of.
50:13 Speaker 01 Someone will have cut off their legs and put horse legs on it.
50:16 Dax Shepard? Right, a horse transplant.
50:17 Speaker 01 Who could be ready for that?
50:19 Speaker 07 I wouldn't put it past somebody.
50:20 Dax Shepard? Our last question, because when we interviewed nurses, they all have a foreign body and rectum story. Did you respond to any of those?
50:28 Speaker 07 Yes.
50:29 Dax Shepard? Oh, wow, two for.
50:31 Speaker 07 I've seen a wine bottle.
50:33 Speaker 01 Okay, with the cork or without?
50:36 Speaker 07 I don't know because I didn't take it out.
50:38 Speaker 01 Okay, yeah.
50:39 Dax Shepard? It's gotta be empty, I would guess.
50:40 Speaker 01 There's three options. There's a wine bottle corked, there's an empty wine bottle, and there's a wine bottle that like you drank some and then you put the stopper in.
50:49 Dax Shepard? That seems craziest to me because the fluid could pop up, you know?
50:53 Speaker 01 Maybe that's what they like.
50:54 Speaker 07 Yeah, it's kind of a two for one deal.
50:56 Dax Shepard? Maybe they put a champagne bottle in there, then you pop the cork and it explodes right when you're, that sounds dreadful.
51:03 Speaker 07 I haven't seen that yet.
51:05 Dax Shepard? But someone did have a wine bottle and you put them face down on the stretcher, I guess?
51:09 Speaker 07 We had them on their side, face down technically. It's like a airway issue.
51:14 Dax Shepard? Did they make any explanation as to what had happened or no? Just, I need to go to the hospital?
51:19 Speaker 07 I feel like people either really overcompensate for it and try to say like, I was cleaning and I tripped and I fell.
51:25 Dax Shepard? There's a Sedaris story about the people say they tripped and fell. And he's like, I'm so clumsy. I've fallen down naked many times, never stood up and there was a candle in my ass.
51:38 Speaker 07 Not one.
51:39 Dax Shepard? What's the second version?
51:40 Speaker 07 They're just silent because they know that you know.
51:44 Speaker 01 That's best.
51:45 Dax Shepard? Are you done with that line of work?
51:46 Speaker 07 No, so I'm still doing it now. So I work in an emergency room and I started nursing school this fall.
51:52 Dax Shepard? Oh, great.
51:52 Speaker 01 I can't wait for you to watch the pit. You're gonna love it.
51:57 Dax Shepard? Well, Daphne, this was a delight. This is among the very worst stories we've heard. What an accomplishment.
52:03 Speaker 07 I'm so glad. Well, thank you so much for your time and for having me. Can I give a quick shout?
52:07 Speaker 01 Yes.
52:08 Dax Shepard? Of course, we love shout outs.
52:09 Speaker 07 I just want to shout out Caroline, Tate and Emily, my three favorite people. I love them so much. And to you guys, I just want to say that sometimes when you work in this field, the drive home can be kind of tough. If you have a bad day, that's kind of when you start like reflecting and things can feel a little heavy. So whenever that happens, I always put on armchair and it makes me feel so much better.
52:29 Dax Shepard? Oh, good.
52:30 Speaker 07 So I just want to thank you guys for bringing some levity to that.
52:33 Speaker 01 I can't take that in knowing what you've done for the world.
52:36 Dax Shepard? I'm gonna take it. I'm choosing today to take it. My self-esteem is good.
52:40 Speaker 01 Wow.
52:40 Dax Shepard? And I'm gonna go, all right, that's great. Well, thank you. This is a real barn burner, as we say. High watermark for Armchair Anonymous. Nice meeting you.
52:50 Speaker 01 Have a great day.
52:51 Speaker 07 Likewise.
52:52 Dax Shepard? Bye.
53:01 Dax Shepard? We get support by Peloton. You know that feeling when you're spiraling over a problem and you just can't figure it out? When that happens to me, I need a change of pace. And I've found that running is the best way. It takes my brain out of the driver's seat and I come back with a fresh perspective. Running can be freeing and cathartic, and Peloton helps you feel all of that. And now that feeling fits wherever you need it with the new Peloton Tread Flex. It's movable and foldable, designed to fit your life. So next time you feel stuck, you can go for a run literally anywhere, whether that's in your office, living room, or even the attic. Plus, they have classes with expert instructors and programs to meet you at any level and keep you moving. Let yourself run.
53:45 Dax Shepard? Explore the new Peloton Tread Flex at onepeloton.com. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you've thought about trying therapy with our long-term partner, BetterHelp, insurance options may now be available nationwide with an average copay for eligible members of just $23 per session. October 10th is World Mental Health Day. But you don't need a day on the calendar to give yourself permission to talk to someone. I've been in therapy for a long time and the stuff rattling around in my head always just quiets down the second I say it out loud. And it doesn't have to be some big life crisis. Maybe it's a work thing that's taking up too much space or hard relationship moment, or just a feeling that something's off. That's enough. That's worth talking about.
54:28 Speaker 01 You know, I love therapy more than anything. Gets me through. Often I'll want to cancel because I'm like, I don't really have anything to talk about. And then I'll go and I have some major revelation.
54:39 Dax Shepard? You know, I was just talking to a friend who has just started it. And I said, one of the most powerful elements of it is just hearing yourself say out loud, the thing that's been ruminating in your head and how different it sounds. Once it's out into the world, you gain perspective immediately just by hearing yourself say it.
54:54 Speaker 01 Yeah, you do.
54:55 Dax Shepard? If you've been waiting to start therapy, BetterHelp works with more than 125 health plan networks and eligible members have an average copay of just $23 per session with insurance. Don't have insurance or live outside the U.S.? You can still get 10% off your first month. Do yourself a favor and just try it. Future you will be grateful. Visit betterhelp.com/dax to explore your payment options. That's better H E L P dot com slash DAX. We are supported by Walden University. You know that feeling when you've been thinking about making a move, going after the degree, the promotion, the thing you keep telling yourself you'll get to someday? Walden University is built for that moment.
55:38 Dax Shepard? For over 50 years, Walden has helped working professionals get the W, the knowledge, the skills and the confidence to create real change in their careers and communities. Their programs are designed around your life, not the other way around. With Tempo Learning, available in select programs, there are no rigid schedules or set weekly deadlines. You move at your own pace. And Walden's faculty aren't just academics. They're practitioners who bring real world experience into everything they teach. From your first class to career coaching and beyond, Walden is your partner the whole way. Take the first step and learn at a pace that works for you. Visit waldenu.edu. Walden University. Set a course for change. Certified to operate by CHEV.
56:26 Dax Shepard? From episode 939, Subway.
56:33 Speaker 08 Hello. Hi. Tess, your hair is beautiful. Thank you so much. I posted a selfie today that I was having a really good hair day. So I'm glad that you guys get to see it.
56:42 Dax Shepard? Is the humidity right where you're at or what's causing the great hair day?
56:44 Speaker 08 Curls. You don't really ever know what's going to happen. I took a nap right after I washed it today, so maybe that is why.
56:52 Dax Shepard? When my hair was long, that was my move is to go to bed with my hair just a little damp. And I'd wake up and have all kinds of body. Mmm, I love that. Very fun to have a playful hair day.
57:00 Speaker 08 It is.
57:01 Dax Shepard? Where are you at Tess?
