Pod Insights Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals About this episode Dax and Monica talk to Armcherries! In today's episode, Armcherries tell us about a proposal gone wrong.
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Transcript 10,796 words · 6 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Dax Shepard? Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Randall Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Lilly.
0:06 Speaker 01 Oh, that was cool.
0:07 Dax Shepard? It was hard. Okay, the prompt was bad proposals. Proposals gone wrong.
0:11 Speaker 01 Yes.
0:11 Dax Shepard? But oh my Lord, I mean, this is like tied with that crazy bear attack or shark attack. This goes some places.
0:19 Speaker 01 It really builds this one.
0:22 Dax Shepard? It just gets, gets more and more intense.
0:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
0:25 Dax Shepard? And then the last one is a nail biter.
0:27 Speaker 01 Wow.
0:28 Dax Shepard? Wow. This is a banger.
0:30 Speaker 01 Yeah, please listen to this one and happy Valentine's Day.
0:33 Dax Shepard? Oh, is that what it is?
0:34 Speaker 01 Yeah, it was meant to pair up a little bit.
0:37 Dax Shepard? Okay, great. Yeah. Happy Valentine's Day. May your heart be full of love and
0:42 Speaker 01 Candies.
0:42 Dax Shepard? Merriment. And in his name we pray. He has risen.
0:46 Speaker 01 What are you gonna do for Valentine's Day? Eat chocolates?
0:50 Dax Shepard? I'll try not to.
0:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
0:51 Dax Shepard? I mostly think of my mom always would ask me to be her Valentine.
0:55 Speaker 01 Oh, that's sweet.
0:56 Dax Shepard? Yeah. And so I'll, I'll ask the girls to be my Valentine.
0:59 Speaker 01 That's cute.
1:00 Dax Shepard? And they're, they'll still like it.
1:02 Speaker 01 They'll oblige.
1:03 Dax Shepard? Yeah. Did your dad ever ask you to be his?
1:06 Speaker 01 Of course not.
1:07 Dax Shepard? Yeah. Did you guys do Valentine's?
1:09 Speaker 01 We didn't even have it.
1:10 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:10 Speaker 01 Well, we did. My mom, no, my mom would sometimes.
1:15 Dax Shepard? Would she get you a box of chocolate? My mom would get us a box of chocolates.
1:18 Speaker 01 I think she would do something nice every now and then.
1:20 Dax Shepard? But I'm not gonna get my kids anything because they're already spoiled. They already have too much chocolate.
1:24 Speaker 01 Tell them that on Valentine's Day. Be my Valentine. I'm not getting you anything.
1:27 Dax Shepard? You're gonna repent this Valentine's Day. Please enjoy Bad Proposals. We get support from Quince.
1:35 Speaker 01 Okay, can we talk about the fact that the holidays are already here? It's crazy. I feel like I blinked and now we're in gifting season, which I'm not really mad about because I do love giving gifts and Quince is making it so easy to find something great for everyone on my list, including myself, because let's be honest, self-gifting is a love language.
1:54 Dax Shepard? Quince is seriously the gift that keeps on giving. Their high-quality staples are made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, 14-karat gold, and Italian leather. Full-on luxury quality at prices that won't wreck your holiday budget.
2:10 Speaker 01 It's the dream. The cashmere sweater starting at $60, down jackets, wool outerwear, cashmere accessories. You and everyone on your list are staying cozy and looking incredible all season long.
2:21 Dax Shepard? Well, I'm gonna tell you this, it just got chilly for the first time this year in California, and I'm so excited, and I'm wearing my Quince cashmere right now.
2:28 Speaker 01 It's great.
2:29 Dax Shepard? Yeah, and I am going to gift this to some of my friends. I hope they're not listening.
2:33 Speaker 01 Quince is also more than clothing. They've got fine jewelry for your significant other, leather bags for your bestie, hotel-quality bedding to set up your guest rooms, chef-grade cookware. That's an amazing thing they offer here, and it's such a good gift because people don't like buying cookware for themselves, but it's very important. And they also have five-star luggage, another good gift that people don't like buying for themselves.
2:56 Dax Shepard? Give the gift of quality this holiday season. 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. This episode is brought to you by McDonald's. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese with Medium Fries and a Drink is now $8. Okay, I need to talk about something that doesn't get enough respect. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese. This is not a casual burger. This is a crafted burger. We're talking 100% fresh beef,
3:38 Dax Shepard? cooked right when you order it. No artificial flavors, no fillers, no preservatives, just beef doing what beef is supposed to do. And here's a detail I love. There's a cowbell sound in the kitchen. When somebody orders a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, a cowbell goes off and the Grill Master throws a fresh patty down. That's like having your own entrance music at McDonald's. I want a cowbell for everything in life. The onions are hand-topped by someone who just knows the right amount. Two slices of cheese laid out in a star pattern, so every single bite gets cheese. And two pickles, side by side, so you're never in a pickle desert. Every bite is accounted for. Someone engineered this thing with love. I love a Quarter Pounder.
4:17 Speaker 01 Me, too. That's my order. It's a Quarter Pounder. With cheese. I love it. I didn't know they put so much effort that they did a star formation. I should have known because you can taste it.
4:29 Dax Shepard? You can taste it. Yeah. The love. Don't tell anyone this, but I'll put two of them back.
4:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm not surprised.
4:35 Dax Shepard? The Quarter Pounder with cheese with fries and a drink. Now $8 for a limited time only. Only at McDonald's. For a limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska, and California and for delivery. Fresh beef not available in Alaska and Hawaii. Offer not valid for delivery.
5:12 Dax Shepard? Cole?
5:13 Speaker 02 How you guys doing?
5:14 Dax Shepard? Good. Can you hear us?
5:15 Speaker 02 Yeah, I can hear you guys. Can you hear me?
5:17 Dax Shepard? Yes. Where are you, Cole?
5:18 Speaker 02 All right. I was really worried about the sound quality, so hopefully it's all right. I am in my closet here.
5:23 Dax Shepard? Sound is dynamite. Connection is a little iffy. Are you far from your wifi? Because we might have to piss Monica off and get you out of the closet.
5:31 Speaker 02 I'm through four doors. I can go in a different room here.
5:35 Dax Shepard? Now we're getting a nice tour of your home.
5:38 Speaker 02 I can go to the home office here.
5:40 Dax Shepard? Somehow got worse. I hate to say this.
5:42 Speaker 01 So I was right.
5:44 Dax Shepard? We've lost the visual of you. Can I ask one last thing? Would you be willing to go to that first room you walked into? Because it was dynamite in there.
5:51 Speaker 02 My wife is getting ready for work here.
5:54 Speaker 01 Oh, sorry.
5:55 Dax Shepard? Our apologies. Sorry. Now we've got great image. We've got great sound. Hi. Tell her we say hi.
6:02 Speaker 02 She's stressed. She says hello.
6:05 Dax Shepard? All right. Now we're talking. Cole, where are you?
6:07 Speaker 02 I'm in Billings, Montana.
6:09 Dax Shepard? Ah, that explains the spotty wifi.
6:13 Speaker 02 Yup. This story may or may not involve some other spotty cell service areas.
6:18 Dax Shepard? Okay, great. Are you from Billings?
6:21 Speaker 02 No, so I'm originally from Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.
6:24 Dax Shepard? What brought you to Montana?
6:25 Speaker 02 Work.
6:25 Dax Shepard? You're a strong man. You've got broad shoulders. Are you doing something physical?
