Armchair Anonymous: Party Gone Wrong

26:00Yes, yes. This was all told to me when I spent the summer there. I had never heard of it, but this whole A130, do you know about this? But it's a little zone on the Gulf in Florida that's super bougie and expensive. I can't believe I've never heard of it. It's like the Hamptons of the South. Everybody from Nashville vacations there. I had never heard of it either until I moved there. I'm like, I need to go here. Everyone loves it. I feel poor because I grew up in the South and I've never heard of it. But I think it really took off in the last decade. Mostly new builds and stuff, no? From what I am aware of, yes.

26:36We didn't end up there, exactly. Uh-oh. Okay. Yeah. Okay, okay. I still have not gone. Okay, great spoiler. So the plan was, is that we were going to road trip from Nashville down to Alice Beach. So when it came time for the planning period, the maid of honor is sending a bunch of Airbnb listings to all of the girls so we can choose the house to rent. She comes across one and it looks perfect. It is huge. It's beautiful. And it is significantly cheaper than every other house. So that should have been a red flag. But for us, we were like, book it. This is perfect. Yeah, deal of the century. A bachelor miracle.

27:14It really was. It felt like all the stars aligned. So we go and we go to book the Airbnb. And there's one tiny little caveat. They don't allow large groups and they don't allow parties. So we're like, we're screwed. we can't book it. Except one of the girls happens to see the Airbnb host their profile and sees that they're from Utah. And she gets this genius idea to tell a tiny little white lie, say that we are all from Utah and that we are a bunch of BYU students. And one of the girls is getting married and that we are going to have a tiny, you know, quiet little beach trip. No party, no harm, no foul, I swear.

27:53Yeah. And it works. They really value honesty. I know. That's why it's just so bad. They were susceptible. Honestly, I don't tell lies. So I felt so terrible. And no one was worried you guys were going to get like struck down by what's his name? Joseph Smith? Joseph Smith. We should have thought about that, honestly. But now I won't do it again. Okay. We book it. We are so happy. Everything's good to go. we are on the road a couple weeks later. Everything's going great until about 15 minutes out from the house. We realized we are not in Alice Beach. We are in the heart of Panama City. Oh, shit.

28:34I've been there. Okay. And so again, the place I've been whatever I said about it, one there you just do the opposite of that. Listen, some of my best times I went to those spring breaks were hot. So now we are driving down the road and on one side of the street, it is dollar jello shots the other side of the street it is wet t-shirt contest yep and we are going this is not the vibe like this is not what we planned for nor what we packed for like we are packed for brunch and mimosas we are not packed for jello shots and wet t-shirt contest but nonetheless we continue on we go there's still like another five minutes in this drive somehow it has to turn into alice speech so we turn into the neighborhood and it is immediately lock your doors.

29:18This is sketchy. Oh, no. The neighborhood is wrong. And I'm still going, we have to have the wrong address until we hear your destination's on the right. So we look to our right and there it is. The beautiful house that we booked. It looks exactly the same, except it is in the wrong city. So we go, OK, this is on us. This is our fault. We're going to make the best out of it. OK, this is where I'm different. This is where I'm pulling up Airbnb immediately. Nope. We're going to Alice beach right now. We just talked about this. You and I, it's like your Nate, it's people's nature. They're like, look, it is what it is or it's not what it is.

29:59So one time you get to have this bachelorette party and you're going to do it right. I wish you were on the bachelorette with us. It would have worked out way better. Oh no. Okay. So we go in, we decorate and we have our forbidden party that night. Everything goes great. We were having a ton of fun. How many are there of you? I think it ended up being like 12 girls. Enough to have a party. Our party, call it like church party gone crazy. It's not that wild.

30:42The next day comes around. We spend the day at the beach. Everything's going great. We're having fun. And we go, let's get ready for dinner. We Google the best restaurants in Panama City. Because again, we're not prepared for Panama. It was supposed to be a fine dining steakhouse. Awesome. Let's book the reservation. We get in the Uber. We get over there. We open up the door. And what do we see? It is like an rundown aquarium. Yes. With a random elderly man in his karaoke machine doing karaoke throughout the restaurant, going up to all the tables, singing to the tables. And at this point, we are so embracing Panama City.