57:02 Speaker 08 I'm currently in Paris. Oh. I know. I was on a little trip with my mom. My friend lives here and is out of town and offered her apartment for me to watch her cat for 10 days.
57:14 Dax Shepard? Oh, wonderful. How fun.
57:16 Speaker 08 I live in Brooklyn, though.
57:18 Dax Shepard? Okay, so did the subway story occur on this trip?
57:20 Speaker 08 It just occurred in my normal life. Right, in Brooklyn? In Manhattan. So I lived in New York for seven years. So I feel like I know the rules, the social mores of subway life. I had to run into the office two years ago on a Friday because I'd forgotten a pair of very expensive shoes there that I needed to return. Like I'd brought them the day before because they had to be returned at FedEx and I forgot to return them. So I was working from home and I had to go into the office. So I was already like kind of annoyed. It was a New York late October day where I was ready to stunt in my fall outfits. So I was wearing a really cute pair of black cargo wide leg jeans.
58:00 Speaker 08 The brand Aegold, but I had rented them from this rental clothing subscription called Newly. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you can rent like six pieces of clothes a month from a bunch of different brands. I was stunting in those. Stunting is a new, I don't know that.
58:15 Dax Shepard? But you do, you can figure it out. It's like flossing, looking good, strutting, right?
58:19 Speaker 08 I can use context because I'm just saying that this is new. I've never heard or used that. I want to use it. You're going to be very cool when you use it later. Or maybe I'm going to be embarrassed for all my Gen Z cousins.
58:29 Dax Shepard? Just saw her Saturday at a birthday party and she was full stunt.
58:33 Speaker 08 I'm birthing space for stunting.
58:34 Dax Shepard? Great, really good.
58:36 Speaker 08 So I was wearing a sweater vest. I felt very cute. It was unfortunately not a weather appropriate outfit. I was sweaty on top of like running around trying to find a store. It was just an all around bad afternoon. I finally found somewhere to return the shoes and instead of walking a little further to the 14th Street Union Square. Subway station. I hopped on at like 28th Street just so I could like connect with these very noise cancelling headphones on. I was listening to 1989 Taylor's version. Oh, hell yeah. The errand was done. I had a Halloween party that night. Things are turning around. So I go down the stairs. I hop on the W train, which if you are familiar with New York,
59:18 Speaker 08 it goes basically to Queens and then to South Brooklyn. I don't live in South Brooklyn. I live in Central Brooklyn. It's on a train that I'm ever on. The only reason I was on it was so that I could switch to the queue, which is my train. So I hop on the train. Everything's happy. The train is pretty full and I sit down. I realize immediately that I had sat in a human pile of shit. No, no. In your egg.
59:47 Speaker 08 That are rented.
59:48 Dax Shepard? Now, really quick, you could tell because you sat down and all of a sudden it was soft. You're expecting that hard plastic.
59:54 Speaker 08 Did it make a sound? I don't know because I had my headphones on. It just felt wet on my ass. My stomach just dropped. I was like, oh my fucking god, like what did I just do? And so I stand up and I whip my headphones off and I like look around to the people around me because there are people on the train. And this is one of those social mores where like if there's shit on a train, it's empty. It's not uncommon to find shit on a New York City subway.
1:00:22 Dax Shepard? Oh, you're saying generally the move is when there's a dump in a train car, everyone just goes to another car and the whole car is empty, not that seat. Cause I would say that's savage. If the rule in New York is simply everyone stays, but you just don't sit in that seat.
1:00:37 Speaker 08 Every New Yorker I've told this to has been like, I can't believe people are on that train car. Like it is just not what you do. There's a man sitting directly across from the shit. It's like a corner seat. He's sitting directly across it. So I whip my headphones off and I look at him and I'm like, why didn't you tell me?
1:00:54 Speaker 08 And he was like, I'm sorry. And then another person whispered at me. He was like, I'm so sorry. And I'm like, that doesn't help me. I'm like pointing at my shit.
1:01:04 Dax Shepard? I hate to do this to you, but when you stood up and you turned around to confirm that it was shit, what kind of shit are we talking about? Was it a soft serve?
1:01:12 Speaker 08 I anticipate you asking this. It was a puddle of soupy brown shit.
1:01:16 Dax Shepard? Oh, diarrhea. It was harness. Wow, fuck. So when you said it, it probably splashed.
1:01:22 Speaker 01 How much?
1:01:23 Speaker 08 A big amount.
1:01:24 Dax Shepard? Let's put it this way, no one ever has to like, oh, I got a diarrhea, a tiny bit. If you got a shit in public, like you were holding it and you got a lot of diarrhea, right? No one's ever done it like a thimble of-
1:01:35 Speaker 08 It was not a shart.
1:01:37 Dax Shepard? It was a full evac.
1:01:38 Speaker 01 Almost as if they pulled their pants down and did it. They did?
1:01:41 Dax Shepard? Of course. You can't leave a puddle of shit through your pants.
1:01:45 Speaker 08 I hopped off at the next stop because I just was overwhelmed and I was crying, but I was also like laughing because it was just like an overwhelmingly hilarious and disgusting situation. It's so intense. Two girls in like really cute clothes come to get on my train and I go, do not get on this train.
1:02:01 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's good.
1:02:01 Speaker 08 There is shit on this train. I go into the, that stubble area and I'm sobbing and crying. I tried to call a friend who lives close, so like maybe she could bring me clothes. Like I'm just trying to figure like how to get home. I'm still really far from home.
1:02:15 Dax Shepard? Do you have any additional garments? Like, do you have anything that you can take off and tie around your waist?
1:02:19 Speaker 08 No, because I was wearing like a cute short sleeve white t-shirts, which I like what Monica's wearing, and then a white creamy sweater vest.
1:02:27 Speaker 01 Oh, my God, so cute.
1:02:29 Dax Shepard? Why can't you take the sweater vest off?
1:02:31 Speaker 08 There were no sleeves. I couldn't tie it. That was like my, and I didn't want to ruin it. I liked it.
1:02:36 Speaker 01 Yeah, of course.
1:02:37 Dax Shepard? You already fucked up this one. Yeah, okay.
1:02:38 Speaker 01 Exactly. Also, did you consider calling 911?
1:02:41 Dax Shepard? What?
1:02:42 Speaker 08 That's a great question.
1:02:44 Speaker 01 Help.
1:02:45 Speaker 08 I should have. Help me, please.
1:02:47 Dax Shepard? I guarantee you in the annals of 911 recorded calls, there are people calling. And even if they shit themselves, maybe even like, oh.
1:02:57 Speaker 01 I don't know what to do. Please come rescue me.
1:03:00 Dax Shepard? I fucked up, I'm sorry.
1:03:01 Speaker 08 So that's sort of what I called my mom who lives in St. Louis, Missouri. Still I called her and I was like, what do I do? And she couldn't hear me because I was crying and laughing and the trains are coming through. And she just texts me like, go to a store. So I ran up the stairs. I'm on Fifth Ave, which is one of the most iconic shopping streets in the world. I'm running through Fifth Ave with my hands in the air because I sat in a chair and I'm screaming to people like a crazy person like, I sat in a chair.
1:03:29 Dax Shepard? Oh, my God.
1:03:30 Speaker 01 Do you think people thought you were on drugs?
1:03:33 Speaker 08 Probably.
1:03:33 Speaker 01 Cause like you had shit, you're screaming.
1:03:36 Dax Shepard? I think people were like, that's her shit.
1:03:38 Speaker 01 Exactly.
