Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents

0:00Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman. Hi there. Haven't confessed to parents. Oof. Some parents will be hearing this story, I guess, for the very first time. It's an interesting way to get something out there. I like that we're providing a safe place to admit to your foibles. People had a lot on their chest, and they were able to relieve it. Yeah, I hope everyone felt lighter after this. Some are probably scared. Yeah, of course. There's a couple winners in here. There's a great one. Yeah. Yeah. We get a real rascal. Yeah, we do. Yeah, we deal with a real rascal on this one.

0:36This was super fun, and I can't see any reason why we wouldn't permit people. Unless you love your parents so much that you'll feel a lot of guilt. Maybe if you have parents, you shouldn't listen. Yeah. So everyone without parents, go for it. Yeah, feel free. All right, enjoy. All right.

1:01I had a mode, but one thing you gotta know, I'm gonna keep on shining. Hi, Brie. Hi. Why do you have such a stylish microphone? Work stuff, podcasting. It's a work podcast. Fun stuff about history and animation. Oh, we love that. The history of animation or history, and then also we do animation. History of animation. We focus on Walt Disney's life and history of Walt. Oh, what did I just hear? I just heard an interesting factoid about Walt, as you do. Where was he born? He was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1901. Guess that wasn't the thing that I heard. Really put her to the test there. But she fucking nailed it.

1:43Did you see that? Probably even knows his birthday. When was his birthday? December 5th, 1901. That's right. It's right. Wow. This is very timely. I'm taking my daughter to Disneyland on Friday. Oh, that would be so much fun. Do you live in California? Yeah, I live in LA. actually, in Franklin Village. Oh, Jesus. You live just a stone's throw away from where we are right now. She knows. Yeah. Yeah, a little bit. Okay, this is an interesting prompt. I don't know that I even understand it, which is exciting, but this is haven't confessed to parents. There's a secret they still haven't confessed to their parents.

2:19They're still harboring a secret. Oh, my God. I'm so sorry about that. Oh, my gosh. And is there any threat of your parents listening? Probably not, but might have to send it to them after. This could be an opportunity. People to believe themselves. Okay, where are you originally from? I'm originally from Bakersfield. So that's where the story takes place. All right, hit us with the Bakersfield story. Summer of 2010, I was going into my junior year of high school. I was definitely in my mischief era. I was dating a guy who was a senior, and he had been trying to get me to sneak out of my house.

2:52And it was always a joke that you couldn't sneak out of my house. My parents had designed it. They put me on like the second floor. and always the joke with my parents was that they added a balcony off my room and it was like oh you just gotta look out for the rope ladder or she's gonna try to like climb down and break her neck and we also had a guard dog we also had this alarm system that anytime a window would open or door would open it would ding i finally decided i was like okay today i'm gonna commit to devising a plan i cracked a window during the day in our laundry room this was gonna be the only spot feasibly that I could actually get in and get out.

3:26So that night, around midnight, I crept down the stairs, made it past the guard dogs, locked myself in the laundry room, and was like, okay, step one, complete. The window that I was climbing out of was on top of a countertop. So I had to climb up on the countertop, take out the window screen. I just put it outside and climbed on out. My boyfriend was down the street, picked me up. We went out to a party on the orchards. He dropped me back off. It was like 3 a.m. Had you gotten drunk at this party? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, okay, so different person returning than had left. Very competent Tom Cruise person made their escape, and now Mr.

4:00Bean's returning. Yeah, so my boyfriend had left. Once I got back to the window, I realized I had messed up. The window, I had to climb up on a countertop, so it's six feet off the ground. And I'm 5 '2 on a good day. All I'm thinking of is just get my body back inside. We're not thinking about anything else. Can't get caught. So I finally hoist myself up, climb back in, and then I look outside and realize the stupid window screen is still outside. I didn't think to keep it inside. Can't jump back out, not doing that again. And I tried to like dingle down to grab it. The dingle didn't work. No.

4:33I was like, you know what? It's in this garden area. There's a lot of plants. I'm just going to wake up early in the morning. I'll get it, put it back. So make it back upstairs. I remember just like laying down in my bed going like, I did it. I got away with it and was so happy the next morning. My sister's waking me up and she's on the phone with my dad and she tells me someone broke into the house. Oh, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, right. It could have been a squirrel. That removed a screen from the window? They're very. They're very. Yeah. Okay. See, I needed you, Monica, coming up with some ideas.