31:20We are drinking the juice. We are just going with the vibes. Sure, sure, that's good. We have our dinner and our show. We go, okay, let's go back to the Airbnb. We're going to get into our comfy clothes and we are going to pour some champagne and it's time to shower the bride with all of the lingerie that we brought her. We go out to the fire pit and she's starting to unwrap all of her lingerie. Now, when I say lingerie, I don't want you to think like dirty, sexy lingerie. That's not the bride. The bride is very beautiful, classy, silly. And that's the kind of vibe we wanted to embrace. So all of the girls chose a different theme, all of her favorite things.

31:58So for example, her favorite show is Outlander. So one of the girls bought a kilt and had her fiance dress up in the kilt and take a bunch of pictures. Oh, that's cute. I chose Harry Potter where she had like a sexy little top and the bottoms say like, you can park your wand here. Or why don't you Slytherin on in? A lot of wordplay, creative. You guys are good girls. Good girls with just a little twist. Slytherin right in doesn't sound that good girl to me. Well, that's true. Sounds hot. So she's holding up this little nightie and all of a sudden about 20 FBI agents and police officers come storming in our backyard.

32:38No. Down, down, down. Get on the fucking ground. What? And they are popping the fence. No. It's a raid. Yes. So they go into the neighbor's yard and flash bombs start going off like crazy. It's huge bangs. What? Lots of smoke. Canines running like crazy. It is literally chaos. During the lingerie party. So we naturally go booking it inside. And this is where the group fully divides. Half the group is fetal position, crying hysterically. Get the keys, we're getting in the car and we're leaving. My side of the group, I like to call us the defenders. We are going to protect us. We are going to lock the doors, the windows.

33:27We're going to call the police. We are not going outside until we know what is going on. Like this is not normal. We call the police and the 911 operator goes, yeah, so there is active police activity going on outside right now. You are to shelter in place. We will let you know when it's safe. By the way, no, they won't. They're not calling back. I know. They didn't. Where is the safest place in this house? The stairwell. We think there's no windows. There's no doors. We go like total tornado prep. We are good to go. Can I ask, is the fear a stray bullet might come through the house? Oh, there's a fear of everything.

34:01It sounds like guns are going off. I think it's probably rubber bullets. And then all the flash bombs. You think that you're in the middle of a war zone. Yeah. Flash bombs. We are arm and arm on the stairs crying hysterically. Just as shit is going down next door, shit's going down in this house. Our little deserted aquarium karaoke dinner. Oh no. Seven at that point girls are violently ill. Oh my God. This is like the hangover. This is such a disaster. Oh, no. It's literally insane. Jess, are you one of the victims? Not until the next day, thankfully. Okay, took a minute. How many bathrooms are there in this house?

34:47I think there are like four. So we had a decent amount, but it was really bad. Both ends really sick. Also, let's add, generally when I have that, I'm the only one that has that. So I'm not entering a bathroom where that already happened. I mean, that is savage. Four bathrooms for seven people dealing with this is not a thing. Diabolical. Oh, it was not pleasant to be in that house. This is going on for hours. At this point, it is like 2.30 in the morning. It seems to end. And we're like, okay, we're going to get in bed. We are going to go to sleep. We're going to wake up when the sun comes up.

35:24And we are getting out of Dodge. We are going back home to Nashville. About an hour later, like we're just hitting REM sleep. And all of a sudden you hear, boom, it starts right back up again. We are in the thick of it. It's like a standoff next door. We all hit the ground and we are like crawling back to the staircase. And we're going, what the hell is going on? Because this entire time we're thinking it's a drug raid. Like how many drugs can one have in a house? And at this point, we are stone cold sober. between the sickness and the hours that have gone by. There is no liquid courage. It is fully 100 % sober scaries.

36:03We are freaking out. It continues on till five in the morning. And then at five in the morning, it ends. We feel brave enough to leave the house. So we pack up the Airbnb and we get out. We go back to Nashville. And a couple of days later, the news articles start coming out. Panama City sex trafficking ring, 21 men arrested. Holy shit. 21 men. So this all happened next door. It's like a clown car of perverts next door. Oh my God. What's even crazier though, is that the whole reason that this even happened was that a girl was kidnapped out of Utah at a Utah jazz game. Remember, the Airbnb host is from Utah.

36:49Yes. So she's kidnapped there by a Panama City man who lives in the sex trafficking house. Wait, what? So then when we got to the Airbnb, you know, you go and you look around, you're looking everywhere, wherever you're staying, you're seeing all the nooks and crannies. There's an outdoor shower. We're like, oh, that's kind of cool. That might be convenient after the beach. And we look in there and there's a camera in the shower. And we're like, what in the world? This is so creepy. But upon our investigation, it wasn't aimed at the shower. It was aimed at the front door of the sex trafficking house.