6:30 Speaker 02 I am not. I'm actually a chemical engineer, but I do work at a refinery.
6:35 Dax Shepard? Are you lifting incredibly heavy test tubes all day?
6:38 Speaker 02 That's right. I load them up with the lead and all the other heavy things.
6:42 Dax Shepard? Cole, hit us with this bad proposal.
6:44 Speaker 02 The bulk of it is in Billings, Montana. I've lived here for about four years now. I was proposing to my girlfriend at the time. Just to give a little bit of backstory, met on New Year's Eve, very high school musical. We like to kind of think that we're a little Troy and Gabriella.
7:01 Speaker 02 Every New Year's Eve after, we kind of celebrate our anniversary. We both like to ski, so we'll go up to the mountains and make a whole weekend out of it. Flash forward to March of 2021, and I'm thinking about proposing. I buy the ring, but I'm planning the proposal and I want to get engaged New Year's Eve. The whole plan is we're gonna go to Park City, we're gonna ski, we're gonna have a beautiful time in the mountains. It's gonna be gorgeous proposal, get engaged.
7:26 Dax Shepard? I love it.
7:27 Speaker 02 Fast forward to April, we now are moving houses. I don't want her to find the ring as we're packing up all the boxes. I actually send it to Pennsylvania, to my parents' house. I'm young, so I just kind of pop it in a little manila envelope.
7:42 Speaker 02 USPS kind of do its thing.
7:45 Dax Shepard? Cole, you're a bright man. You're a chemical engineer. I think keistering it during the move would have been preferred to that.
7:51 Speaker 02 I'll tell you what, it made it there no problem.
7:54 Speaker 01 Oh, that was a red herring.
7:56 Speaker 02 But now, fast forward to October, November, we've kind of decided to make it a big trip. I suggested it because I wanted to have our friends and family there, and that way it could kind of be a big celebration after the proposal. The issue is that all of my friends and family could go and were on board, and none of her friends and family could go at all. I have all these group chats going with my friends, and she gets really sad, so I start thinking, well. She's gonna be real sad if I propose and none of her friends and family are around. This is when I kinda start wanting to audible here. The issue now is that I don't have the ring.
8:33 Dax Shepard? Right, right.
8:34 Speaker 02 So now I have to call my parents because originally we were gonna go home to Pennsylvania for Christmas. I was gonna pick the ring up. I thought I had the perfect plan. So now I have to ask them to ship the ring back through the mail. So now they put it in another vanilla envelope.
8:51 Speaker 02 Ship the ring back through the mail. I can't send it to my house because she might open it. So I gotta send it to a friend's house now, so I'm not even receiving this thing.
9:01 Speaker 02 Again, the ring gets here unscathed.
9:05 Dax Shepard? USPS, whatever it is. Good job.
9:08 Speaker 02 So now I adjust the plan a little bit because we live in Montana, beautiful state, about an hour away. There's like a nice mountain near us. So I plan a little weekend that we're gonna go to that mountain. So it's Friday morning of the engagement weekend. And I'm texting in this New Year's Eve group chat and I sent a text that's like, hey, I'm gonna get engaged this weekend. You guys happy for me or what? And the next thing I see pop up is Tess was removed from the group chat.
9:36 Speaker 01 She was on it?
9:37 Dax Shepard? Oh, Jesus.
9:38 Speaker 02 One of my friends had added her in to the group chat.
9:44 Speaker 02 Because she was so upset that she wasn't being included in these plans. And the next text I get is, what the hell did you just do? And I look at my phone and I'm at work and I just scream, fuck.
10:00 Speaker 02 Everybody's dead silent. So I work kinda in a high-risk business, so everybody thinks something really bad happened. You could hear a pin drop, cuz we've had really bad days.
10:12 Speaker 02 My boss comes over to me and he's like, what the hell just happened? And I kinda tell him and he says, go home and I don't wanna see you until Monday. Get your shit sorted out.
10:21 Dax Shepard? Oh, oh, good boss.
10:22 Speaker 01 That is a good boss, but he was upset.
10:24 Speaker 02 Yep. So I got about four hours until she gets home from work. I'm doing the whole nine. You know, I'm getting flowers, I'm getting chalk. I'm trying to set everything up at home and then I remember she wants it recorded so I go and I try and set up the camera. My video on my phone is not working.
10:42 Dax Shepard? Oh, boy.
10:42 Speaker 02 Quick troubleshooting, find the first number for a remote Apple support, call it and they're just like, you know what? We can fix this problem. It's going to cost about $250. If you download the screen sharing app, we can really see what's going on here. So I download the screen sharing app. Then they say, we just need a wire transfer. So all you gotta do is open up and log into your bank.
11:02 Dax Shepard? Oh. Stop it.
11:05 Speaker 02 So I go in, I got the screen sharing app, I open up my bank app and then it all hits me. I'm just like, I'm getting scammed right now.
11:14 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
11:15 Speaker 02 I hang up on the guy, immediately he calls me back. He's like, what happened? I was like, oh yeah, you wanted 170, right? He goes, yeah, yeah, 170. I was like, you said 250 before. Hang up again.
11:26 Dax Shepard? That one's smarter than you.
11:27 Speaker 02 I'm wise to it. So thankfully I avoid getting scammed.
11:31 Dax Shepard? At any point, do you think the Lord is telling you to not get married to this woman?
11:36 Speaker 02 If that's what he was trying to say, I powered through.
11:41 Speaker 02 Finally, she gets home. I proposed to her. It was good and she kinda looks at me and she goes, I really appreciate it, but I really wanna see how you were actually gonna propose. So I get another chance of redemption. Saturday morning early, we load the car up. It's December in Montana, but we're going hiking. And so we get about 10 miles out of cell service. We're about a half mile from the trailhead. I can see the trailhead in the car and I hit a little snow drift. So the first one, car kinda moves a little bit and I see a second one coming up and I say, you know what? All I need is a little more gas. I'm driving my Honda Accord Crosstour, so I give it a little more gas. We barely squeaked through the second snow drift and then I see a third one coming up and I think to myself, you know what? It worked last time.
12:25 Speaker 02 A little more gas is all I need. I speed that thing up and I beach the car on a two foot snow drift. Totally immovable.
12:35 Dax Shepard? Cole, do you recognize you're an interesting mix of brilliant as hell and dumb as fuck?
12:41 Speaker 02 I would say that's spot on.
12:45 Speaker 02 I think my friends would describe me as the smartest person they know with the absolute least amount of common sense.
12:52 Dax Shepard? Okay, that works more of a PG version, but yeah.
12:55 Speaker 02 So now we're beached in a Honda, it is 15 degrees out. I got about a quarter tank of gas. Usually prepping for the winter in Montana, I got my blankets, my snow shovel, my emergency kit, just in case. I have not done that this year because it was a mild winter. All I have is a
13:13 Dax Shepard? Oh, that's not gonna help.
13:16 Speaker 02 I tell my fiancee, wait in the car. So I spend the next about three hours in small gloves because I wasn't planning on doing significant work with a snow scraper, digging out the car.
13:28 Dax Shepard? This is miserable.
13:30 Speaker 01 Do you think she was like, I don't want to go through with this?
13:33 Dax Shepard? She must be thinking there's a lot of red flags.
13:35 Speaker 02 I'm worried at this point now. Get the car unburied, four floor mats under the wheels, get it out of this snow drift, start driving back and we are driving back in absolute silence. My fingers are numb, I'm bloody. And finally, she kind of looks over at me, she's like, you know what, one day this will be funny, but right now, aren't you glad that you screwed it up yesterday? And all I could just say was like, yo.