1:03:38 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:03:38 Speaker 08 I know. And I was really trying really hard to like point and be like, there's no way that this could be my shit. Like, look where it's at. It's on the outside of my jeans.
1:03:46 Speaker 01 One time you told me a story that you saw someone with shit all over their pants.
1:03:50 Dax Shepard? At the CVS, but it had bled through. It wasn't like chunks on the outside. It was workout pants and it had bled through.
1:03:57 Speaker 01 You can tell it bled.
1:03:57 Dax Shepard? Yeah. Sorry, I have one more question you're not gonna like, but we've avoided this thus far. Were you smelling it?
1:04:06 Speaker 08 Yes.
1:04:07 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:04:07 Speaker 01 Oh, no.
1:04:09 Speaker 08 That's another reason why I'm like, I'm just so surprised with the people on the train because they were sitting with a smelly pile of shit.
1:04:15 Speaker 01 At this point, can you feel it on your body? Are you like, it's soaked into my butt?
1:04:20 Speaker 08 Yes, I was feeling damp. So a long time ago, I used to work at Lululemon, the athletic clothing brand. And when I hopped out of the subway, I saw the like stylized Omega sign. I was like, oh, my God. I know the girls at Lululemon are gonna help. Those people have dealt with a lot. I used to deal with a lot.
1:04:40 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:04:40 Speaker 08 So I run in and I like run straight to the nearest, we call them educators at Lululemon. They're not. So she has their educators. And I'm waving at her and she is with a customer and she like looks at me like. Oh, what the fuck is going on? And she goes, are you okay? And I'm like, yeah, I just sat and shit on the subway. Like, I need new pants right now. And so she sends me over to the pant wall. So I go to the pant wall. I'm like, give me a size six and any black leggings. Don't care. Just give it to me now. I try to get a dressing room and like every dressing room's full and I'm still freaking out. And I'm like, I sat and shit. I need to change right now. And another customer is like, would you like to sit down so you can calm down? I'm like, no, I don't want to sit. Do you see what's on my person? Like, no.
1:05:25 Speaker 08 So I finally changed into leggings ever so delicately so I don't get any of the shit onto my body. They gave me a Lululemon bags. I could put it in the bag. And then I go to check out with the security tag still on me. I had to like jump up onto the counter so they could remove the security tag. The very kind people at the Flatiron Lululemon did give me a seventy-five percent off. They called it the Uda stat and human shit discount.
1:05:51 Speaker 01 That's nice.
1:05:53 Dax Shepard? The educators are nice.
1:05:54 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's a good company.
1:05:55 Speaker 08 They were really nice. And then I took my bag of shit jeans. And as you remember, I rented these jeans and I could have just thrown them away because if I had thrown them away, I'd be charged like two hundred and twenty dollars. They're an expensive brand. So I just like had my shit jeans and my new leggings. My outfit was no longer cute because it looked dumb. I was wearing leggings for the cute sweater vest. And I went home. I grabbed my laundry detergent. I went to my laundromat. I threw my shit jeans into the laundromat with some laundry detergent. I sat there and then I returned them the next day. I was like, I have to get those out of my house.
1:06:32 Speaker 01 Somebody else is currently wearing them.
1:06:35 Dax Shepard? Previously.
1:06:36 Speaker 01 Now, did you consider just reaching out to Newly and say like, hey, this is what happened. We gotta throw these.
1:06:42 Dax Shepard? Is that what you would have done?
1:06:43 Speaker 01 I think so. I think so.
1:06:45 Dax Shepard? I would have done what you did.
1:06:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:06:47 Dax Shepard? How long ago was that?
1:06:48 Speaker 08 That was October twenty eighth, twenty twenty-three. I'll never forget the date. I didn't like sit down on the subway for months after. I got a lot of shame for not looking before I sat.
1:06:59 Dax Shepard? When music's so powerful and enveloping, one has to remind themselves to still look around.
1:07:04 Speaker 01 Really true. Cautionary tale yet again.
1:07:08 Dax Shepard? So many lessons were learned on this subway episode.
1:07:12 Speaker 01 Thanks so much for sharing that.
1:07:13 Speaker 08 Thank you so much. It's so good to meet you.
1:07:15 Dax Shepard? Bye bye.
1:07:19 Dax Shepard? From episode 910, foreign object in butt. Ding ding ding.
1:07:25 Dax Shepard? Oh, hello. We're going by Toby?
1:07:29 Speaker 09 Yeah.
1:07:29 Dax Shepard? Are you in the medical profession?
1:07:31 Speaker 09 Yeah, I'm an emerg doc. I've been an emerg doc for over 20 years.
1:07:34 Speaker 01 Did you watch The Pit?
1:07:35 Speaker 09 I've watched one episode.
1:07:37 Speaker 01 Okay, and you didn't like it?
1:07:39 Speaker 09 No, it was good. It's just that we watched with the family and then the kids didn't want to continue watching it. It was gonna be something I was gonna kind of pursue on my own.
1:07:47 Speaker 01 Okay, because it's like dad's work. We don't want to watch that.
1:07:50 Speaker 09 It was pretty realistic, though.
1:07:52 Dax Shepard? Okay, so Toby, please tell us about your foreign object story.
1:07:55 Speaker 09 This was a few years ago. I was working in our kind of low acuity area at like minor injuries. And my next patient to be seen on the tracker, it says, no chief complaint. That means that they weren't really upfront with the nurses at triage. And you know, something is weird.
1:08:11 Dax Shepard? What percentage of people who come in under that description do have something in them?
1:08:16 Speaker 09 100%.
1:08:20 Speaker 09 Maybe not 100%, but I definitely walked into the room knowing there's a significant chance that this dude had something in one of his holes. Middle aged guy, he looks healthy, definitely a bit haggard from the night before. But he's this intense dude and he's just really locked in on me. He went all out, whole lot of cocaine. And then in his words, a bunch of hookers.
1:08:41 Speaker 01 Oh, wow, okay.
1:08:43 Dax Shepard? A bunch, boy. That's definitely more than three.
1:08:46 Speaker 09 I didn't pin him down on the numbers. He said at some point in the night, things got carried away and I ended up with something in my ass. He's not sure exactly what it was, or he wasn't willing to divulge, but he knows there's something there and he can't get it out and he wants it out.
1:09:17 Speaker 09 So when you're not sure exactly what's going on, you need to get some imaging first. You don't want to just do an internal exam without knowing what's going on. Like, sometimes you'll find things like broken glass, needles, even things like razor blades.
1:09:31 Speaker 09 So we do an x-ray and it shows a 12-ounce beverage can in his rectum. No perforation, no obstruction. So we bring him back and then we start talking to him about removing it. How difficult or how hard do you think it is to remove something from someone's ass?
1:09:45 Dax Shepard? You're the second person we've spoken to. And my first question was like, what do you use? Like a speculum? Do you use what you would use in a pap smear? Do you open, then you put tongs in and pull it out? What do you do?
1:09:56 Speaker 09 It's a tough procedure. You've got this ergonomic challenge in the sense that you've got this really small space that you're working in. And then access to that space is by even a smaller, tighter hole that's super innervated and goes into spasm really easily. And then the actual object itself is big and slippery. And it's like when you drop your cellphone down the side of your car seat, you can jam your hand like deep down there and you can actually touch it, but you can't pick it up. And it's just super frustrating.
1:10:23 Dax Shepard? Okay, really quick, Toby, I just had what my idea would be. And I don't even know if it would be possible. But I think the move would be to somehow sink a wood screw into the bottom of the can and then pull that out.