37:25And it was the only camera on property. And that same day before any of this happened, the Airbnb host emails us and she's like, hey, girls, hope you're having the best time. Feel free to stay an extra night for free on us. What? Isn't that crazy? Thank God we didn't do it. Wait, so are we thinking that the FBI put that up so they could record what was going on or the owner of the house or the sex traffickers owned the house i still don't know for sure if they had anything to do with it but all the roads led back to tiny little utah it made no sense it was so crazy so luckily we survived the girl was rescued the evil 21 men were arrested and the wedding went on to be beautiful the marriage is great they've been married for years so everything has worked out but oh my gosh it was insane so we got some photos oh this is the news article pcb police arrest 21 men for human trafficking internet crimes involving children oh but look at the gang looks so cute and happy yeah that's at our deserted aquarium dinner i'm glad your friend's not superstitious because i gotta say it might start crossing my mind right Oh, this is an omen that I shouldn't.

38:43Not supposed to get married. I'm not supposed to get married. Like, how many more signs do I need? They had been together for many, many years. She felt secure. But I've told her that she got all of her chaos out in marriage before the marriage even happened. Do you think maybe the water you guys were drinking at the restaurant was from the aquarium? Have you had that thought? I didn't think about that until now, Monica. Maybe. Maybe we got some, like, crazy immune system boosts after it, though. Do you want a bottle of flat water or filtered water? And you say filtered, they just take a ladle out of the aquarium.

39:16That's right. We thought it tasted a little funny. Well, here's the thing. We're railing on these restaurants a little bit, and then I'm feeling snobby. But then everyone gets fucking ghastly ill. And you're like, no, I'm not being snobby. These places are disgusting. That was exactly our mentality. Like, we're not going to be snobby. We're embracing Panama City. It's fine. In fact, it was not fine. All I have to say, children, do not tell little white lies. if we didn't lie about being Mormon, none of this would have happened. We would have been safely in Alice Beach having a great old time. I think maybe you did get struck down by Joseph Smith, if I'm being honest.

39:51Also, there's a lot of morals too. There's also the old tried and true, you get what you pay for. It's very rare you actually get a deal. Yeah, but we did. Yeah, you sure did. I only have a single follow-up question and it does require some vulnerability. You did mention that it did hit you the next day and you were on a road trip the next day. So how did we deal with that? Not well. Okay. It was a lot of stops. Gas station, bathroom. Oh, yeah. It was truly, truly disgusting. It was such a nightmare. But we made it. Well, Jessa, this was a delight. Great story. Yeah, phenomenal. Thank you so much for having me.

40:32And I just wanted to say a huge congratulations on the Golden Globes nomination. that is incredible and so well deserved. Oh, thank you. It's because of you guys, the arm cherries. It is. Send our love to the bride. Thank her for that terrible experience. She's a huge arm cherry, Savannah. She definitely wanted me to say hi to you guys. Great names, Jess and Savannah. These are great. All right, take care. Bye-bye. Bye. Sex trafficking. Diarrhea, puking, sex trafficking, Mormon lives. Lingerie party. Lingerie, slither in. Slytherin-y. Or whatever it was. I'm trying to think what I would say. Tell me the names are Dumbledore.

41:11Nope. Dumbledore. Dumbledore. We got Hufflepuff. I would say Back Dumbledore Access. Or Back Gryffindor Access. Yeah. Both work nice. Door is nice. Door and Back Door we want to use somehow. You got Hufflepuff. Huff and puff on this with an arrow. God. What was the other one? Ravenclaw? Ravenclaw. Ravenclaw these off. You should go into Harry Potter merch. Oh, Harry Potter. Harry. It ain't Harry, but it's a Potter. Hi, Maddie. Hey, guys. How are you? Good. We just heard a story about people putting Terrence Posner quotes on lingerie, and theirs were clever, but we wanted to be dirtier. So that's what you heard the tail end of.

41:57I see. I see. Maddie, where are you? I am in New York City. Oh, jealous. We have five boroughs to choose from. I'm in Manhattan. Now I'm really jealous. Is it so cozy there right now? It's pretty frigid. I have not left my apartment today. Congrats. Thank you. And are you a New York native or did you relocate to there? No, I'm originally from Florida. I've been living here since August of 2023. So you really reversed the flow because it's definitely New York to Florida is the move. I did it opposite and I don't regret it. Okay. Fun. So you have a party gone wrong. I do. Oh, wonderful. And of course, Florida is a great place for it.