14:00 Dax Shepard? Oh, boy.
14:03 Speaker 01 Oh, wow.
14:04 Dax Shepard? Oh, yeah, that's a rough start.
14:06 Speaker 01 But can only go up from there.
14:08 Dax Shepard? That's a good silver lining.
14:09 Speaker 02 We got married on December 29th, just celebrated our first year of marriage.
14:13 Dax Shepard? Congratulations. You went through hell and high water or high snow to get there? Cole, you're a delight. This gal, as shitty as the proposal was, is a lucky woman.
14:22 Speaker 01 And we got to meet her. We didn't even realize.
14:25 Speaker 02 I did not tell her that I was gonna try and commandeer the closet and she comes in at like 1:40 and she's like, what the hell are you doing? I'm getting ready for work. I gotta go. It was very high stress at the beginning of this.
14:37 Dax Shepard? High stress feels like it might be status quo.
14:39 Speaker 02 These are not really abnormal situations for me, unfortunately.
14:43 Speaker 01 Oh, this is great.
14:44 Dax Shepard? It's a delight meeting you. Thank you for telling us that story. We're so sorry you went through all that.
14:49 Speaker 02 Great to meet you guys. And my college roommate, Matt, and his wife Courtney, they got me into listening to podcasts and they are super up on the prompts and they sent it to me and they're just like, you gotta.
15:01 Dax Shepard? Oh, well, thank them for us. All right. Great meeting you.
15:04 Speaker 02 Nice to meet you guys. Thanks.
15:07 Speaker 03 Hi.
15:08 Dax Shepard? Is this Olivia?
15:10 Speaker 03 Yeah.
15:10 Speaker 01 Look at your sweater.
15:12 Speaker 03 Just for you guys and my earrings.
15:14 Dax Shepard? Cherry to the max.
15:15 Speaker 01 For a second, I thought they were tattoos. When I just first glanced, I thought those were your arms.
15:20 Speaker 03 No cherry tattoos yet. I have an orange and a peach.
15:23 Dax Shepard? Oh, so that would go perfectly into your fruit aesthetic.
15:26 Speaker 03 It would.
15:27 Speaker 01 You're in a legit sound booth.
15:29 Speaker 03 I'm at my brother's house. He does voice acting commercials and stuff. As soon as I got the email, I was like, I need the setup.
15:36 Dax Shepard? Get out of there. I don't care what audition you have. Are you in California?
15:39 Speaker 03 No, I'm in Syracuse, New York.
15:41 Dax Shepard? Oh, okay. He's doing voice work up there. That's interesting.
15:44 Speaker 03 Remotely.
15:45 Speaker 01 Nice.
15:46 Dax Shepard? Okay, so you have a bad proposal story.
15:49 Speaker 03 Since you guys started doing anonymous, I was waiting for this prompt. I said, when this prompt comes out, I am locked in. They're gonna pick it and everybody in my life is like, please don't get your hopes up. There's millions of people that listen and I said, no, this is it. May 2017, my boyfriend and I had been dating for like five years. We're talking about getting engaged. May 1st, we go look at rings. I pick out a ring that I love. I know he buys it that day, even though he makes me wait outside. So after May 1st, I'm on high alert. Nails done, dressed up. Anywhere we're hanging out, I'm looking good. I'm ready to go.
16:26 Speaker 01 That's right.
16:27 Speaker 03 This is our proposal. May 15th, he says, we're gonna go out to dinner, wear a nice dress. I'm gonna pick you up and I'm like, okay, it's gonna happen. So we start driving. He's driving past all of our regular spots. We're starting to get into some weird backroads and unfamiliar territory. After about 40 minutes in the car, he starts to slow down. I see a sign on the side of the road that I recognize. Trail of terror.
16:54 Speaker 01 What the fuck?
16:55 Speaker 03 This is where he and I had our first date.
16:58 Dax Shepard? Can you tell us what the trail of terror is?
17:01 Speaker 03 There's a huge open field, which in peak season is packed with people. People are drinking, people are having snacks, they're hanging out with their friends. There's a big projector playing scary movies. And then in the far right corner of the field, there's a trail that goes through the woods that you pay. To get a ticket and you walk down and they jump out and scare you.
17:19 Dax Shepard? It's like a haunted trail.
17:21 Speaker 01 Year round?
17:22 Speaker 03 No, this is just an October thing. So we had our first date like the week before Halloween 2012. So to the right of the field, it's not a haunted house, but it's like a trailer connected to a barn. They makeshifted a haunted house. So that's a separate attraction, but basically an empty lot, dirt parking lot, nobody's there. We pull in, I'm like, it's our first day, this is where it's gonna happen. But I am oldest daughter, Virgo, notorious rule follower, don't like to take risks. I'm not a trespasser. He is the opposite. He's youngest son. He's like, whatever, let's go. There's no other cars. There's no sign of life in this place. It's the middle of May. It's a beautiful sunny day. So he leads me out into the middle of the big field and he's holding my hands. He's looking at me.
18:04 Speaker 03 We're chatting and I know it's about to happen. I'm letting it sink in while still being like, I'm afraid of getting in trouble. As we're chatting from the tree line away from the trail, away from the barn, we hear a voice going, hey, what the fuck are you doing here?
18:19 Dax Shepard? Oh, no.
18:20 Speaker 03 We're like in our sappy moment and we look over and this man, bucket hat, sunglasses, shotgun, starts charging at us.
18:28 Speaker 01 No.
18:29 Speaker 03 I've told you kids, get the fuck out of here. No trespassing. And I'm like, I knew this was gonna happen, but I'm panicking. I'm like, sir, I'm so sorry, we're leaving right now. And he's like, absolutely fucking not. This is not happening again. And I am like, this is how I'm about to die. And my parents are gonna find out that I trespassed at a haunted trail and that's how I was murdered by this man with a shotgun.
18:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, he wants to make an example out of you too.
19:03 Dax Shepard? This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Every family has that one holiday tradition, nobody actually enjoys, but everyone keeps doing because stopping it would feel like a federal offense. For me, it was a specific meal situation that I will not name because my family listens. But at some point you have to ask yourself, am I doing this because I love it or because I'm afraid of what happens if I don't?
19:26 Speaker 01 Yes, and that. Question applies to so much more than the holidays. I think a lot of us carry these invisible rules about how we're supposed to spend the holidays. We're supposed to see what it's supposed to look like. And when you start unpacking that with a therapist, you realize half of your stress is coming from rules you didn't even write.
19:42 Dax Shepard? This is where BetterHelp can be a great resource during the holidays. BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences, which means they typically get it right the first time. If you aren't happy with your match, switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored recs.
20:01 Speaker 01 I just love therapy. I've been avoiding it recently, or not avoiding it, but I was like, oh, I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy. I haven't canceled, canceled, canceled, but then I-
20:09 Dax Shepard? You start feeling it.
20:10 Speaker 01 Yeah, because then I had it this past weekend and I was like, oh my God, I'm just, thank God, thank God for her. Yeah.
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21:00 Dax Shepard? or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off.
21:06 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- Taking Foundao 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.
21:46 Speaker 04 Once Daily Foundao is available by prescription only in 0.8 mg, 2.5 mg, 5.5 mg, 9 mg, 14.5 mg, and 17.2 mg tablets. Learn more at foundao.lily.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX. Now is perfect to talk to your doctor about Foundao.