5:05That would have been a big red flag. I think it was definitely a squirrel. Yeah. When your kids suggest like, I bet it was a squirrel. Okay. So you did it. That's fine. Let's talk about that. I remember sitting up and for a split second, I was like, well, maybe did somebody break-in after me, but that just definitely wasn't the case. My dad is telling us that when he was leaving for work, he went to water the plants. I didn't realize that he did this every morning, and guess what was propped right up against the watering hose was the stupid window screen. My dad concluded it was a break-in. He was running late to work, so he's like, just check all the windows, check all the doors, make sure nothing has been stolen, and so we had to check, and he's trying to work through it.

5:42He's like, but you have to take the window screen off inside and the way our windows are, they kind of lock. And I'm just so panicked in this moment. We're not going to get creative. I'm not getting caught this far in. And I was like, oh my God, the burglars broke in yesterday. We're hanging out in our house the entire day. And then at night they snuck out of the laundry room. Oh, squirrel adjacent theory. A little squirrely, but kind of like that movie Parasite where they live in the basement. It's like the Burglars lived in the basement for the day and then snuck back out. Something like that.

6:15I was like, this story makes zero sense. Closed the window behind themselves, but then didn't replace the screen. Yeah. But somehow that story stuck. Oh. I love this. My dad bought that story. Oh, wow. He was like, you know what? I guess that probably is what happened. Oh. I wonder if he... He knew. That night, my family, we were talking about it at dinner. I'm still going hard on this story, trying to get into the mind of these burglars. Wow, what a crazy thing that they did. They must have just been hiding in one of our closets. Oh, you're making it so scary. And my parents are like, I think we need to call the cops.

6:49This is bad. And I'm like, they didn't take anything, though. Maybe, like, let's not get the cops involved. They're just baffled nothing was stolen. This summer, I was getting in trouble a lot. My parents were always trying to sniff out a lie or, like, a cover-up. And so I just figured they knew it was really me. They didn't want to have this conversation in front of my sister. I'm leaning towards that. But why wouldn't they just say, hey, we know it was you. Well, maybe they just don't want to talk about it at all. It's kind of like if you think your wife fucked somebody and you're like, I actually don't ever want to talk about it.

7:18I'm just not going to bring it up. And I might have been suspicious for months. But then once I think it happened, like I truly don't ever want to talk about that. Yeah. Yeah. OK, there's that. Or a squirrel. Or they're just like, it'll be more of a punishment for her that she has to continue this preposterous lie. Maybe they're amused by you. That depends on how fun your parents are. They're definitely a fun time, but during this period, I was being grounded a lot. They were really enjoying that and taking away all my things. Okay. This is confusing. I think they believed it. A week later, my dad's friends are over, and one of them is a dean of a high school.

7:52He's always sniffing out suspicious shit that kids are up to. And my dad tells the story, so I'm like, okay, he actually does buy this crock of shit. Yeah. He's telling his friends this happened, and I'm just standing there like, oh my God, I have to continue to sell this stupid story. And his friend is like, wow, what a weird thing to happen and just keeps moving on. And I was like, OK. And my dad would keep bringing it up every now and then. And I just haven't said anything. So I'm like, he wanted to think the best of me. Might as well keep that going. How did they get in originally? Just the front door was unlocked during the day while you guys were home?

8:24I guess that's the theory. Yeah, we used to leave like our garage open and someone could have. I got away with it. It's been almost 15 years. Oh, this is great. Yeah, like I could see my, I wouldn't buy that story for a hot minute. but I might also not even deal with it. Would you believe a squirrel? Nope. Okay. Well, Brie, I'm excited to hear what the reaction is if it does get to them now. Yeah. Your dad's been peddling this story. What if his only resentment is like, damn, that's one of my best stories. I just told it last week at the bar. God, I hope not. He saw Parasite and he's like, I lived this.

8:54Yes. This is my life. He has a lawsuit against them. Oh, well, thanks for sharing. I hope you feel relieved. It's off your chest now. It seems like you're not a troublemaker anymore. You seem like you're really sordid. Once I moved out of Bakersfield, left all that mischief behind. Where I'm from, Milford's a little bit Bakersfield-y. I know about just having to get into some shit because there's nothing else to do. Exactly. That's what good old suburbs are for. All right. Well, lovely meeting you, Brie. Lovely meeting you, too. Now I'll wave if I see you in the neighborhood. Absolutely. Definitely.