42:39In fact, the last party gone wrong, we just heard was in Jackson or Panama City. Yeah, maybe so. But this does take place in New York. Oh, okay. This is a story about my housewarming, the first housewarming party that I've ever hosted. And when I moved, I was subletting, just kind of hopping around from different apartments. But I knew that I wanted to move with my two friends, Katie and Marcus. Those are my roommates. We met doing a show, but we were all kind of spread out. Marcus was already living in New York at the time. And then Katie was moving from the South. So we all got together in October of 2023, moved in.

43:13We found this gorgeous, huge hidden gem apartment in Manhattan. So we were very excited to decorate and find furniture and finally host a party. So December was our house Swarming actually happened two years ago yesterday. Oh, happy anniversary. So we had a huge group of people that we invited. I invited people that I knew that had moved from high school, a lot of theater people. And then I made the bold decision of inviting my co-workers who I had just met. I work for a major fitness company in New York, and my roommate Marcus had worked for them for the past five years. So it was a lot of people that I had never really spoken to, but seen around the office.

43:55but Marcus had vetted them. Yes. So everyone comes. It's going well. The drinks are flowing very quickly. And a few people keep coming up to me and asking like, who is this guy that just walked in? He's saying really weird stuff. My roommate went up to him and said, like, who are you here for? Who do you know? And he said, Mackenzie. And I feel like he was just like thinking of the first like white girl name. Yeah. Madison. He would have not been far off. But we were like, there's no Mackenzie here. So I walked up to him and I said, what's your name? And he was like, my name is Jillio. I was like, OK, Jillio, you need to either leave or you can come back, but you need to bring more alcohol because you've drank in all the alcohol.

44:37So he makes a swift exit. We do another alcohol run. Everything's fine until my friend comes over and tells me that there is a major leak happening in my kitchen. It was a huge crack in the ceiling and it was very close to a light fixture. So we were nervous about the building potentially catching on fire. So my roommate Marcus and my friend go upstairs and talk to our upstairs neighbors. We had seen them before, but never really spoken to them. It was an older woman and her two adult children, probably in their mid 40s. My roommate goes up there, knocks on the door. And when they open the door, there is water everywhere.

45:13Oh, boy. There are quilts, sheets, blankets, anything that they could find. And so they were like, yes, we're aware. there's an issue we're handling it and slams the door everyone comes back down keeps drinking having fun it's getting worse so they go back upstairs and the neighbors are progressively more irritated and rude and start kind of yelling at us and slamming the door once again at that point we decided to call the fire department because it was that bad yeah the fire department comes in they bring like this huge pole with like a little tiny tip and they put it in the crack they say nothing else except, okay, we're going to go upstairs and talk to the neighbors.

45:51And did they route that pole to your sink or something so that it was draining? All they did was touch the crack. They didn't explain what that was doing. Everything's fine for a moment. Someone gave me zin and I had never done that before. And I had drank a lot of alcohol. I'm sorry to my family listening to this, but immediately I get really sig and so i'm throwing up in my bathroom oh no i'm just doing my business and i hear a huge commotion at the door i hear my roommate who is the sweetest kindest little guy say hit me then hit me i finish throwing up and i walk out and i see all the men are sitting on the couch very quiet nervous and i look over and it's marcus katie my roommates and all the women just like ready to go to battle.

46:40I managed to get my way to the front and the upstairs neighbors have come down and they're screaming at us, getting in our face, asking why we would call the fire department and we've ruined everything. And why would we move here? They were also definitely under the influence of something. Well, when you say mom and two 40 year old children, there's a story there for sure. All of my coworkers are native New Yorkers. They're not afraid to get in the fight, defend us. And next thing you know, the daughter comes forward and punches my friend's co-worker square in the face. Oh, wow. Okay, now we're cracking.

47:14We're cooking. I think they were cooking something up there. My co-worker, who is 4 '11", she's so tiny. She starts defending her friend. And so then the brother comes over and starts choking my co-worker. What? She is pinned up against the wall being choked. So now everyone's screaming, pulling each other. And my sweet, sweet roommate, Katie, who is from the South is like, I've got this on video. And so he turns and takes her phone and walks outside and throws it so far that it hits the other building across the street. And, you know, the streets are wide. So we were out looking for that. She's in shambles.

47:55The cops eventually come. By the way, they were mad you called the fire department and then they forced you to call the police. I know. We still to this day don't know what made them so angry unless there was something they were hiding. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that these people were already on the last straw with the landlord. Some hijinks happened, which caused this big flood. And then this was going to be them going, you know what, get the fuck out. Now we have enough ammo to get you out of here. Well, it didn't. They're still there. Oh my God. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So when the police came, a lot of questions.