22:12 Speaker 03 The guy goes, "This is the last time this is happening." Come on, boys. From behind us, in the haunted trailer slash barn, we hear the garage door open and hear chainsaws.
22:23 Speaker 01 Are you kidding me?
22:24 Speaker 03 Out comes these people with masks, like clowns, scary. The guy with the gun is charging one way at us, the clowns are coming the other way at us. We're surrounded in the middle of nowhere. Nobody knows where we are.
22:37 Dax Shepard? This is a horror movie.
22:38 Speaker 03 I'm kind of laughing because I'm so nervous, like I'm having fight or flight freeze, I guess.
22:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
22:43 Speaker 03 I look at Paul, he doesn't look nervous about them, he's like afraid of me in the moment.
22:47 Speaker 01 Oh, no. He did not.
22:49 Speaker 03 And I say, "Did you do this?"
22:50 Dax Shepard? Oh, I wasn't there.
22:54 Speaker 01 He planted it.
22:55 Speaker 03 He was totally in the middle.
22:58 Speaker 01 Oh, my god.
23:01 Dax Shepard? That's spectacular.
23:03 Speaker 03 He kneels down and pulls the spring out. We're still surrounded.
23:09 Dax Shepard? Oh, pictures.
23:10 Speaker 03 It's so scary.
23:11 Dax Shepard? Oh, yeah, I'm glad you sent pictures because this is really a hard to believe... Oh, my god, and your, now, I would imagine, husband has... Yeah, they're very scary masks. For anyone that thinks these were like amazon.com fucking masks, no, these are Atelier bespoke masks. Your husband has the most nervous laugh smile on his face looking at you.
23:36 Speaker 03 So he reached out to the Trail of Terror and said, "Hey, this is where we had our first date. I know it's your off-season. Do you mind if we just come on the property so I can propose?" And they're like, "Absolutely." And then the guy sends a message like an hour later and is like, "Do you want us to scare her?" And sends this whole plot for how they would scare me. And he was really unsure and finally was like, "We could do like a light scare, like thinking that they're gonna pop out somewhere."
24:02 Dax Shepard? Sure.
24:03 Speaker 03 Like the gun was not mentioned. Threatening of our lives was not mentioned.
24:08 Dax Shepard? Chainsaws.
24:09 Speaker 03 He's got the ring out. I feel like I blacked out. Like, I really don't remember this, but I know that I plucked it out of the box and I started walking to the car. I was so pissed. I was like, I'm taking my ring. I'm getting the fuck out of here.
24:22 Dax Shepard? Yeah, no party, you liked it, right?
24:24 Speaker 03 No, he's like laughing. He's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. And I turn around. All the clown people start taking their mask off. Two of the scary people are are super good friends that are photographers, and they captured the whole thing. So that's how we have the pictures.
24:36 Dax Shepard? Do you start thawing as you see it's your own friends?
24:39 Speaker 03 Yeah, and they brought a bottle of champagne. She had it ready. And then I start to relax.
24:43 Speaker 01 That is so funny.
24:47 Speaker 03 It was really scary.
24:48 Dax Shepard? Yeah, what does that group of folks do between October and the following October?
24:53 Speaker 03 It's so funny because the guy who sent the whole plot that works at the trail, he's like, I'm gonna see if I can round up some guys. Larry's got volleyball tonight, or whatever. They're just normal dudes, but he's like, my scarers are around. They're just jonesing to scare some people.
25:09 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
25:10 Speaker 01 And is your life fun like this?
25:12 Speaker 03 He is so fun.
25:13 Speaker 01 Oh, I love this.
25:16 Speaker 03 Now, and I still pick on him for this. And he's like, it's so special. But like, I was traumatized for a bit, but I wouldn't trade out. Obviously, I got to talk to you guys.
25:24 Dax Shepard? That's one step away from choreographing a car accident. Like, you get T-bone, and then the ambulance comes in, it's your mom and dad, and they've got you.
25:31 Speaker 01 Look, it's memorable.
25:33 Speaker 03 For sure. My friends that took the photos and videos, they did our wedding too. So they made this whole beautiful wedding video. And at the end, he has the footage of the proposal. And it's so loud and clear. At the end, I say, white guys with guns are my biggest fear.
25:50 Speaker 03 If he was just a clown, I'd be like, okay, weirdo. Yes, I'm scared. But the man threatening my life really took it to another level.
25:56 Dax Shepard? Really ups the stakes in a hurry.
25:58 Speaker 01 You were right to know this would get picked. I don't think we're gonna have a story like this.
26:03 Speaker 03 I really had a feeling. I'm so glad. He is here, and also my siblings are here. If they could just peek their heads into the sun booth.
26:10 Dax Shepard? Hi there.
26:11 Speaker 01 Hi.
26:12 Speaker 03 This is the husband.
26:13 Dax Shepard? You have the most adorable nervous smile and all those. Photos like, is she gonna get over this?
26:18 Speaker 05 Oh my gosh, I was worried.
26:19 Speaker 01 What a swing you took.
26:21 Speaker 05 I know. I didn't intend to do anything scary, but he was just so passionate about it and so excited. And he was like, I'll get my crew.
26:30 Speaker 01 That's a nice thing you did for them.
26:32 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
26:33 Speaker 05 It made it fun.
26:35 Speaker 03 We love you guys so much.
26:38 Speaker 03 I was squeezing into the booth.
26:39 Speaker 01 You guys are so cute.
26:40 Dax Shepard? It's delightful to meet you guys.
26:42 Speaker 01 Nice to meet you all.
26:43 Speaker 03 We're so happy Liv got to tell our story. It was hysterical.
26:46 Dax Shepard? Yes, unbelievable. I was completely on the hook. Did not see it coming. Monica got it. She was a little ahead of me.
26:51 Speaker 01 A little ahead. It took a while though.
26:53 Dax Shepard? It was great.
26:54 Speaker 03 It was so lovely to meet you guys.
26:55 Dax Shepard? Yes, you guys too. Take care. I went into a hole like I totally believe these crazies live in that barn lady.
27:03 Speaker 01 It could have gone that way. How would I?
27:05 Dax Shepard? You would, well.
27:07 Speaker 01 You don't know.
27:08 Dax Shepard? I don't know. You're right. But when you get scared.
27:11 Speaker 01 I mean, I would be crying.
27:12 Dax Shepard? Right, yeah.
27:13 Speaker 01 So then I maybe, I would be crying, but I would also be happy.
27:19 Dax Shepard? That'd be nice.
27:20 Speaker 01 Which would you rather happen, the proposal on the Jumbotron from last week or this? I would rather this.
27:26 Dax Shepard? Yeah, you wouldn't be hated. Then you're surrounded by love, family and friends and champagne. All the stuff they wanted to get through this other part first.
27:35 Speaker 01 I mean, I guess then you're really hopped up. Your adrenaline is up.
27:38 Dax Shepard? Aroused.
27:39 Speaker 01 You're aroused.
27:40 Dax Shepard? Hop in the back of the car.
27:41 Speaker 01 Maybe that's a fun evening. You're feeling like life is so short.
27:45 Dax Shepard? Get the chainsaws going in the background. Oh, hi.
27:48 Speaker 05 Hi.
27:49 Dax Shepard? Jessica, where are you?
27:50 Speaker 05 I'm in Texas.
27:51 Speaker 01 Ooh la la, where?
27:53 Dax Shepard? What part?
27:54 Speaker 05 Fort Worth.
27:54 Dax Shepard? Did you grow up there?