9:26Well, have a great day. And Monica, your race to 35 changed my outlook on life. So I just want to say thank you for that. And thank you for all the work you guys do. Thanks. All right. Take care. Remember when you said Mr. Bean's Bean? Mr. Bean. Such an old reference. It was. Yeah, I liked it. But picture him coming in the house. It's the right visual. Isn't he in a suit? He wears a suit a lot. Yeah. You want to hear something even more random? Mm-hmm. So Rowan Atkinson plays Mr. Bean. Two funny things. He does a perfect Martin Brundle impersonation. And when he was interviewed on the Formula One grid by Martin Brundle, he's doing Martin Brundle to him.

10:01and Martin doesn't realize it, but it is identical. So it's just two Martin Brundle speaking. Wait, who is? He's the big commentator on F1. He has such a distinct delivery and Rowan is just doing him to him and he doesn't realize it. It's one of the funniest clips I've ever seen. Secondly, he bought a McLaren F1 for$750 ,000, the road car. He crashed it two or three times and he sold it for$12 million. No. It appreciated with crashes? Yes, even with the crashes. Andy's in Rat Race with Ike Barinholtz. Rowan? Yeah, Rowan's in Rat Race. With Vince V. Louvre? Yeah.

10:51Hi. This is a setup. Also, you look like you are a star of Dallas. You've never seen that show because you're too young. I'm from Dallas. Oh, you are. Maybe that's why. It's the hair. Were you a Cowboys cheerleader? No, my roommate from college was, though. Did you watch the Netflix show about it? Not the most recent one. Do you remember the one that was on the Country Channel years and years ago? That was her season. Making the team. How exciting. The newer Netflix one, they do show that other show quite often. That's how I know about it. Melissa Rycroft was on that. And she was from The Bachelor.

11:26So I really enjoyed. Double dipped on these reality shows. And who loves Bavarian Motorworks in your household? I worked for BMW. There we go. My husband did as well. Just kind of kept it in the family. In what capacity? We worked for just about every dealer you can think of. We've bought and sold several dealerships over the years. Anywhere from a Hyundai to Ford to BMW, Subaru, Mazda, all of them. When we moved to Colorado, we're buying into this BMW and a mini store. And my husband was very good at fixing dealerships, taking them from being very low profit to being super high profit very quickly.

12:00And so when he got sick and passed away, they kind of shoved me into his role because I knew how his brain worked and what his plans were. First of all, so sorry to hear that. You look very young to have lost a husband. Definitely. Secondly, is it get the service situation working correctly? Is that the first step? Always. That's your repeat customer. Okay, Ashley, you have a story. Does it take place in Dallas? So this takes place in Albuquerque. Actually, I think y 'all were filming Employee of the Month when this took place. Oh my gosh, I was staying at the embassy suites. I was in high school.

12:34And mind you, I lost sleep last night. I have not told but one person the story in 23 years since it happened. Oh my God. I'm about 16. I'd wrecked a motorcycle. Had to have surgery. Along with surgery comes pain medication. Happened to wake up the day after surgery. I'd also come down with mono. Street bike or dirt bike? Street bike. I raced them all through high school and partway through college. Oh my gosh. Not drinking enough water. My throat hurts. I'm trying to get food down, taking Tylenol on top of it for a fever. It's just this whole perfect storm of things. About nine, 10 days in, I haven't pooped.

13:09Sure. You're on opiates. Yeah. I'm like super duper impacted. My doctor's like, you need to put her on some stool softeners. That should help. And if that doesn't work, try laxative. So we do that over the course of a couple of days. Finally, I'm like, I got to go. Of course, it's the day that my parents have 15 people over for Bible study. My bathroom is the guest bathroom. Oh, fuck. I managed to go in there, give birth. It's essentially labor because it's hard. Two weeks worth. Oh my God. My best friend was like, you should make a Play-Doh model so they can see. So I get this thing out. I look in the toilet and I'm like, this isn't going anywhere.