48:25Did you find the phone? Was the video intact? What did the police do when they got there? What happened? We could not recover anything on her phone, but we did find her phone. We came back and the cops weren't super helpful because everyone was so intoxicated that they were like, I don't want to deal with this. But they split us all up. They were holding the mother back from us. And they pointed at me and my roommates and they said, you guys are going to jail. The police did? Or the mom. No, the police. What the hell's happening? What is happening? I had to ask a lot of people because, again, there were different levels of being drunk and sober.

48:59But they pointed at us and we all responded. We were like, for what? They eventually asked the girls who were assaulted at the party if they wanted to press charges. And they were like, no, we just want to leave. So we kind of turned to everybody and said like, OK, the party's over. Please leave. Thank you so much for coming. And as everyone was leaving, the neighbors were upstairs in their window, like screaming at everyone. And the next morning I called my mom expecting her to be like, OK, you're moving. She was like, that's crazy. And my uncle actually attended the party. He's lived here for like 26 years.

49:30He dipped out before everything happened. But his response was like, welcome to New York, baby. You wanted it. You got it. I was so petrified to go to work. I was mortified that this girl came to my party and was choked, you know. But I walked into work and everyone who didn't come was like, oh, my God, I heard you through the best party. Oh, great. I gained a lot of friends from that. My coworker that was choked, you could see bruises on her neck. I asked the other neighbors about Jillio if they knew anything about him. Forgot about Jillio. He was a red herring. They were like, I can't believe you let that guy in your apartment.

50:07You should have never done that. And we haven't seen him since. So don't know what happened to Jillio. Some lessons learned. Yeah, but that was my first housewarming party in New York City. Wow. Brought me back. Is this your apartment? still? No, we have since moved. Well, Maddie, that was tasty. I really wish I was at that party. Although I would of course been in a real dust up with all the whole family. Also a little girl getting choked. In my mind, I would have prevented that. That's why I want to be there. Yeah. I would probably been thrown up in the bathroom and then I'm gonna come out and said what I would have done.

50:44If I have a second, if I could give some shout outs, let's hear some shout outs. First of all, I just want to thank both of you. I'm in New York and I'm acting and pursuing all the things. And it's so reaffirming to hear everyone that you talk to and hear about their journeys and hear about the really good parts and the really bad parts. It keeps me going. And I want to shout out my sister, Caroline. She is who got me into this podcast. She just had her second baby. So she's killing it. But we call every week about Armchair Anonymous. I also want to shout out my roommates because without them, this would not have occurred.

51:21We have plenty of stories, I'm sure, as you can imagine. And lastly, I want to shout out Ana and Juancho. Oh, my God. She texted me today and she said one of Juancho's best friends is going to be on Armchair Anonymous. So you're from Orlando. Yes, sir. Juan and I did theater together. He's truly the best. His family is the best. We love Juancho. Shout out Juancho and Ana. Two of the cutest human beings on planet Earth. I love that you're best friends with him. It makes sense because you're so cool. And he's so cool. I call him all the time. I'm like, did you hear about what they said this week?

51:59And he's like, I don't listen to it as much. It's you two. Mandy, delightful meeting you. And we will give Juancho your love. Yes. Thank you so much. All right. Take care. God, I love when worlds collide. Me too. So fun. Parties are fun. They are. Even when they go wrong, you're like, I would have been glad to have been at any one of those. Most parties, at least something goes a teeny tiny bit wrong. Even when you're old. I went to a party this weekend, a very adult, nice, small gathering. A couple friends of the pod were there. There was a whole entire wine spill incident that was hilarious, but was scary.

52:40because it ran the risk of ruining a very expensive large rug yes the hosts were gone then we looked on chat about how to fix it and it said pour baking soda and then we did that and then it also we put sparkling water on it and then later we read you're not supposed to saturate and then we were all like you know what it's gonna be okay by morning and then i did check in in the morning. She said it looked exactly the same. Sure. You forgot the salt. Remember I was telling you, I learned from Curb Your Enthusiasm. You're supposed to dump salt on it. I hope it's not too late. It's the only thing I hope.

53:18Yeah, so parties are great. Yeah. Love you. Love you. Do you want to sing a tune or something? We don't 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 Armchairies, we'll get some suggestions On the Flyer Rhyme dish On the Flyer Rhyme dish Enjoy Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.