1:10:35 Speaker 09 There are some case reports of people doing things like that with bottles and stuff. They have a bottle with the open end facing down. And then they'll put like a catheter into the bottle and then fill the bottle with cement and then like Oh my god. let it harden and then pull it out. That's kind of the extreme stuff. But essentially, the first step is something called anal dilation. What you need to do is you need to gradually stretch out the anus so you can get as much of your hand in there as possible to remove the object. Essentially, we're medically fisting them. Right. So you go one finger, two finger, three finger, and then full Kit Kat, and then thumb, and then Wow. and then pass to your wrist.
1:11:11 Dax Shepard? Once you have gotten the fist past the sphincter, when you're actually in the intestine, is it then easy to open your hand? Is that really, really elastic?
1:11:19 Speaker 09 Just with the object there, you're definitely working in a confined space. It's not this like infinite space that you can just like act freely in there.
1:11:26 Speaker 01 When you do each finger individually, your anus is getting used to it, basically.
1:11:31 Speaker 09 Yeah, just slowly stretching it out. The vast majority of these people, though, they need to be deeply sedated. It's super innervated and it just hurts too much. Anybody with something big, like a first timer,
1:11:43 Speaker 09 they're getting sedated.
1:11:43 Speaker 01 Oh, my God, how many people are not first timers?
1:11:47 Dax Shepard? Well, look, if you like things in your butt, you like things in your butt. It's not like one trip to the emergency room shuts that down.
1:11:52 Speaker 09 I work in an academic center, a teaching center. We have emergency medicine residents. So the person doing the procedure was my resident and she was perfect for it, right? She's eager, competent, and then most importantly, she's got thin wrists and strong hands. Cause I work with some old dudes that have like big meat hooks. Oh, they'd wreck his O ring. So we do the sedation and she's able to get her whole fist in there. And then she gets her hand on the can and starts pulling and she can't get it out. It's too stuck. You can get a suction that develops because the walls of the rectum just are completely covering the outside of the can. And then the proximal colon just collapses and it's like a finger trap.
1:12:32 Speaker 01 Oh, my God.
1:12:34 Dax Shepard? Yeah, you need to inflate it.
1:12:36 Speaker 09 We considered the other options we have, like we can use instruments like you talked about. So there's obstetrical instruments, vacuum extractors. You can sometimes try to pass a catheter to the level of the object or past it and then inflate air, pass it to try to break the suction. I seen that once and it's super gross and it didn't work. Just like constant shit mist coming out of the guy's ass.
1:12:58 Dax Shepard? Oh, wow.
1:12:58 Speaker 01 Oh, my.
1:12:59 Speaker 09 It's just like continuous fart.
1:13:04 Dax Shepard? You were on the front line, my friend.
1:13:06 Speaker 09 You can also try to push down on the like the anterior of their lower abdomen to get it down to where the other person can kind of grab it better. So we considered the options and then I was just talking to the resident and I said, which way is the can facing? And she said, top of the can is facing down.
1:13:19 Dax Shepard? Yes.
1:13:20 Speaker 09 I said, can you feel the tab? And she's, yeah, I can feel the tab. So I said, I think we should open it in his ass.
1:13:26 Dax Shepard? Yes.
1:13:27 Speaker 09 So she goes in there, we open it up and it's just this river of cola foam, blood and micro turds.
1:13:35 Dax Shepard? That's a medical term, by the way, micro turds.
1:13:39 Speaker 09 You truly can't see them, but it lasted forever. And so we're just sitting there waiting and just pouring onto the bed and the floor. Finally stops, she goes in there, crush the can. And with crushing the can, she broke the suction and she's able to get really good mechanical purchase on it. Pull it down to the level of the anus. Once you're at the anus, you got to get the rim over the can. And once you pop that out, it's out. So it pops out and it's a can of Coke Zero.
1:14:06 Dax Shepard? Oh, okay. This is consistent. We've heard it's always diet soda.
1:14:10 Speaker 09 I love that detail. Like, I love the idea of the guy party planning the day before going like, yeah, I got the cocaine. Get the hookers. And then like his idea of harm reduction was getting diet soda.
1:14:20 Speaker 01 Exactly. Like, let's keep it healthy.
1:14:22 Dax Shepard? Keep it in homeostasis.
1:14:23 Speaker 01 Wow.
1:14:24 Speaker 09 He wakes up and he's feeling fine. I offer him some follow up, see a surgeon, just to make sure there's no kind of long lasting injury. He declines it, thanks us, just head held high, turns on his heel and just leaves the department. These are obviously embarrassing things, but at the same time, I really respected the dude, right? Cause he partied with true commitment, left everything on the field, accepted the consequences and then was grateful. All the respect he has.
1:14:48 Speaker 01 Yes, that's what I was gonna say. So our previous guest, I have like a weird feeling about that person.
1:14:54 Dax Shepard? Bad feeling about.
1:14:55 Speaker 01 But I don't actually about this guy.
1:14:57 Dax Shepard? Right.
1:14:57 Speaker 01 I think cause he came in, he was like, look, I did all this.
1:15:00 Dax Shepard? I'm naughty.
1:15:01 Speaker 01 I partied.
1:15:02 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah.
1:15:02 Speaker 01 And this is what happened. It's like a full acknowledgement that makes it better.
1:15:07 Speaker 09 A hundred percent. He didn't hurt anybody. He didn't put anybody else at risk. He was just pushing the edge of the envelope.
1:15:12 Dax Shepard? I just want to say how stimulating and gratifying it is to hear you speak. You have such a great vocabulary. There's such precision in the way you speak. And also you're talking about shit and Coke spraying out. Yeah, it's real mixed messages in our favorite way.
1:15:24 Speaker 09 That's really kind of you. It's okay if I give two shout outs?
1:15:26 Dax Shepard? Of course.
1:15:27 Speaker 09 So number one, it's to Heather. She's a doc I work with. She's a huge fan of Armchair Expert and she's the one that forwarded me this prompt.
1:15:33 Dax Shepard? Thank her on our behalf.
1:15:35 Speaker 09 Probably one of the best colleagues you could ever imagine. The other big shout outs to my actually emerge group, all the people I work with. It's a really challenging environment and where we work, it's extra challenging right now. All the people I work with are just so committed to each other, the community, our department. I'm just so grateful to be able to work with such a committed, selfless group of people.
1:15:55 Dax Shepard? No, those are great shout outs.
1:15:57 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:15:58 Dax Shepard? Well, Toby, it's a delight to meet you.
1:16:00 Speaker 09 Have a great day.
1:16:00 Dax Shepard? Take care, enjoy your summer.
1:16:03 Speaker 01 Now, do you think the first guy is weird?
1:16:04 Dax Shepard? I don't, but that's okay. I understand. It's funny because your fear is that the first guy was misogynistic.
1:16:10 Speaker 01 No, creepy.
1:16:12 Dax Shepard? Oh, okay.
1:16:12 Speaker 01 There's a creepiness to that story that this one doesn't have.
1:16:16 Dax Shepard? Right, right, right.
1:16:17 Speaker 01 Even though technically it's the same thing, it's not.
1:16:20 Dax Shepard? The second guy sounds really fun. I'll tell you that.
1:16:22 Speaker 01 I don't know if I'll be able to unhear micro turds.