13:49Try to flush it. It's not budget. It's in there solid. Now I'm like, okay, I can't go out there and ask for a plunger. I can't leave it here. People are going to want to use this bathroom. I'm looking through the cabinets going, maybe I can break it up and get it down. I find this solo cup. It's under the cabinet that I had left under there from one of my secret parties. Decide I'm going to fish the thing out. It's bad enough if my parents have to see it. But if all my friends' parents from church touch a seat. So I fished this thing out and I'm like, all right, well, I'm going to open the window and toss it, I guess.

14:21Okay. Okay. Great. Now it fit in a solo cup. Birth wise. Okay. Wow. Okay. Great. Yeah. Yeah. Can you believe that was in your body? I don't know how I didn't have some kind of rectal prolapse. Giving birth was not even as bad. We'll say that. So I take the screen off the window, toss it out on our side yard where all these juniper bushes. And so no one ever went over there, tossed it in there and thought it'll rain, it'll snow, it'll go away. The problem is gone. Go about my life, go back to school. Everything's perfect. Seven months down the road, my parents decide they're going to clear out that side yard.

14:55My mom was rescuing turtles or something at the time. And so she wanted this space for these tortoises. I pull out these bushes. Lo and behold, this thing has petrified. So it's just lying there. Oh my God. So I hear my mom come inside and she's like, I don't know who would poop in our side yards. That's just crazy. And my dad is going, I don't know. It must have been a contractor. He's, of course, thinking this had to come out of a man. I'm like, what do I do? So I go out and I'm like, what happened? What are you guys doing? Why didn't it get washed away? It's the desert. They don't get enough rain.

15:35It snowed and just like froze it. And then it was there. It turned into an icicle. I agreed. I was like, it must have been one of these workers, one of the roofers, maybe. Sure, one of these jerks. To this day, I am now 38 years old, about to be 39. I've never spoken a word of this, but to one person. We feel so lucky. Me too. I'm so proud of you. Way to handle your business. If I'm your father, I go, good for you. When the dirty work needs doing, you roll up your sleeves and you get it done. Literal dirty work. Got to get the duty done. I want to see it so bad, don't you, Monica? Yeah, I do think the Play-Doh would have been a good idea.

16:12Here's the disgusting part about me. If I did that same thing, I would want to see it again maybe a couple weeks later. I would be like, I'm going to go look. Because you might build it up in your head like a fish you caught. No. It wasn't really as big as I'm remembering it. I think most people think, I want to forget this ever happened. I got you. I think that's the female take. I can promise you my husband would have been like, cover it in epoxy. Let's save it. Let's just put it in a case. That's record. It's a trophy. It does seem like something we'd have up here. Well, we're proud of you for taking care of biz and also sharing.

16:43Figured if I'm going to share it at all, I should share it with the entire world. Yeah, that's a good start. Did the hydrocodone thing ever pop up again? No. One, it kind of made me never want to take it again. But even later on with future injuries, I realized it makes me so sick. I can't take opiates at all. You've done a lot of things right. Ever get back on the motorcycle? Not since having my kids. Don't shame me. I feel that subtweet there. I think you're making the right decision. There are moments, especially after losing my husband, where that adrenaline rush and that ability to just turn off everything around you seems so tempting.

17:17But when you're in that level of grief, the last thing you need is the temptation to just do 180 just because it feels good. Well, actually, this has been a blast. Yeah. Thanks for chatting. Thanks, you guys. I know everyone does this. I have not been an armchair from day one. We like new listeners. Yeah, we do. Well, when Steve got sick, we were going through chemo and that takes forever. Our first chemo deal was eight hours of a day. We didn't know what to do. We were bored. And I was looking for a podcast and I came across you guys. And so we were sharing our little AirPods and it's what we did during his two or three chemo appointments that he had before he passed.

17:54It was nice. It got us through and got us some laughs. Oh man, that's really lovely. Well, lovely meeting you. Thanks for sharing all that was. All right. Have a good one. Bye. Take care. Hi, Noah. How are you? Hi, how are you guys doing? Good. I'm so intrigued by all the different posters on your wall. Wilco, we got Twin Peaks, we got The Day the Earth Stood Still. We are movie nerds in our household. How fun! Where are you? What part of the world? I'm far away from you guys in Los Feliz. That's twice today. We had a Franklin Village person. Do you guys think we over-index in Los Feliz for secrets we haven't told parents?