27:55 Speaker 05 Yes, but I at eighteen flew out of here like a bat out of hell into Colorado.
28:00 Speaker 01 Oh.
28:01 Dax Shepard? Okay.
28:02 Speaker 05 So I was in a relationship. It was serious. We lived together. He made content in the Rocky Mountains for a ski resort. He ended up taking a job in Salt Lake City for an even bigger ski resort. He comes to me and says, I have to hike this mountain facing the big mountain ski town that he works for to get content of Star Gazing. So he has to get a shot at midnight of the ski resort. So we have to hike up this really intense mountain. Starting at dusk, it's gonna be four hours to go up. I'm complaining about this. I'm like, I don't wanna do it. I understand why I have to do this.
28:36 Dax Shepard? Yeah, we just go up there on your own and get the fucking shot and then come home.
28:40 Speaker 05 Well, apparently he has to go with somebody because it's dangerous. I'm just hemming and hawing, like, I don't wanna do this. And he's like, no, please, this guy can't come with me. I need you to go. I'm being pretty whiny here.
28:51 Speaker 01 No, you just have a boundary.
28:53 Speaker 05 I mega learned boundaries from this whole situation over many years' time. Then we even do a test run. The Sunday before, he's like, we need to practice this because this is a huge hike. And so we're hiking up this mountain. I'm just upset the whole time. The next week comes along when it's time to do this important night shoot where they're gonna have the whole resort lit up. Turns out there's a storm coming as well.
29:16 Dax Shepard? Oh geez.
29:17 Speaker 05 So we get to the trailhead at dusk and I'm complaining about it still. And he stops and he goes, please, if you ever just do anything for me for the rest of your life, please just do this.
29:28 Dax Shepard? At any point are you getting the least bit suspicious?
29:31 Speaker 05 It's only when he said that, but my mind went to, there's no way that he's going to do this. When I have made it clear, I don't wanna go on this hike.
29:40 Dax Shepard? This is not my dream proposal situation.
29:42 Speaker 05 No, and if you knew me, you know, I'm not wanting to live in the mountains. He's like, I have to do this. It's dangerous. Someone has to come. And so I'm finally just given. We get to the top and all I do is collapse on the ground. I'm in fetal position, feeling sorry for myself, and he's setting up this camera on a tripod. And all of a sudden, he's like, please, please just come over here. I just need one thing from you. And so I forced myself to get up. I walk past the camera and I could see, actually, it was really beautiful. The stars, there's lightning in the distance, by the way.
30:14 Dax Shepard? Oh, wonderful.
30:15 Speaker 05 Here at the top of a mountain of a really difficult hike, I go walk over in front of the camera and he drops down on one knee. And he opens a little box and it's lit up. And I see this glimmering sparkling flower ring. And the first thing out of my mouth was, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not now. Please not now.
30:36 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, this is tough.
30:40 Speaker 05 I must have blacked out the rest.
30:43 Speaker 05 I just have a flash of I know now I have to go down this mountain with this storm impending. The moment that is supposed to be so special.
30:52 Dax Shepard? You're walking into your shared future together. The other thing is if I'm this person, I want a sincere yes. That's what I'm in the market for. I don't want anything coerced. Like people who ask people to marry them in front of huge crowds. I'm like, don't they realize the person kind of has to say yes? And in this case, even if you wanted to say no, you're like, I'm gonna say no. And then we're gonna be on a fucking four hour hike in the middle of the night on this mountain.
31:17 Speaker 01 You did say no.
31:19 Speaker 05 Oh, that's the funny thing. I look back now and I never said yes, but it was an assumed yes.
31:24 Dax Shepard? Right. Not now means like later.
31:27 Speaker 05 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just crying. And we get down the mountain and he had this hotel room had champagne and chocolate covered strawberries. I just remember crying in the hotel and I think he said something like, I just thought that once it would happen, you'd be happy.
31:42 Dax Shepard? Probably picked the wrong girl for that whole exercise.
31:46 Speaker 01 Because no, she said so many times.
31:49 Dax Shepard? No, no, I know. He wanted the gal we talked to who is a riverboat guide. He's picked the wrong partner for what he wants to do. Oh shit, are you guys happily married? You're not married. Okay, I panicked. You hold up your hand like, oh fuck, you're happily married. But you know, like you're giving signs the whole time. You want someone that wants to hike up to the top of this mountain.
32:10 Speaker 05 Definitely that's true, but I think more than anything he wanted the photo. I think he had a vision in his mind of I want this photo.
32:17 Speaker 01 And even if the intention was good.
32:21 Dax Shepard? It was a little murky.
32:22 Speaker 01 I've had to learn a lot. We both did, obviously.
32:24 Dax Shepard? So what happens when you're in the hotel room and you're crying?
32:27 Speaker 01 We go to bed because we're so codependent. We're obviously getting married. Oh, God. We're not gonna break up. That's insane.
32:35 Dax Shepard? That's too scary.
32:36 Speaker 01 The next day, he posts the picture. This is it.
32:40 Dax Shepard? Oh, it's beautiful. He was on to something with the photo. So at first I was like, that's so cute. He figured out how to light the ring from the box. So you could see it up there. But now I realize, no, no, that was always going to be a part of the photograph.
32:53 Speaker 01 Yeah. And we were together for like two years and I couldn't plan the damn wedding. And then it imploded, you know, the big lesson of if you don't listen in life, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Until life forces you to change.
33:05 Dax Shepard? I think in those situations, their subconscious figures out how to get them out of it. If they themselves can't, you end up having an affair, something materializes, your subconscious saves you somehow.
33:17 Speaker 01 The bottom will fall out at some point. Yeah.
33:20 Dax Shepard? Well, thank God it wasn't post marriage and kids.
33:23 Speaker 01 I'm so grateful for all of it, genuinely.
33:25 Dax Shepard? And did he find an outdoorsy gal?
33:27 Speaker 01 I have no idea.
33:28 Dax Shepard? Okay.
33:31 Dax Shepard? Fair enough.
33:31 Speaker 01 I hope so.
33:32 Dax Shepard? Yeah. Here's a question. In your analysis, looking back, what was it that you think he represented that you had decided, oh, I'm supposed to be with someone like this? Like, what story did you have? Why was he the person you were supposed to be with at that time?
33:48 Speaker 01 Well, I fell in love immediately. You know, when you meet someone and it's like, whoa, all of your childhood stuff is brought up immediately because it's so intense.
33:55 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
33:56 Speaker 01 Immediately I knew my life had changed forever. And now I know that's you, but red flag. Yeah, right, right. Yeah. It was just a mask, I think, for me to remain really comfortable, to not put myself out there and I could kind of hide. It was very codependent. That.
34:11 Speaker 04 Ending shot me into deep emotional intelligence over time because to have the kind of life and love that I want has forced me to grow immensely.
34:19 Dax Shepard? Do you think it's possible that when someone has great dreams and aspirations, but they have some fear preventing them, pursuing them, and then they meet someone who's already so clearly on a trajectory that just folding into that feels like a great way to not have to confront those fears?
34:35 Speaker 04 Absolutely. I mean, I just didn't have internal backbone of like I'm whole within myself and I've had to learn that incrementally over time. I was learning that through that relationship, even getting to that relationship, I had to grow tremendously to even be in it. So everything was perfect. There was no time wasted.
34:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
34:55 Dax Shepard? Well, good. And you got a really beautiful photo out of it. I mean, there's no arguing. That's a gorgeous photo.
