Armchair Anonymous: Meet Cute III

0:00Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Monica Padman. Hi. Your favorite prompt. I love this prompt. It's a very sweet prompt. This one was extra sweet. It has one, and I had to immediately tell my children at the dinner table. Yeah. Yeah, there's a very sweet one. We're not going to spoil it, but you guys, you can listen to this one. You can listen to it and prepare to have a lot of sweetness. Yeah, these are sweet, and they're life-affirming and positive. Hellenic Studies. Please enjoy Meet Cute.

0:35Come and go. Good times. Take them slow. My life. I had them both. But one thing. You gotta know. I'm gonna keep on shining.

0:54Hello. Hi. How's it going? Wonderful. Where are you? I'm in Philadelphia. Ah, the great city of Philadelphia. Yeah, we have a snowstorm right now. Oh, do we have enough supplies? Oh, yeah. We're all set. You got power, clearly. Got power. Thank goodness. And the kids had a snow day today, so that was very exciting for everyone. Oh, there's nothing better. I know. Okay, so tell me, where did this meet cue take place? All right, so it took place in Philadelphia. And first, just a little backstory, a little information about me as a kid and a teenager. I was a baton twirler and a juggler. and just an all-around musical theater nerd.

1:36So those are my big hobbies. Maybe your high school was different than mine, but I don't remember the baton twirler and the juggler being like the bell of the ball necessarily. You're right. Musical theater was kind of separate, a little cooler. And the baton twirler and juggler was really my own thing that my friends didn't really understand. Were you in pageants? I wasn't. I just enjoyed the fun of it. I didn't want to compete. Now, I could see that hobby bringing you into other cultures, like because the Grateful Dead people were so into different hand toys, I could be like, well, fuck, maybe that's my home.

2:11Object manipulation, they call it. Oh, object manipulation. So if there was like a school talent show, that was my jam. So my story begins in 2011 in Philadelphia. I was 24 and I was fresh out of college figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. I wasn't sure what direction I wanted to go in. And I thought maybe I wanted to be a teacher, work with kids. I had all these part-time seasonal jobs. What degree had you picked up? I had a degree in music and English. So neither one super useful. And I was thinking about going back to school to get my teaching degree. But at this point, I was about to leave for an outdoor education job that was going to be in Massachusetts for three months.

2:54And before I left, I got this call from an old high school friend, and she told me that she had extra tickets to the Philadelphia Folk Festival the next day. Her parents weren't going to use their tickets and wanted to know if I wanted to join. And I said, sure, that sounds like fun. So I go to this folk festival, and the Philly Folk Festival is really fun. It's folk music, banjos, guitars, lots of hippies wearing tie-dye. There's no overlap with a Renaissance festival, right? You're not eating turkey drumsticks and throwing axes or anything. No, none of that. It's more about the music and camping.

3:31It's still kind of dirty and hot and people get into it, but it's a little different than the Renaissance Fair vibe. So at the Folk Festival, there's also this family-friendly area where there's like kids' activities and kids' music. And it's in this nice shady, grassy area. And every year at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, this circus troupe called the Give and Take Jugglers perform. And I had seen them throughout my childhood over the years. They were kind of like a staple in Philadelphia. They would perform at school assemblies and camps and my Girl Scout troop. And they were this really good-natured, family-friendly, rotating cast of jugglers.

4:10And they put on this vaudevillian classic circus show. They had this calliope they would crank and that would play music. And they'd bring kids up on stage and juggle around them. So they just had this timeless, magical quality that was really fascinating to me. And so at the festival, I was excited to watch them and like relive my childhood. So I park myself in the audience, kind of up this hill in the back of the audience, and they're performing down at the bottom of the hill. The show starts and this man comes out on stage who I didn't recognize. He had long hair and he starts to do this routine with his hat.

4:47And it's just to music. There's no words. and he's flipping his hat and doing hat tricks. And then he throws his hat to someone in the audience and he mimes to them to throw the hat back like a frisbee and try and get it on his head. Okay. Love it. That's the point of the routine. So he throws it to them. They throw it back. It doesn't work. It goes off to the side. It lands on the ground. It's comical. He hams it up. He throws it to the next person. Again, they don't know how to throw a frisbee. It goes somewhere else. And the more he tries, the more comical it gets. The tension is building. Everybody keeps missing and missing.