18:32Well, we like run away from our homes because we're so ashamed from our past selves. We're trying to escape. I agree. I think there's something there. They go to UCB to be funny and get over it. You have to laugh their way through the shame. Okay. So what did you do that you haven't told your parents about? This was my freshman year of high school. I was in an English language honors class. My mom was really strict on maintaining A's and B's. We read a book every quarter, maybe two books a quarter. and she would do weekly reading checks. Our teacher, let's call her Mrs. Puff. Okay, great. I hated assigned reading growing up.

19:07It was really difficult. I would push it off to the last second. So that class, which required a lot of assigned reading, I was falling behind. I was ketering. 85 is a B, 84 is a C. Well, that's bullshit. 79 is a C. In South Carolina, where I grew up, it was 85 to 92 was a B. Oh, yeah. That's bullshit. It was tough. I had to maintain that in my household. So we're reading this book. We have a reading check. I'm at the point if I do bad on another reading check, it's going to bring my grade down to a C. And I'm really dreading it. So we have this test on a Tuesday. Monday night comes. I didn't read.

19:44And this is 2010, 2011. So there's not iPhones when you get to school. You can like cram. You can do the spark notes. So I get to school. The class before my English class is PE. We're doing basketball. It's one of my loves. We're in a really intense pickup game. I'm playing point guard. At one point I get elbowed really hard in the chest. I'm okay. It took me a second to catch my breath, but I kind of had this light bulb moment. Maybe I just exaggerate this a bit. So when I get to this class, I can go to the nurse and take the test a little later. I finished the class. I didn't go to the nurse right away.

20:21I went to the locker room. I'm trying to sell it a little bit. I'm not telling anyone of my ideas. So I'm sitting in the locker room like, I'm really not feeling that great. And they're like, oh, man, you good? I'm like, yeah, I really got elbowed really hard and I'm just not really doing too hot. And they're like, oh, man, you good? I'm like, yeah, I'll be good. I'll be good. I'm walking to class. I'm really trying to sell it as I'm walking. I'm dragging ass a little bit. I'm walking up the stairs, maybe stopping every few steps. You can't go over the top, but you have to plant these seeds. Right.

20:50I saw him on the stairs and he was struggling. He rested midway up the stairs, I think. Get in the full character. I make it to class. It's second period. I'm sitting next to a couple guys. The guy sitting next to me is this guy, Caleb. So I'm like, yeah, I'm really not feeling good. Even Caleb looks at me. He's like, man, do you think you should go to the nurse? I'm like, I think I'm good. Really quick. What could feel worse than getting sympathy that you don't deserve? It really puts you into the headspace of these people with moon childs. And because I feel so guilty. I know. I don't take sympathy very well.

21:23Like if someone feels bad for me and try to pat me on the back, I'm like, oh no, I'm fine. That's my initial reaction. And I try to play into that here. So I'm kind of thinking we're going to maybe do a couple of things before the test starts. We have morning announcements. And then immediately my teacher, Mrs. Puff is like, all right, guys, we're going to get to go on the test. And I'm like, okay, it's showtime. Oh, fuck. Raise my hand. I'm like, Mrs. Puff. And she's like, Noah, don't interrupt me while I'm talking. That's rude. In that moment, I got really heated. I think my defense mechanism really went off.

21:57You got indignant. I'm dying and you're telling me to stop. You believe your own story. Immediately, this fire goes off in my head and I raise my hand and I scream at the top of my lungs, Miss Puff, I'm having a heart attack. And I put my head on my desk. I just made myself hyperventilate because what do you do when you're having a heart attack? This is wild. She sprints out of the room and yells, Oh my God. Call 911. Oh boy. There's like the girl who staged the slip and fall at Kmart. What I'm doing right now. I don't realize until much, much later on that it is really illegal. Sure. Sure. Sure.

22:36Let's not get hung up on that. I don't think I can get in trouble. So she runs out of the room. She's like, someone call 911. I'm in this. There's no being like, just kidding. Yeah. You're past the point of no return. The whole class is cleared out. Oh, And an EMS comes. They're like talking to me. I'm not answering any of their questions. Well, you're playing non-responsive. Oh my God. I'm giving them a couple words. Oh my God. Oh my God. They bring in an air tank and they give me oxygen. What if they started doing like a chest tube? Yeah, they took my pulse. They're like, yeah, it's probably an anxiety attack that this kid's having.