35:00 Speaker 04 Yeah, I mean, I haven't seen it in many years.
35:02 Dax Shepard? Sure. Could be on National Geographic.
35:04 Speaker 04 Yeah.
35:06 Dax Shepard? I'm glad no one died on this hike, nighttime hike.
35:09 Speaker 01 Struck by lightning.
35:10 Speaker 04 Yeah. Well, it's so funny to me that there are all these impending dangers, like falling off a cliff or being struck by lightning. And the real danger was the proposal.
35:18 Speaker 01 Yeah, exactly.
35:20 Dax Shepard? Well, Jessica, yeah, lovely meeting you.
35:23 Speaker 04 Thank you.
35:24 Dax Shepard? Take care.
35:25 Speaker 04 Bye.
35:43 Speaker 01 I'm gonna text you guys photos for the next one. Don't look yet. Don't look.
35:47 Dax Shepard? I'm getting my phone.
35:48 Speaker 01 Don't look.
35:49 Dax Shepard? Ready for Cole? Oh, there's Cole again.
35:53 Speaker 05 Hello, can you guys hear me?
35:54 Dax Shepard? Oh, beautifully. Cole, you're our second Cole today and we don't generally have Coles.
36:01 Speaker 05 Really?
36:01 Dax Shepard? Yes.
36:02 Speaker 05 Okay. I love that.
36:05 Dax Shepard? Where are you at in the country?
36:06 Speaker 05 I am in Las Vegas, born and raised.
36:09 Dax Shepard? Oh, wonderful. Okay. So you have a bad proposal story and we're dying to hear it.
36:13 Speaker 05 It is a pretty wild story. So buckle up for this one. I'll set the scene a little bit. My girlfriend and I, we had been together since high school. So we were high school sweethearts. We We're going to the University of Utah for college and we were in our junior slash senior year. We're kind of that new norm of five year senior. We were living together and full intention of getting married and everything like that. Just still wanted to finish out school and we unexpectedly got pregnant.
36:46 Dax Shepard? Okay, congratulations.
36:49 Speaker 05 A little bit early. Still wanted kids and I was so close to getting my degree and I loved the University of Utah. It was really important for me to get my degree there and then we were gonna move back home. It's where all of our family is. She really wanted her mom to be there when we had our first son. I was kind of naive when I graduated and I don't know if it was a little bit of arrogance or just being naive of like, yeah, I'm gonna move back home. I'm gonna get a job. It's gonna be easy. They're gonna see University of Utah. It's a pretty decent business school. And I moved back home and I just could not find a job.
37:24 Dax Shepard? What year was this?
37:25 Speaker 05 This was 2018. I had made a promise to my girlfriend. I was like, all right, by the end of the year, we are gonna get engaged. But once again, this was with that naive intention of I'll have an entry level job. I'll be able to start saving. I'm gonna be living with her mom. We'll have the opportunity to save up some of those funds. And then I got a recruiting job at a Bed Bath and Beyond e-commerce center.
37:53 Dax Shepard? Oh, okay.
37:55 Speaker 05 And all I had to do was recruit people to work there for the holiday season. And as long as you didn't murder people, you got a job. I was only supposed to be there from October to December. And I had done a well enough job that they were like, okay, we'll keep you till March. And it was approaching the end of the year. I still had this pressure to get this dang ring. And I'm working all this overtime and busting my tail with all the pressure there so that I can meet this goal. Now it's like a goal for myself instead of this wonderful woman and mother of your first child that you've been with since you were 15. This is also for her. It was like this personal stretch for me to get to the finish line.
38:37 Dax Shepard? Yeah, you're either gonna be a failure or not based on this arbitrary goal.
38:42 Speaker 05 About a week before all of this happens.
38:46 Speaker 01 The job after telling me I was gonna be there till March, they were like, we're not gonna be able to do this. We're so sorry. You've crushed it, but they just aren't gonna let us keep you here unless you wanna go work on the warehouse floor. And I was like, I don't think I'm prepared for that. I am super low. This year is gone really rough. And I call my mom. We go to this Marie Callender's that's across from a jeweler. She's like, I'll help you with the financing of this ring. You made a promise. We love her and we know you love her, so we'll help you out. And I'm like, cool. Part of me still doesn't feel right. I'm still just doing this to meet a goal.
39:27 Speaker 01 Because I wanna be able to have the elaborate dinner and that moment and I get to share all of my heart. And now it's kind of turned into, let's get this ring. You're gonna do an impromptu proposal and just be like, trust me, we're gonna have a good life. I love you to death. Let me finish this promise. We pick out the ring and next week they're like, come back. We'll have all the pieces together. We'll put the finishing touches. We go in the morning. We finish it out and they're like, all right, come at four forty-five. Store's gonna be closing and we'll get you set up. The piece I've left out so far is this jeweler was in a terrible part of town. My mom wasn't gonna come this time, so it was just gonna be me.
40:09 Speaker 01 And I show up and there was another couple there. I'm just waiting in their lobby until they're ready to call me up. Once I go up showing me the ring, it looks amazing. All that fear and kind of extra stuff I was worried about went away. Because now at the end of the day, I do get to marry my best friend, mother of my child. It's amazing. And then, out of nowhere, I would say the length of this is maybe forty feet or so. Two robbers walk in. No. Both in ski masks and it's guns raised. Everybody get the fuck on the ground. Don't move.
40:50 Speaker 01 One guy jumps over the display and starts heading towards the back. There's two owners that are up at the front, one's kind of dealing with the billing and closing out for the day and the other's with me. And the other thief is.
41:04 Speaker 05 Heading towards us. My hands are up now, looking back like, there's no fucking way this is happening.
41:11 Speaker 01 Yeah.
41:12 Dax Shepard? And does it cross your mind, I don't care what they steal, but don't steal this ring?
41:16 Speaker 05 Oh, I think he was more than that.
41:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
41:19 Speaker 05 It was like, is this fucking it? He then directs me to go behind the counter now. And all I could think of in the moment to respond was like, please don't kill me. I have a family. And then he's like, all right, get down on the ground. And everybody thinks this is a weird part when I tell the story, but he was like, this'll all be over soon. And it kind of made me feel relieved.
41:42 Speaker 01 It did, because to me, that could mean I'm gonna kill you, it'll be over.
41:46 Dax Shepard? It says a lot of things to me. It means, okay, there's a human here. They want me to know my suffering's gonna be over soon. I wouldn't think he's gonna kill me. I would think he's letting me know we're gonna be in and out. There's just something very human about that.
41:59 Speaker 01 Ways to take it.
41:59 Speaker 05 I think I'd be closer to you, Dax. Him responding in general gave me a little bit of just weird comfort. Because what he does next is then zip tie my hands.
42:09 Dax Shepard? Oh, wow. These are like pros.
42:12 Speaker 05 Yes, we find that out later. As I'm down there, genuine, near death thoughts, am I gonna ever get to see my son again?
42:21 Speaker 05 I'm seriously not gonna get to marry my girlfriend. Like, I'm not gonna get any of this. And then a tad bit of, how is this my fucking luck? We're gonna make you lose your job and then let's do this to you.
42:33 Dax Shepard? Strong arm robbery, let's throw that on.
42:35 Speaker 05 From the back, longtime jeweler for them. He was like a Venezuelan war vet. He is peeking around the corner with a gun.
42:44 Dax Shepard? Now you gotta consider a shootout.
42:46 Speaker 05 And consider I did.
42:48 Speaker 01 Oh, my god.