5:22So finally, he works his way down the crowd and he locks eyes with me. Oh, you're the perfect gal for this mission. Oh, yeah. And so he launches this hat up and over the crowd and I see it sailing towards me. And I don't know what came over me or what gave me this confidence, but I stood up and I caught the hat on my head. Wow! Oh, wonderful. The audience gasps and he reacts with surprise. And I'm surprised at myself. I didn't plan it or anything. And so I took the hat off and I launch it back to him and it sails over the crowd and it lands perfectly on his head. Oh, man, man, man, man. This is so sexual.

6:09The show goes on and I kind of forget about him. And then after the show is over, I see the performer talking to someone who I was already acquainted with. So I felt comfortable kind of barging into interrupting their conversation. And I said, hi, you threw a hat on my head. What a great moment that was. And he like looks at me mysteriously and he goes, we were just talking about moments. Okay. It's like the Middle Ages. He was trying to say Sim. But juggler style. Yeah. I was like, ooh, who is this cute guy? So we talked and I told him that I was also a juggler, which was interesting to him. So we juggled together.

6:47Really quick, when you juggle together, are you both independently juggling? Are you juggling like tossing back and forth to each other? Yeah, we were tossing back and forth to each other. Yeah, we were passing clubs. That has to be so euphoric. I was just with Aaron last weekend and we were talking about how much we miss playing catch with just a ball and a glove. And we were talking about the weird magic of that should not be as enjoyable as it is. But by God, is it soothing? So I imagine you put six, seven balls in the mix. It's got to be downright euphoric. And sexting. If you're good, no one's good at that.

7:16When you get it going, you get in the flow. It feels really good. We started talking. And before we know it, two hours had gone by. And it was time for him to do the next show. So we part. And I go home. And I immediately stalk him online and come back the next day. I had totally abandoned my friend who had brought me to this festival in the first place. And I just hang out with him the whole day. We hang out every single day until I have to go to this job in Massachusetts for three months. One of those days we are getting lunch and he asks if I would consider being his juggling partner when I got back and doing the show with him.

7:52Oh, yes. You've been dying to join the circus. Yes. I had never considered it as a career, but I had all the skills and I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. So I thought that sounds like a much better idea than getting a regular job. So let's give it a try. When I got back from Massachusetts, I started performing with him and dating at the same time. And we slowly took over the troupe and we've been performing together full time for 14 years. Oh my God. And you're married? And we're married and we have two kids. Oh my gosh. What a great story. Is this activity taking you overseas?

8:30I could see you guys going to Europe with this routine. We haven't gone overseas with it. We stay pretty local. We're in Philadelphia, and so we travel kind of up and down the eastern coast. We do a lot of school assemblies and fairs and community events and things like that. So it's nice because especially now that we have kids, we can stay home, be home at night, don't need to take anybody on the road with us. Yeah. Do the kids juggle? Well, my daughter is seven and my son is three. So they're not quite at the juggling level yet, but my daughter's really into gymnastics. And fun tidbit, we still perform every year at the Philadelphia Folk Festival.

9:07And last year was the first time that both kids joined us on stage for a routine. Oh, how cute. Yeah, it was really full circle and made me so happy to bring them to the place where we had met. And the whole story started. That's how Buster Douglas got his start. He was a prop in his parents' vaudeville act. Buster Keaton? Yeah. What did I say? Buster Douglas. Oh, that was a boxer who knocked out Tyson for the first time. Yes, Buster Keaton. And they called him Buster. I think it was Buster because they would throw him. You're done. You're over Buster. No, we already knew it. Oh, you already knew that.

9:40Yeah, we've known it. Okay, everyone here knew that. David Blaine episode. I love that. When I'm hearing it, I'm watching a Guillermo del Toro movie. I want there to be a really cool show about juggler, carny type folks. I think it's a neat world. Well, I think you're thinking of that movie with Bradley Cooper. Yeah. Yeah, but like the uplifting version. Well, if anyone wants to do a movie about us, that'd be great. Well, first of all, when it becomes a job, does it affect how much you do it for fun? Yeah, there's this jugglers club and it's once a week and we have yet to go. Yeah, that makes sense.