1:16:35 Dax Shepard? We get support from Superhuman. Look, I love what I do. The conversations, the ideas, the creative stuff. But there's this whole other layer of work that eats my day alive. The inbox that never ends. Docs I need to get through, threads I'm behind on. And by the time I've dealt with all that, the stuff I actually want to focus on gets whatever's left. What I needed was something that just works where I'm already working. Not another tab to open, not another thing to set up. Superhuman Go, from the makers of Grammarly, is different. It's already right there. Inside your email, your docs, your browser. You don't go to it. It's already working alongside you. You're deep in a long thread, highlight it, and it pulls the key points. About to send something important? It flags what doesn't add up before it leaves your hands.
1:17:20 Dax Shepard? It knows your style, your workflows, and it just backs you up without getting in the way. A thought partner that's already up to speed. At your service, not after your job. So do yourself a favor and try Superhuman Go. From the makers of Grammarly. Find out more at superhuman.com.
1:17:42 Dax Shepard? From episode 910, Foreign Object in Butt.
1:17:48 Dax Shepard? Kim?
1:17:48 Speaker 10 Dax and Monica?
1:17:50 Dax Shepard? Hi, where are you?
1:17:52 Speaker 10 We're just gonna say that I'm in Vermont, in my closet.
1:17:54 Speaker 01 Great.
1:17:55 Dax Shepard? By the way, just thanks for joining us for Foreign Objects. I don't think I've been this excited about a prompt in a very long time.
1:18:00 Speaker 01 This is a big deal.
1:18:01 Speaker 10 So actually, my neighbor and I listen to you guys a lot. She's the best. I had been kind of MIA, and she sent me the prompt. She was like, it's go time. This is your time to shine. And we had two stories that- We could have potentially shared, so I sent out a Google poll. This is the one that won, so I'm so excited.
1:18:17 Dax Shepard? Wow, and I'm also jealous to have two that are so good you had to do a poll.
1:18:21 Speaker 01 What a life you're living.
1:18:22 Dax Shepard? Are you in the medical industry?
1:18:24 Speaker 10 I am in the medical industry for about 15 years. I am a nurse practitioner, so I was a nurse for a couple of years and I went on, got a degree, and now I'm an NP, which is, we're not supposed to say it, but like a mid-level provider.
1:18:36 Dax Shepard? Meaning somewhere between entry-level nurse and doctor?
1:18:39 Speaker 10 Yeah, so I can actually write prescriptions, do procedures.
1:18:42 Dax Shepard? Oh.
1:18:43 Speaker 10 I can practice independently. NP is a cool gig. I did the same amount of time as going to med school, but just not as in-depth training as like a doctor. I work alongside them.
1:18:55 Dax Shepard? Yeah, okay, so hit us with this foreign object story.
1:18:58 Speaker 10 I got a call to come down to the emergency room. There was a patient there that was constipated, which is kind of in the wheelhouse of the department I work for. I walk into the room and the guy is kind of pacing, not feeling well. And so I sit down, I have a colleague with me, and we start doing the basic exam, like, tell me about your diet. When was the last time you went? It's been over a week. And then you kind of have to ease into this subject a little bit and be like, so just tell me, could there be something lodged in there preventing you from going to the bathroom?
1:19:26 Dax Shepard? As you're hearing someone's constipated for a week, do you go through a most likely scenario? So for me, if I heard that, my first thoughts would be you're on opiates.
1:19:34 Speaker 10 That's on the differential list for that, of course. After working in this field for so long, I'm instantly like, what'd you put up there, bud?
1:19:41 Speaker 01 Wow, it's that common.
1:19:43 Speaker 10 Diet soda is very common, but this one was out of left field.
1:19:47 Speaker 01 Oh, diet soda bottles, you mean, or diet soda causes constipation?
1:19:51 Speaker 10 Diet soda cans. That's like the most common thing. So instantly, I'm like, you probably have a diet soda shoved.
1:19:57 Dax Shepard? Okay, hold on, there's so much here because what a revelation. And why diet?
1:20:01 Speaker 10 Diet Dr. Pepper.
1:20:02 Dax Shepard? Wait, specifically Diet Dr. Pepper?
1:20:04 Speaker 10 Number one soda, up the poop chute. Is it possible? Not at all. No objects in my prison wallet. Got it, man? We're gonna move forward with the exam. So I'm like, I'm just gonna take a look, make sure there's not like a tumor or anything, blocking anything, we're just gonna do a gentle rectal exam. So he gets up on the table, puts his feet up, and my partner and I go to do just a rectal exam. And staring back at me are two of the most perfect doll feet ever.
1:20:32 Speaker 10 Monica, you grew up in like the eighties, nineties. So you know what Barbie's feet look like.
1:20:37 Speaker 01 Of course, they're so specific.
1:20:39 Speaker 10 You've seen Barbie feet. They're just so perfect. So these two little beautiful feet are just staring back at us.
1:20:45 Speaker 01 Ew, no.
1:20:46 Speaker 10 I said, are you sure there's not an object shoved up there? He's like, I didn't put it up there. Somebody might have, but I didn't put it up there.
1:20:54 Dax Shepard? Sure. Who's the nail one? Who did what? Yeah.
1:20:57 Speaker 10 So I'm like, maybe I can get him out. So I go to pull just gently on these two little perfect feet. It's tight. It's not coming out of there.
1:21:04 Dax Shepard? The arms are acting as a fish barb.
1:21:07 Speaker 01 Also, a Barbie is tall-ish to like have all the way up your butt. So that's just the tiny feet.
1:21:12 Dax Shepard? Yeah, she's gotta be what? 10 inches tall?
1:21:15 Speaker 01 Probably, and she has hair.
1:21:17 Dax Shepard? Of all the things, you don't want the hair in your butt. I kind of relate, yeah.
1:21:21 Speaker 10 We go to CT scan and sure enough on CT, you see like the perfect, I wish I could show it to you. It's just like the most perfect image of Barbie.
1:21:28 Speaker 01 No.
1:21:29 Dax Shepard? Wow, what an amazing thing to see on a screen.
1:21:32 Speaker 01 Yeah, be honest. Did you take a picture of it?
1:21:34 Speaker 10 No, I didn't because some people had just gotten in a lot of trouble for the other item that was up somebody's butt. And so I was like, I can't have this on my phone. So anyways, Barbie is now stuck because you hit the nail on the head, Dax. Her little arms are getting stuck because he put her arms down as he shoved her up in headfirst. And so anytime we try to pull her little arms, aren't forgiving or letting her out.
1:21:56 Speaker 01 Can her arms go all the way up like this?
1:21:58 Dax Shepard? Yeah, they go over her head.
1:21:59 Speaker 10 They can, but you'd have to put her in like that. He didn't think about it. Well, he didn't put her up there. So.
1:22:03 Speaker 01 Oh, right.
1:22:04 Speaker 10 We're gonna have to go to the OR. This is the only way we're gonna be able to get Barbie out. So we go into the operating room and her little hands have caused a hole because he's obviously been like tugging on her at home. So he gets a colostomy, all these things. But the best, absolute most perfect moment is we're in the operating room. We take this Barbie out and it's not just Barbie. It's not Barbie in a swimsuit. It's President Barbie. He desecrated the most powerful woman in the free world and put it up his rear end. So then the jokes start flowing.
1:22:39 Speaker 01 The misogyny.
1:22:40 Dax Shepard? Oh, you want to be president? You can be president of my ass.
1:22:43 Speaker 10 She'll do anything for a vote.