42:50 Speaker 05 They see him after he's poked his hat out a couple of times. And that is when the shooting starts.
42:55 Speaker 01 No!
42:55 Dax Shepard? There is a shootout!
42:56 Speaker 01 Stop it!
42:57 Speaker 05 And it is a tight enclosure. There's a reason they have you wear headphones when you are at a gun range or anything, because it is loud. This whole ordeal feels like thirty minutes.
43:12 Speaker 05 I've seen the video because I had to go to court for it, all this stuff. I mean, it plays out over like four and a half minutes. And so the shootout might have been 10 seconds or so. And then it just stops. And then I feel somebody tugging at my back. And I turn around and it's one of the robbers. He isn't saying anything and I'm thinking he's trying to maybe mug me and leave.
43:33 Dax Shepard? Oh, I'm thinking he's gonna use you as a shield. He's got to get you up.
43:37 Speaker 05 I think he was trying to prop himself up because all his motor functions are going at this point. Cause he got shot.
43:42 Speaker 01 Oh.
43:42 Speaker 05 Several times.
43:43 Speaker 01 My god.
43:44 Speaker 05 And he's on top of my legs, so I'm also trapped. And so I'm looking back and I'm going, what do you want? And then his gun discharges in me.
43:52 Speaker 01 No.
43:53 Dax Shepard? What?
43:54 Speaker 05 And so he shoots me on accident.
43:56 Speaker 01 Where on you?
43:58 Speaker 05 Right in my side and I actually shared some pictures. I sent them over.
44:02 Speaker 01 Oh, my god.
44:03 Dax Shepard? Oh, mama mia. It's not a graze because it definitely entered, but you can see it entered and exited. Did it exit?
44:11 Speaker 05 At least some shrapnel bit.
44:13 Dax Shepard? Woo. Boy, thank God it was aimed just that inch to the right. Cause it didn't get any intestine or anything, right?
44:21 Speaker 05 Nope. And everyone that I work with now in a medical background and my friends that are in medical background, they're like, do you know just how lucky you are that he was not off by a couple centimeters? And I was like, probably don't want to play that what if game. Cause that's what kind of messes me up a little bit. But yeah, so he shoots me. It's the full spectrum of panic, fear, potential shock. I have like one shoe on at this point. My wallet and my phone are like sprayed across the room and I could like see all the blood off my phone.
44:52 Dax Shepard? Oh, wow.
44:53 Speaker 05 And I tried to stand up and I was like, just no possible way. And so I inch over to this cabinet to kind of like prop myself up. And I'm just holding the wound. Felt like time had stopped. I mean, I'm looking straight ahead and there's a dead guy that I had to crawl out from under.
45:10 Speaker 01 Oh my god.
45:12 Speaker 05 The dust kind of settles. I'm focused now, looking down at the wound the whole time, holding it. I tried to like slowly pick my sweatshirt off of my skin and I mean, it's like sobbing.
45:23 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
45:23 Speaker 05 It's stuck. It hurts. I've been seeing these videos lately, you know, like people doing the grip machine and squeezing as hard as they could. It feels like somebody is doing a grip machine on that spot.
45:35 Speaker 01 Oh.
45:35 Speaker 05 And the burning is insane. That's why on the pictures you can see it's like black. That's a burn. Then the police come in. They had to like cut all my clothes off in the store on the gurney and I'm butt naked in a jury now.
45:47 Speaker 01 Oh my god.
45:48 Speaker 05 But still.
45:49 Dax Shepard? This one last thing, sir, before we get you to some medical treatment. We just gotta embarrass the fuck out of you for a minute.
45:55 Speaker 05 Exactly. And so now I'm on the way to the hospital. My uncle was a firefighter. My dad's a firefighter. And so I'm cracking jokes about the city fire department versus county fire department.
46:05 Dax Shepard? Ah, sure.
46:06 Speaker 05 Thinking like, this guy is insane. He's potentially gonna die? And they're jabbing me with the IVs and everything and the ambulance is moving. And so I'm in the hospital now. They're like, all right, we're gonna take you up for a CT scan. They were looking and they said, okay, so where you got shot, it would be way riskier for us to do surgery to remove shrapnel than it would be to just let it be pushed out of your body over time.
46:29 Dax Shepard? Right.
46:30 Speaker 05 It was not critical now. And so that kind of brought me some comfort. And then my girlfriend shows up and it was like, surprise.
46:38 Dax Shepard? Oh, I bet she thought it was so sweet though. She's already worried about you and then you look at her and you say, I was there to get a ring. That's very sweet.
46:47 Speaker 05 She was like, I was looking at your phone location because you just stormed out of the house. You didn't say anything. You just said, love you, bye. What am I gonna say? Hey, on the way to get something really nice for you. She's like, I was looking at your location and then it just stopped at the hospital. My mother-in-law thought I got like in a bad road rage accident and so I was like, maybe I need to work on my anger.
47:07 Dax Shepard? Who all got hit? You, the one robber who was on top, you died.
47:12 Speaker 05 And then the jeweler got shot a couple of times too.
47:14 Dax Shepard? The guy that was shooting the gun?
47:16 Speaker 05 Yep, he shot and got shot and then the robber died from his shots and then the other robber took off.
47:22 Speaker 01 Wow.
47:22 Dax Shepard? Oh, boy.
47:23 Speaker 01 Wow.
47:24 Dax Shepard? And did they ever find the other robber?
47:26 Speaker 05 They did and it was wild because I ended up having to testify, but I had never seen that guy's face. I could point out the other guy's eyes, at least from his mask. So I'm up there, I have to recant my story, then just say, I don't know this guy though. But they had planned this for weeks. They were jailmates in Florida. They had been pinging their phones and saw that there was like a thousand texts and calls over the past couple of weeks. I think that couple that was in the store earlier, they thought was probably the last customer.
47:57 Dax Shepard? Ah, right.
47:58 Speaker 05 And so when that couple left, they're thinking, okay, we're good. Let's get in here.
48:03 Dax Shepard? Are you resentful at the jeweler for escalating it to a gun battle? I hate to be judgmental of anyone when I wasn't in that situation, but I feel like they could have maybe just gotten out with all the jewelry and no one would have been in the emergency room.
48:17 Speaker 05 I think overall, I'm just glad I'm alive. People thought I would be angry and bitter towards the robbers and honestly, I'm not. Maybe they were in a circumstance that made them feel like they had to do that. That's unfortunate. People say, did it give you this newfound look on life? I think probably yes, but it didn't give me like, oh, why did he shoot and why did he do this? I made it out alive. It's a crazy story, but I didn't have as much anger towards him for that because I don't know what I would do in that situation. I was not one of those people that now that this happened to me, I'm going to go get a gun. I was like, I'm still not going to even get close to that. I'm good.
48:54 Dax Shepard? Well, unfortunately, the fact that the jeweler had the gun is kind of what led to all the shooting. I can't imagine those guys were trying to get murder on top of robbery for no reason.
49:02 Speaker 05 Maybe that's also why when he told me this will all be over soon. That's why they zip tied me and just. We're trying to do a smash and grab and then it turned into a shootout.
49:11 Dax Shepard? Yeah, fuck dude, that is wild.
49:13 Speaker 01 Oh, man, I'm so glad you got out of there.
49:16 Dax Shepard? Did they get the ring?
49:17 Speaker 05 The robbers didn't. It was a botched robbery.
49:20 Speaker 01 They didn't get anything.
49:21 Speaker 05 My ring stayed intact. No issues with it.