10:13And then the other thing I was imagining is you could maybe also track and plot the natural ebbs and flows in a relationship by how much you two are juggling together. You could go like, man, we haven't juggled in the backyard in six months. That's a bad sign. When we don't have a show for a while, like if we take a break for some reason, like for the pandemic, it really felt like something was missing in our relationship. Like this essential part of who we are as a couple and how we bond. We go out, we do the show, we put in all this hard work. We have to use a lot of teamwork and figuring things out together.

10:48And then we go out to dinner afterwards. We kind of have a date. It's this whole ritual. when that was missing in our life, which really feels like we need to do a show together to reconnect. Yeah. Yeah, I bet. It's like Sonny and Cher, but the good version. Yeah. Where she doesn't take all your money. Well, funny enough, right? The only thing they enjoy doing together was working together. Well, Allison, this was really heartwarming. I like star-crossed jugglers. Thanks for having me so much, you guys. This was a real pleasure. Good luck in your storm. Snowball juggles. Yeah, we'll juggle some snowballs.

11:19That's a great idea. All right, take care. Bye. Bye. Do you know that I was a clown? I know you had a clown class, right, as part of your training. Yeah, as part of my training was a clown class. Well, it was a semester on, was it a whole semester? I can't remember. I think it was a part of my movement class. But I was really good at it. I think the French, as part of their acting program, are really into clown and mime work. And that would be real rough for me to get through. No, it's really fun. It is. And I mean, you know, Commedia dell 'arte? No. It's improv clowns. Is this what Marcel Marcel was or whatever the famous clown's name?

11:58Maybe. Commedia is a improv troupe and there's set characters that have tropes. Like this is the messy one or whatever. Oh, yeah. And then you go to Commedia shows and it was like the first time I saw improv. I didn't audition because I was scared. Oh, someone was telling us about this. A guest of ours was talking about Commedia. Yeah, it's cool. Are the seven dwarves, do they represent the archetypes in chlamydia? No. Be respectful. Okay. Okay. Anyway, it's cool. And I was a great clown.

12:48Cookie Boy! We got a Cookie Boy in the house. I had to represent. I am so pleased. Do you remember the whole debacle? I do, Jeremy. You're a man after Monica's heart. That's right. It's a shame this is a meet cute story because this could probably be a meet cute story. It could be. And I think this one might hit a little close to home for Monica. Oh, I can already tell from your accent. Yeah. So I am born and raised in Athens, Georgia. And story takes place just outside of Athens in Watkinsville. Oh, my God. Well, have you had the strawberry cake? I have had the strawberry cake many times. So good.

13:23I'm more of a white chocolate cheesecake fan myself, but the strawberry cake is phenomenal. Oh, I love this. This is great news today. Did you go to college there? Is it weird to go to college in your hometown? No, not at all. And Monica and I were actually in school together at the same time. So I was at UGA in 2008 and 2009. Oh my God. Do we have any classes? I don't think so. I was sports management, but I do often think to myself, I'm like, I wonder if she was ever beside me on the orbit bus. And I just don't know. I bet so. Or at one of the bars. Did you booty bump? Of course. I wasn't much of a booty bumper.

13:57Oh, you never went to Firehouse? I went to the bars. I had the fake ID, but it wasn't really my scene. I was more of a house party kind of guy. Okay, nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I love this. All right. Before we dive in, did you ever make your way over to Watkinsville and eat at Chicken Express? I don't think so. I'm really sad to say. I want to lie, but I'm not going to. Tell me about Chicken Express. All right. So Chicken Express is where the story, the meet cute actually takes place. So I worked at Chicken Express, fast food restaurant, think Zaxby's, Church's, KFC kind of thing. Fried chicken.

14:31Chicken fingers, chicken on the bone, whole nine yards. So I worked at Chicken Express from the start of college through the end of college. My best friend and I kind of had this routine. He and I worked together. So we had a routine where anytime cute girls would come through the drive through, he was always stuck in the back cooking. I was up front taking orders. so we had man code that i would go back and tell him hey curb we got a cute girl in the drive-thru okay so no like secret oh yeah no we would go out and we would take the orders in person which makes it kind of unique so we would actually walk out take the orders so i was able to kind of set the stage okay november 2007 he and i were both working it was kind of a quiet slow night buildings for a customer to come through and i see it's a bmw and i was like okay kirby likes girls in BMW.