1:22:47 Speaker 01 Was she white?
1:22:48 Speaker 10 Course she was.
1:22:49 Dax Shepard? We said president.
1:22:50 Speaker 01 I know. I mean, a woman president already.
1:22:53 Dax Shepard? Yeah, and a black woman, probably get real. Although Michelle would have definitely been the.
1:22:57 Speaker 01 Okay, let's not bring her into this story.
1:23:00 Dax Shepard? Well, she would have definitely been who could have won.
1:23:04 Speaker 01 My god. Okay, when you came back to him and you said, so we done an x-ray. I'm sorry to tell you, there's some, like, how does he handle this information?
1:23:13 Speaker 10 He goes, yeah, there might be an object up there. But never said her name, never admitted that it was President Barbie.
1:23:20 Dax Shepard? I kind of understand his approach, which is you say to yourself, I gotta go get this removed. And I'm not gonna fucking talk to them. You take it out, I'm not gonna engage at all, I'm just gonna get through this.
1:23:32 Speaker 01 Why do you think you have that privilege if you are putting?
1:23:35 Dax Shepard? Because you're so humiliated that you know that talking about it is gonna be too much. So you just say to yourself, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna disassociate.
1:23:44 Speaker 01 I think you should have to get on a loudspeaker and tell the whole.
1:23:47 Dax Shepard? No.
1:23:49 Speaker 01 Done.
1:23:49 Dax Shepard? They shouldn't feel shame for this.
1:23:52 Speaker 01 President lady?
1:23:53 Dax Shepard? Okay, that aspect.
1:23:54 Speaker 10 He likes women of power.
1:23:56 Speaker 01 I guess maybe it could be like, he wants a relationship with the female president.
1:24:02 Dax Shepard? He's attracted to a powerful woman.
1:24:04 Speaker 01 Vermont's pretty progressive, but maybe he was for Bernie and then so he's mad. He's mad at Hillary. Oh, it's Hillary she's representing.
1:24:14 Dax Shepard? Or Kamala, we don't know what year this was.
1:24:16 Speaker 10 It was in the Hillary timeframe.
1:24:17 Speaker 01 Oh.
1:24:18 Dax Shepard? I don't think it was politically motivated. I think it was just something that he thought would feel good in his butt.
1:24:23 Speaker 01 Now, was this his daughter? Like, where'd he?
1:24:25 Speaker 10 So many questions.
1:24:26 Dax Shepard? Now, isn't this something? I'm more disturbed about him potentially having gone to the store and buying a Barbie than I am about him putting anything in his butt.
1:24:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, that part's like pedophily, or if it's his kids, that part's very bad.
1:24:39 Speaker 10 President Barbie felt pretty intentional. That feels like, I went to the store, I went on Amazon, I ordered her up.
1:24:46 Dax Shepard? Let me ask you this, though, the clothes were on her? You only know she's the president by her outfit.
1:24:50 Speaker 10 Pink power suit. And then, later, the vote for Barbie pin came out of the ostomy.
1:24:59 Dax Shepard? What? Wait, wait. Back up. Tell me what the ostomy is.
1:25:03 Speaker 10 Ostomy is this little blip of your intestinal tract that we pull outside of your body to rest your intestine. All your poop comes out into a bag, out this little, what we call stomah. You have to wait, when you have an ostomy, for poop to start back up before you to get released from the hospital. And so, the nurse, I show up to discharge him, and she's like, "Kim, the vote for Barbie pin came out in the bag."
1:25:24 Speaker 01 Oh my god.
1:25:27 Speaker 10 So there was no denying it was President Barbie. She was in power, she was going for the campaign, it was there.
1:25:32 Dax Shepard? Yeah. What is the procedure to remove it? Do you put in like, a speculum and spread his intestine apart to pull it out? What happens?
1:25:41 Speaker 10 There's like, a little rerouting, and then it's kind of like squishing sausage casing.
1:25:45 Dax Shepard? Wow.
1:25:46 Speaker 01 I'm really mad at him.
1:25:47 Dax Shepard? Why are you so mad?
1:25:48 Speaker 01 This is an act of violence against women.
1:25:51 Dax Shepard? I think it was just there. He was probably in the abriated.
1:25:54 Speaker 01 It was not just there.
1:25:56 Dax Shepard? You think this was a political statement?
1:25:58 Speaker 01 Well, he picked this Barbie.
1:26:00 Dax Shepard? And the question is, did he pick it because it was close? Or this premeditated, "I'm gonna get a President Barbie and humiliate her."
1:26:06 Speaker 01 Either way, it's that, or if it was just there, we assume he used his kid's toy.
1:26:13 Dax Shepard? They could have been long out of the house, though.
1:26:15 Speaker 01 How old is this guy-ish?
1:26:17 Speaker 10 He was 50s. The last kicker is, this is where you can kind of evaluate where you're headed with your hypotheses. So, he's healthy, he's fine, he's going home, I'm discharging him, right? I'm going, "Kay, we're gonna see you back in clinic this day, we'll talk about reversing the ostomy this day." And he's like, "I just have one more question. Can I have the object you took out of me back?"
1:26:38 Dax Shepard? Because he had to return it.
1:26:39 Speaker 10 No.
1:26:43 Speaker 01 Ew, can you imagine? Oh my god. What a story.
1:26:48 Dax Shepard? Oh, wow, a Barbie. I mean, honestly, there's very few objects I can think of being more uncomfortable in your butt than the plastic Barbie with all the appendages.
1:26:57 Speaker 01 I know. What happened to her shoes? She was probably wearing high heels. He probably threw those right off of her. She didn't deserve them.
1:27:05 Speaker 10 The heels were the first to go, probably because you know it completed the power suit.
1:27:08 Speaker 01 Wow. This is great.
1:27:10 Dax Shepard? It is great. It's really interesting to hear how you guys are taking it. I'm nervous we're shaming him. I think it's fine, you know, if you do this.
1:27:18 Speaker 10 I always was like, oh, he really likes women of power, but you're saying this is a misogynistic thing. He likes to desecrate powerful women. And now all of a sudden I am getting angry.
1:27:26 Dax Shepard? No, don't let her persuade you. There's no misogyny happening here.
1:27:30 Speaker 01 You can't say that definitively.
1:27:32 Dax Shepard? You're right. I can't.
1:27:33 Speaker 01 I don't like that the doctors and the nurses have to deal with it.
1:27:37 Dax Shepard? I don't mind because you're like, this is what I want to do.
1:27:39 Speaker 10 Oh, yeah. I've done it for 15 years.
1:27:40 Dax Shepard? I don't feel bad for firefighters when a house catches on fire. It's like, that's what they do.
1:27:44 Speaker 10 I get actually more mad when it's like Diet Dr. Pepper. And I'm like, man, come on, show some creativity.
1:27:51 Dax Shepard? Well, lovely meeting you.
1:27:52 Speaker 10 You too. It was so good meeting you. Shout out to brother Luke and Kat and Susan, the neighbor who put me up to this.
1:27:58 Dax Shepard? Wonderful. Take care.
1:28:02 Dax Shepard? From episode 845, unauthorized evacuation.
1:28:08 Speaker 11 Hello.
1:28:09 Dax Shepard? Jonathan, are you standing on a box or are you six foot eight?
1:28:14 Speaker 11 You're close. I'm just north of 6'9".
1:28:16 Dax Shepard? Holy smokes. Congratulations. You're above the door frame.