49:25 Dax Shepard? It doesn't give you PTSD when you see it on her fingers?
49:28 Speaker 05 No, everybody makes a joke. It's like a blood diamond.
49:32 Speaker 05 I would actually get mad if she wasn't wearing it because it was like, do you know what I had to go through?
49:36 Speaker 01 Yeah, true. Did they give it to you for free? They should have at least done that.
49:40 Speaker 05 So at first they weren't, but I think it's because they didn't know the extent of what happened. And then everything as it came out, they were like, we got it.
49:49 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's nice.
49:51 Dax Shepard? That feels like a minimal gesture when their employee came out of fire.
49:53 Speaker 01 And hopefully Marie Callender's got you a couple of free meals.
49:56 Dax Shepard? Oh, that cheese soup they make is delicious.
49:59 Speaker 05 That Marie Callender's isn't even there anymore.
50:00 Dax Shepard? Oh, well, yeah, there's shootouts across the way. I would have shuttered it as well.
50:05 Speaker 05 We were married five years ago and then we added another child as well. So, so there is a happy ending to this.
50:11 Dax Shepard? Okay, good.
50:12 Speaker 01 Love that.
50:13 Dax Shepard? Just meeting you, you don't deserve to go through this. Like, this should happen to me because I'm always sticking my nose into things.
50:19 Speaker 05 I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I'm good now because it's six years removed. But that first year, you look in the mirror every day and it's just right there. And the scar kind of used to be gross because it would keloid. It's way better now.
50:34 Dax Shepard? And then nightmares? Any nightmares?
50:36 Speaker 05 Not really nightmares, but I would be like overcome with emotions sometimes. I remember one time we were just eating dinner and I just start bawling. I actually work on the same street about a mile away from where it happened. And so for the first four and a half years that I drove to work, I would take a different location so that I didn't have to drive past it.
50:58 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
50:58 Speaker 05 At the time because I obviously had to go to therapy for it.
51:00 Dax Shepard? Yeah, you're the first person we've talked to who's been shot.
51:04 Speaker 01 I wasn't expecting it in a proposal story. I'll tell you that.
51:07 Dax Shepard? No, yeah, it's a real left turn.
51:09 Speaker 05 I'll give a shout out to my Wife, she definitely wants to come in.
51:13 Speaker 01 Yeah.
51:13 Dax Shepard? Please, yeah, bring her in. Hi.
51:15 Speaker 01 I wanna see the blood diamond.
51:16 Dax Shepard? Oh, the blood diamond, yes.
51:20 Speaker 01 Wow.
51:21 Speaker 05 So, yeah, she was the biggest armchair fan. Everything that she brought up, she'd be like, oh, I heard this on Armchair. And then she finally made me listen when we go on our road trips. And she would play the fart Armchair Anonymous. That one's hilarious. And then she was like, if a proposal prompt ever comes up, you have to tell it. And so it came up and I didn't know, but I was just like, I'm gonna say this and let's see.
51:44 Speaker 01 Wow.
51:45 Dax Shepard? Well, it's a slam dunk.
51:46 Speaker 01 That's hard to beat.
51:46 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah, very hard to beat.
51:49 Speaker 01 Well, you guys are so cute.
51:50 Dax Shepard? Yeah, we're delighted that you listen. Thanks for indoctrinating your husband to us.
51:55 Speaker 03 Yes, I'm spreading the word. Can I just quickly shout out my best friend in Germany? She just had a baby and she's a big armcherry, so I wanted to shout Jordan out.
52:03 Dax Shepard? Jordan.
52:04 Speaker 01 Shout out, Jordan.
52:05 Dax Shepard? Shout out.
52:05 Speaker 01 Congratulations on the baby.
52:07 Dax Shepard? All right, well, lovely meeting you guys.
52:09 Speaker 03 Lovely meeting you.
52:09 Speaker 05 Thanks so much, guys. This is awesome.
52:11 Dax Shepard? Take care.
52:12 Speaker 05 All righty, bye bye.
52:13 Speaker 01 That ran the gambit, didn't it?
52:16 Dax Shepard? It certainly did. Almost every kind of story was within proposal. You don't know what you're gonna get.
52:22 Speaker 01 You don't know.
52:23 Dax Shepard? It makes me think you could throw out any prompt, like, tell us a story about Tupperware. And then it would be like a skydiving disaster story.
52:28 Speaker 01 It's true. You just don't know. Do you wanna tell your proposal story before we go? I bet people would wanna hear that.
52:33 Dax Shepard? Okay, similar to all these stories, it's funny how us guys, we go get a ring and then we're gonna try to plan some time. So you have this thing for a while and I had the great luxury of having Nicole in my life. So I took Nicole to the ring store and I said, I wanna say first which one, but I wanna then know what one you think she'll like. And she said, there's two I think she would love. And I said, okay, great, don't say. And then I said, I like that one. And she got really excited and she said, that was my favorite of the two.
53:01 Speaker 01 Oh, great.
53:01 Dax Shepard? So that was lovely. I get the ring, I've told the story, I was about to give my credit card. What is this weird feeling? I have a very familiar feeling, it's a weird feeling, specific, specific. Oh, it's the moment you tell the tattoo artist after you look at the transfer, yes, I'll take it. And you go, okay, this is for life. So, cut to, it's in my pocket of one of my jackets in my closet and my plan was to go. Go to this restaurant. We had gone to early on. The first place I said, I love you.
53:26 Speaker 01 Which was?
53:27 Dax Shepard? Stanley's. It was her restaurant. And so I was going to say, let's go to Stanley's, which would have already been suspicious, but maybe it'll have been a gesture. So that was going to happen. I guess I had thought sometime in January and it was Christmas Eve and my mom had flown in and we had both just got back from Michigan and we had this really, really wonderful Christmas Eve. And then we were laying in bed and I thought, oh, I'm gonna try to recreate all this lovely feeling I'm having right now at this restaurant in three weeks instead of just taking this moment that I feel like it should be. I was naked. I walked to the closet.
54:08 Dax Shepard? I got the ring out of my jacket. She's like, why is he going to the closet? Then I came back to the bed and I kneeled down on one knee naked. And then she started hysterically crying and I asked and she said, yes, but she had cried so loud and long that the next morning getting coffee, when I saw my mom in the kitchen, she said, oh, sweetie, what happened? Did you guys have a terrible fight? I heard Kristen crying last night. It was Christmas morning. She thinks we got into a real dust up last night.
54:39 Speaker 01 Funny. That's very sweet.
54:41 Dax Shepard? Rob, did you have a ring for a while?
54:43 Speaker 05 Yeah, it was my grandma's ring that I got the diamond reset. I made a website for a fake restaurant. That was like a prefix pop up.
54:53 Dax Shepard? Okay, this is very wob.
54:55 Speaker 05 And it was this Airbnb I rented on the lake in Chicago and it had this whole outdoor balcony. And I had a friend that was a chef came and cooked a like eight course meal.
55:07 Dax Shepard? Oh, my lord.
55:08 Speaker 05 So we got to the Airbnb and he was there cooking and she knew. No, it was by the end of dinner, but we got there and it was just for us and she saw him there.
55:19 Speaker 01 Lovely.
55:20 Dax Shepard? Started putting together the pieces. Yeah, she's a breakout. All right. Love you guys.
55:27 Dax Shepard? Do you wanna sing a tune or something? We wanna have a theme song. 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 armed cherries, we'll get some suggestions. On the fly, a rhyme dish. On the fly, a rhyme dish. Enjoy.
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