15:18So I'm going to scout it out. So walk out there and I'm like, yeah, it's a good looking girl. So the bat signals going up. Wait, can I just say really quick, what if you're like a grandma and you're in the drive-thru and you like, you see that they went to your car and took the order and then you pull up and it's like, wait, where's this person? And it's like, oh, I guess I got to use this telecom. Oh, it happened all the time. Like, why did you guys change your system it's who knows pointless but anyway i give him the code he knows to dump out his drink cup so he can go over to the drive-thru and fill it back up so he checks her out scouts her out he was like pretty good looking girl i was like yeah i agree and i said you know what i think i'm going to put my name and number on a napkin and i'm going to put it in her to-go box we're just going to see what happens wow this is great now really quick i got a hunch you were kind of maybe coming towards the end of your time at chicken express?

16:13Cause you're rolling the dice. You might get fired. I wasn't really worried about it. The owner wasn't that hands-on. So it was all college kids working there. So we kind of had free reign to do whatever. Okay, great. Great. Go to our office. I get a napkin, Sharpie, just write Jeremy, my cell phone number on the napkin, throw it in her box. And then of course the butterflies settle in. So I'm like, man, as I'm walking up to the window, I'm like, please God, just don't let her open this at the window because that will be beyond demoralizing. So thankfully she doesn't. She's kind of flirting a little bit.

16:42What I thought was flirting, it turns out she's just really kind and friendly, but I took it as such. I don't think anything's going to happen with this. Go on with my night. When we get to the end of the night, I go get my cell phone out of our office and I see I have a text message from a 912 area code, which I did not know at the time. Savannah. So my roommate at the time was working with me. I was like, hey, can you search 912, too. See who that is. So the text just said sneaky, sneaky with an exclamation point. Oh, I like it. I like good start. I will be totally honest. In my mind, it was out of sight, out of mind.

17:15I never expected to hear from her at this point. So I'm like, you know what? We're just going to move on. So I have him look up the number. I see it's Savannah. I'm like, oh, maybe it's a prank call. Like, who knows what's going on here? So I send back and I said, who is this? Question mark. And she writes back, guess. I think it's one of my friends just messing with me. So I write back. I was like, I have no idea. She was like, well, you're going to have to give me something. I go to pump gas. I'm heading back home, get back in my truck. And there's another text that says, no guesses, question mark.

17:44I was like, sorry, no clue whatsoever. You're getting annoyed. Yes, absolutely. I really was. I'm about to block you. Right. So I send back and I was like, sorry, I have no clue. She said, so your name and number just so happened to make its way into my box tonight. I was like, oh my God. So I did the dreaded call after someone's texted. but I'm like, it's warranted at this point. I have to apologize to this girl. So I get on the phone. We have a great conversation. We talked for probably 30, 45 minutes. I was like, look, I apologize. I never expected to hear from you, but really glad I did. I'd love to take you out on a date.

18:18This was Thursday, the night before the Auburn Blackout. Oh, shit. Wait, 2007. 2007, yeah. I was definitely there. Wait, you gotta let us know what you guys just said. Oh, it's a big deal. Okay, so I heard blackout. Yeah. Everyone wore black and it was a night game. So the whole stadium was blacked out. And the players wore black jerseys, I believe. Correct. So they came out in red jerseys, but they changed in pregame in the locker room. They came back out black. Guys, you got me. I'm now really jealous I wasn't there. It was a night game. So you tailgated all day from like 6 a.m. Everyone was so wasted.

18:56Going back to my whole lack of partying, the night that we talked on the phone, she did invite me out. She was 21 at the time. I was 20. I did have a fake ID, but it was also a really good college football game on Thursday night. So I was like, let's do Sunday if you're free Sunday. So went to De Palma's for our first date. Love it. What's that? What's the vibe, guys? Italian. It's an Athens staple. It's been around for a long time. You blew like a week's worth of wages from Express Kitchen to take her there? Maybe two weeks. Yeah, that's a nice place. Chalzones are not cheap. That's like if your parents come to town, you go there.

19:29Okay, great. Took her to Marbles Lab after that to get some ice cream. Got choked on my waffle cone, but she still agreed to do a second date. How do we explain why she was in town from Savannah? Was she going to UGA as well? She was. So we have a smaller community college in Watkinsville that's kind of a feeder school in the UGA. Used to be Gainesville State College. Now it's North Georgia. So she and I were both in school at North Georgia at the time. I had already been accepted into UGA, but was not starting until January. Got it, got it, got it. One thing kind of led to another. We went on quite a few dates after that, kind of started dating hot and heavy, probably mid-December.