1:28:20 Speaker 11 Thank you. Worked on it my whole life.
1:28:22 Speaker 01 That's very exciting.
1:28:25 Dax Shepard? How many years did it take you to hit 6'9"?
1:28:27 Speaker 11 Probably 23, but I'm 33 now.
1:28:30 Dax Shepard? And did you make use of this height? Did you do anything that lent itself? Did you play basketball or anything?
1:28:34 Speaker 11 I played basketball a little bit and then I stopped playing and then I lost everything. So no.
1:28:41 Dax Shepard? Wait, what do you mean you lost everything?
1:28:43 Speaker 01 The skills.
1:28:43 Dax Shepard? Oh, your skills.
1:28:45 Speaker 11 I tried to play basketball right now and tried to jump. I'm pretty sure my knees would just evaporate.
1:28:50 Speaker 01 I'm excited to see how your height's going to impact the evacuation.
1:28:54 Dax Shepard? Oh, that's a great point. Yeah, it kind of raises the stakes.
1:28:57 Speaker 11 It will.
1:29:00 Speaker 11 It played an adjacent role.
1:29:01 Dax Shepard? Okay, great. Walk us through this unfortunate and fortunate event.
1:29:05 Speaker 11 So it took place in 2010, 2011. I was sophomore, junior in college. That college is UMass Amherst. I live in Massachusetts. And so one thing that school is known for is it's really big. There's a lot of people that go there. And another thing is it's dining food is really good. It's like number one, number two in the country, at least when I was there.
1:29:23 Dax Shepard? Really?
1:29:23 Speaker 11 I was a student employee there. I worked at the largest dining comment on the campus. And I worked at the sushi station, which sounds pretty bougie, but the student employees would roll sushi. And then I also worked, I think it was called teppanyaki. It's like a big flat top grill with thick noodles. And I would just throw the noodles on, throw the veggies on. And there's a spicy paste called, I think it's like gochujang. Probably saying that wrong, but I love it. It's like a red paste, really good. And so I would make up a lot of that and then parcel it into this individual dishes and put them out. And then students would come and grab them.
1:29:53 Dax Shepard? Jonathan, can I just, I know you probably get so sick of talking about your height. But what I'm immediately concerned about is that grill top was probably built for someone that was 5'9". I imagine cooking on that grill is probably terrible on your back. Did your back kill when you would have shifts?
1:30:08 Speaker 11 The first issue I faced was the fan hood overhead.
1:30:12 Dax Shepard? Oh.
1:30:13 Speaker 11 That would like take the exhaust. It'd have a nice sharp corner on like the excess of it. And my freshman year took a nice head shot off that. And then from there was very aware of its surroundings.
1:30:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, you need to walk around with a helmet.
1:30:25 Speaker 11 Other reasons too, but yeah, for sure.
1:30:28 Dax Shepard? Okay, I just, I got worried about you. Okay, so you're popping noodles on this grill top.
1:30:32 Speaker 11 So my shift is always a dinner shift. It was like four to nine. And about half hour of running my shift, I'd take my dinner. Usually when I was working there, I'd make a big old plate of that noodles, load it up on the gochujang because I liked it. Go eat, come back to work, clean up, and then head back to my dorm. And usually, full disclosure, by the time I got back to my dorm, that's about time when the spice would make its way through and off I go.
1:30:54 Dax Shepard? Clockwork.
1:30:55 Speaker 11 So this night, had my dinner, went back to work and then was cleaning up and started to feel some grumblings inside. And I thought, we're okay. We can finish up the shift and head home and clean up a little bit more. And then we thought, okay, let's just be smart here. Let's be proactive. Let's go find the bathroom and head out. It was the end of the night, so a lot of students were leaving. It was closing. The bathroom was occupied near the front of the building. So that's fine. We have an employee bathroom down opposite end of the whole building. So I head downstairs, employee entrance side. There's the laundry room. There's the freezers where all the food's kept. Hustle past all that. It's seven in the night. That's occupied too by some student employee.
1:31:36 Dax Shepard? You've just spent a lot of your time crossing this building. At this point, you're probably thinking like, god damn it. If I just headed home, I might be there by now.
1:31:43 Speaker 11 Yep. But I still need to like clock out. And so at that point, there's a little bit of panic. Not a lot yet. So I start heading back the other way. Maybe that bathroom's now open. Obviously, make it all the way back up the stairs. It's not.
1:31:55 Dax Shepard? Oh.
1:31:55 Speaker 11 We're fully in a panic mode. We start heading back downstairs and we're like, or maybe that one's gonna be open. In my head, we know it's not. So we start thinking, what's around me? And earlier I walked past the laundry room.
1:32:08 Dax Shepard? Oh.
1:32:08 Speaker 11 So we duck into the laundry room. We close the door and we assess the situation. What's in here? What can I make use of? There is like a sink, a washer, a dryer, a mop bucket, a trash bucket. And we think, what would I cause the least collateral damage?
1:32:24 Dax Shepard? You're about to shit in public in a closet, but you're still a gentleman.
1:32:28 Speaker 11 I'm not looking to ruin anyone else's day but mine.
1:32:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:32:31 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:32:31 Speaker 11 But the decision was then made for me as I was weighing the options and the cork has been popped.
1:32:39 Dax Shepard? Oh, okay.
1:32:40 Speaker 01 Oh, my god.
1:32:40 Dax Shepard? Oh, wow.
1:32:41 Speaker 11 Lava flows out.
1:32:44 Speaker 01 Oh.
1:32:44 Dax Shepard? Hold on a second.
1:32:45 Speaker 01 And you're staring at a bucket?
1:32:47 Speaker 11 We're weighing decisions. These are decisions to be made and they were not made in time.
1:32:50 Dax Shepard? It sounds like you had decision anxiety or decision fatigue. But I also want to point out, because I know you so well, Monica. When you heard that the cork popped, I felt like you got a little PQ. Did you get it?
1:33:00 Speaker 01 No. No, I did not. I just, I felt it kind of viscerally.
1:33:05 Dax Shepard? Okay, okay.
1:33:06 Speaker 01 Because when I talk it.
1:33:09 Speaker 11 Train left the station at this point mentally.
1:33:11 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:33:12 Speaker 11 And so I am very tall. My pants inseam is 38 inches. So I figured, okay, there's a lot of capacity here to be filled up. And we're safe. The damage is done. The toothpaste is out of the tube. And we're just like, let's just go clock out.
1:33:26 Dax Shepard? Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. No, let's not just go clock out. Your pants are full of shit. We want to lock the doors somehow. We want to turn them inside out, get it in that bucket. Maybe, I don't know, we're going to try to mop up the inside of the pants.
1:33:37 Speaker 01 There's a washing machine there. I might wash and stay.
1:33:39 Dax Shepard? I might just spend the whole evening dealing with this. But did you make any attempt to fasten the ends of your pants?
1:33:45 Speaker 11 I shoved the bottom of the pants into the shoes. So we're hopefully a self-contained system here.
1:33:50 Dax Shepard? Okay.
1:33:51 Speaker 01 This is smart. There must be a smart school.
1:33:53 Dax Shepard? Well, he's smart. You can tell.
1:33:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:33:55 Speaker 11 Technically on a degree, but barely.
1:33:57 Speaker 01 Wait, what color were the pants?
1:33:59 Speaker 11 Dark jeans.
1:34:00 Dax Shepard? Okay, that's good. That's what you want.
1:34:02 Speaker 01 Prefer black, but sure.