20:03And then she is now my wife of almost 16 years in May. We have two beautiful 28-year-old daughters together, Emerson and Henley. What a great story. Sometimes you just got to put yourself out there. You got to put your number in the box. To add to it, she was my first girlfriend, too. Oh, I love this. She's an amazing person. She's actually the reason that I'm an Arm Cherries. I guess one other thing to add to the story that's pretty cool. So the night that she plugged me in her phone, her roommate basically begged her to text me. She was on the verge of not texting. And she was like, I'm plugging him in your phone.

20:39So even if you don't text him tonight, you're going to do it at some point. But she put me in her phone as Jeremy Chicken Boy. And I am still to this day in her phone as Jeremy Chicken Boy. I got to give her a lot of credit because if I'm her and you put this napkin in my thing and then my roommate says, you got to reach out. And then I reach out and the guy's like, what? Who dis? my assumption would be this motherfucker puts a napkin in every girl's bag he can't even keep straight which one of the girls i am i was asked about that several times with my co-workers and i will go on record saying it was a one and done oh it was meant to be oh man it was it's an honor to have you on the cookie boy shirt it is you're ever saying i feel glee is she around she is not And this is a surprise.

21:23So our friend group knows that I'm on here. She does not yet. So I'm assuming when this airs, we are going to be flying to Mexico. I'm assuming it'll air Valentine's weekend. So I am going to surprise her and let her listen to it on the way to the airport. Oh, wonderful. You guys are the best. She actually just tried to call me a second ago. So I think her ears were burning. But she will be a little upset that she wasn't here to listen to it. But I'm in a lovely tent of my own making at Walt Disney World right now. So she's not anywhere nearby to say hello. You're clearly handy. It's structurally sound.

21:56What's her name? Candice. Candice, shout out. I'm happy for both of you guys. Me too. This is a beautiful story. Way to put yourself out there. Both of you. I appreciate it. Is that okay if I give a couple quick shout outs? Yes, please. Our little friend group we're going to Mexico with. We had four of us last year. We've grown to three couples this year. So six of us going down. It's our little ohana, as we call it, but also call ourselves the cool kids. All of the cool kids will be listening together at the same time. And then shout out to Candace and my sweet girls, Emerson and Henley, obviously, and my best boss for letting me come to Disney World for a few days during our busy season.

22:33So shout out to Amy as well. Incredible. God, you're surrounded by great gals. We love it. Well, thank you guys so much. I appreciate y 'all being a bright spot in everybody's day and bright spot in my day every day, too. So thanks. Oh, thanks, brother. Take care. All right. It was a pleasure. Hi. Oh, my God. It's happening. You're like a mouse, too. There's two mice in the house. Does he look like Minnie Mouse? Yeah, you're very cute. I would be so honored to be a mouse. I would love to be a mouse. Are you like six feet tall? I am 5 '4", but I can be diminutive and be smaller. Oh, 5 '4 makes the cut.

23:08Anything under 5 '5". 5 '5 is probably borderline, but anything under 5 '5". We'll count it. I love it. Should we do like a mouse house? We need to think about some kind of merch for your crew. Oh, I like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would totally buy all those things. Where are you at, Claire? Salt Lake City. Wow, did you listen to the Elizabeth Smart episode? Loved it. And I was 11 when it happened. So it was such a pivotal story for me. And I was like, that's an option that someone can come grab you in your home. Did you ever see her on the street, do you think? No, I did not. But nine months later when it came out that she was just so close, it was so mind blowing.

23:49It was really crazy. And the fact that that Bozo had been arrested and shit for stealing beer, the whole thing is impossible amount of bad luck. It's so true. And she had such an amazing story and I really loved your interview. So it was really awesome. Yeah, we did too. We did too. That was a very special one. You grew up there and you didn't leave. Did you go to BYU? No, I went to University of Utah. I went some other places, but that's part of the meet queue. Let's hear it. Having set up, probably the most exciting thing that happened in Salt Lake City was the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping. Growing up, I wouldn't call Salt Lake City an exotic locale destination.