1:34:03 Speaker 11 So yeah, I go clock out and I make my way amongst the crowd to head out. It's still pretty busy. But I'm walking like a cowboy that just got off a long horse ride or something. I'm trying to be nonchalant about it, but you know.
1:34:15 Dax Shepard? Also, can I add again, I know I keep talking about your height, but it's like, you're not able to blend in. Whatever you're doing is going to be observed. If you got a crazy walk, people are going to be like, look at that tall guy with the crazy walk.
1:34:25 Speaker 01 Also, your butt is like at most people's faces.
1:34:28 Dax Shepard? That's where the danger comes in.
1:34:30 Speaker 11 Really unfortunate for them at this point. Bad on a normal day, terrible today. So we're walking up the front stairs amongst the crowd. We crossed a hundred or so yards to my dorm room. We get upstairs, shower, those pants obviously destroyed, threw them in the trash in the trash room immediately. And went to bed. And at this point, I thought that's the end of the story. But unfortunately, that's just part one.
1:34:54 Speaker 01 Oh, no.
1:34:56 Speaker 11 Part two, next day, we fast forward to this shift again, getting set up in the sushi area. Some of those student employees just like talking, say hi, we catch up. And then one of them said, hey, did you hear about Mike? Mike is the guy who worked at the nearby station. And she starts laughing and she says, he broke his arm. And I say, I don't know why that's a funny bit of information telling me, but sure. And she's like, no, he slipped and fell when leaving work last night. And I was like, I don't understand why this is hilarious to you.
1:35:21 Speaker 01 No.
1:35:21 Speaker 11 No, no, no.
1:35:22 Speaker 01 Stop.
1:35:22 Speaker 11 He slipped on the stairs on poop.
1:35:26 Speaker 01 Stop it. No, no.
1:35:31 Speaker 11 I'm not about to take a full blame for this because we don't know a hundred percent that someone else didn't have a story right after this.
1:35:40 Speaker 01 That's right. Plausible deniability.
1:35:42 Dax Shepard? Well, at first glance, I was like, this is crazy. This is you. It's your fault. And now you're trying to shirk your responsibility. But what I will say in your defense is other people ate the same noodles that fucked up your butt. So maybe multiple people shit their pants that day. That's a good argument. And you already said it's a huge school.
1:35:59 Speaker 01 I don't think it was yours.
1:36:01 Dax Shepard? I just think if you have 46,000 students, probably on any given day, one or two people have shit their pants.
1:36:06 Speaker 01 I don't think it would have escaped the sock. You would have noticed it.
1:36:10 Speaker 11 Little morphs of the shame falling out. You don't know.
1:36:15 Dax Shepard? You fucking broke your coworker's arm. What a left turn.
1:36:20 Speaker 11 Allegedly. And he had a cast like up to his arm, like the right angle cast for like a couple of months.
1:36:27 Dax Shepard? Fuck, you really got him.
1:36:29 Speaker 01 Oh no, and he probably wasn't able to work.
1:36:31 Speaker 11 No, he's fine.
1:36:33 Dax Shepard? He probably got a lot of attention, got a date.
1:36:36 Speaker 01 Oh, if I broke my arm on somebody's poop, oof.
1:36:39 Dax Shepard? Really quick though, I have follow up questions. How did they know it was shit?
1:36:43 Speaker 01 The smell and the look of it.
1:36:44 Speaker 11 It was like on his shoe.
1:36:46 Dax Shepard? Oh, okay. That makes a lot of sense. I bet people would have assumed someone brought a dog and.
1:36:51 Speaker 11 But the dining common?
1:36:57 Dax Shepard? I'm trying to help you here. I don't know why you're pushing back so hard.
1:37:00 Speaker 01 Oh, it was the stairs at the dining. Oh no, definitely you.
1:37:05 Dax Shepard? No, it was you. And I'm your defense attorney. I need you to shut up and let me paint the case for you.
1:37:13 Dax Shepard? And by the way, we'll probably have a prompt in the future that's like, tell us about a crazy way you broke a bone. We might talk to Mark.
1:37:20 Speaker 01 Let's write that down. That's a great idea. Did you come clean?
1:37:23 Speaker 11 Oh, no, no, no. First time anyone has heard this story in my life. My wife's here. I said, I got approved for the prompt. And she's like, what prompt? And I didn't answer. She said, what prompt?
1:37:37 Dax Shepard? The editors would love to say hi, but we don't know what kind of face we're gonna get. Okay, it's all coming clear to me now. Does he remind you as well of that great comedian?
1:37:44 Speaker 12 He reminds me of Zach Woods.
1:37:45 Dax Shepard? Yep. Do people tell you that? Yeah. That's flattering. Oh, yeah. He's hilarious. Yeah, he's also really good looking. I'll take it. Okay. Well, we'd love to talk to your wife. I want to see what kind of gal you wrangled with this wreckage in your past. She's pretty cute.
1:38:01 Speaker 05 He's gonna lower his head to go.
1:38:02 Speaker 12 Oh, my God, he did have to.
1:38:03 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:38:07 Dax Shepard? Well, we heard him killing her. We've never seen her. Oh, yeah.
1:38:15 Speaker 12 Oh, my gosh, I can't believe it's you guys.
1:38:17 Dax Shepard? Hi there.
1:38:19 Speaker 12 Who's this cutie pie?
1:38:20 Dax Shepard? Who's this little redhead?
1:38:21 Speaker 12 She was wondering who daddy was talking to in the closet.
1:38:24 Dax Shepard? Ah, no one. Don't worry about it. This is a good story. Princess Anna's husband. That's who daddy's talking to. Big fans of Frozen over here.
1:38:31 Speaker 12 That carries a lot of weight in this house.
1:38:35 Dax Shepard? Well, you guys, happy holidays. What a great story. He almost killed a man by shitting his pants.
1:38:41 Speaker 12 He won't tell me anything. I have to wait to listen. Oh, this is exciting. You don't ruin it. Did you guys meet in college?
1:38:49 Dax Shepard? No, we actually met at high school. Didn't know each other.
1:38:52 Speaker 12 But we're not high school sweethearts.
1:38:53 Dax Shepard? Correct. We reunited during college. At a bar in your hometown or at a reunion?
1:38:58 Speaker 12 Actually, exactly.
1:38:59 Dax Shepard? At a trivia.
1:39:00 Speaker 12 Yeah, a little Irish bar in our hometown where kids played trivia after high school because they were living at home with their parents.
1:39:07 Dax Shepard? Can I say that's a great group? If you're gonna meet someone at a bar, do it at a trivia night.
1:39:12 Speaker 12 I agree. Put that degree to use. Yeah, we were pretty good, too, so we decided to get married.
1:39:19 Dax Shepard? Do you guys continue to compete in trivia? Not much. We have two little ones now, so it's harder to get out for trivia nights. Yeah, you're fucked for about seven more years. It's a good trade off.
1:39:31 Speaker 12 Thanks for chatting with us. That was great. Thank you so much.
1:39:34 Dax Shepard? All right. Take care, you guys. All right. Bye bye. Bye.
1:39:38 Speaker 05 Do you want to sing a tune or something? We have a theme song.
1:39:40 Dax 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 our cherries, we'll get some suggestions. On the fly, a rhyme dish. On the fly, a rhyme dish. Enjoy.
Previous Best of Wednesday 2025 Next Rerelease: Adam Scott Returns Page updated October 31, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated