Armchair Anonymous: Public Transit

0:00Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dax Shepard, and I'm joined by Monica Padman. Hi. Today is crazy public transit stories. And let me just glance about these. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you, subways are hot spots for action. They sure are. There's a lot that goes down on those public transports. Yeah. Yeah. I'll tell you, it made me want to use more public transportation. I could see that. Yeah. You got to get on the bus. I'm missing out on a lot of stories Yeah One was like Yeah, forget it One was One moment made you throw up Oh god There's a hard to listen to one in here Don't listen Bye Enjoy

1:01My life, I had a mole. But but one thing you gotta know, I'm gonna keep on shining. Hello. Hi. What fake name do you want? I'm gonna go by Jess on behalf of my coworker, who's also a huge armchair fan. I told her I would use her name as my fake name. Okay, great. Aw, shout out Jess. Where are you? I'm currently in Baltimore, Maryland, sitting in the lactation room of my office. It has a little fridge in here, a microwave, and a couch. Netflix? They ought to put Netflix in there. They do want you to bring your laptop in and probably continue working, but I guess you could probably sneak in a little bit of watching time.

1:48No one's going to enter the lactation room, that's for sure. That's a safe place. When I worked at the front desk at SoulCycle, sometimes there was an afternoon shift and there were breaks between the classes and sometimes I would watch TV on the computer. Oh, yeah, that's fine. Is it fine? Yeah, that's natural, right, Jess? I've never admitted that. People watch TV at work, I think. I'm not going to rat out anybody I work with. Okay, so you have a public transit story. Yes, so it actually takes place in Madrid. Oh, great. This was when I was 16 years old. I was a junior in high school. It was around 2015.

2:27One of the things that my high school offered was a trip to the respective country in which you've been learning the language of. So they had Italy, France, and Spain offered to the students that were taking those languages. For me, I had been taking Spanish since kindergarten. At the time, I was really sharp with it. I wish I still was, but that was an awesome opportunity. And I was really lucky because it was an extra cost and my parents offered to pay to let me go. On the trip, it was 40 Spanish students, and then there was three chaperones. So there was two Spanish teachers that tagged along, and then one PE teacher from one of the schools in the district.

3:06Who got a free trip to Spain. Yeah, I guess. I think you'll learn later why he was important for the story. I was 16. I didn't really have any spending money of my own, and my parents had paid for me to go on the trip. So additionally, they gave me some spending money. My mom set me up with my first ever debit card. She put like 150 US dollars on that. And then my mom also got out 150 euro cash for me. But one of the things my mom really emphasized was that there's a lot of pickpockets in Europe. Just be careful. Be aware of your surroundings. Make sure you keep your money in your front pocket, somewhere close to your body.

3:48And I was like, yeah, yeah, whatever. You don't know what you're talking about, mom. We got to Madrid and then the first day we spent exploring the city center, they took us to the shopping district. We kind of all ran wild with my 350 total US dollars for a week long trip. That first day, I bought a wallet from one of those Spanish leather shops. I thought it was really fancy. So I had immediately taken my money and my debit card out of my old wallet and put it in the new wallet. I stuck my new wallet in my bag and the bag I was carrying around was a bucket bag. It's very open. Yeah. It's not secure.

4:30The one I had was a tie closure. So it was like half open, half closed. So really just going against my parents' advice. You threw that advice right out the window as soon as you got to Madrid. Like what's the gapiest bag I can carry? Well, for fashion. I wanted to be a little stylish on this trip. Some additional context, I wasn't really the most popular kid in high school. Obviously, I had friends, but for some reason, when we got to this trip, the group of students kind of split up into two. It was like all the upper echelon popular kids in one group, and then the rest of us in the bottom half.

5:07The groundlings. Yeah. So you can imagine which half I fell into, but I still had friends there. But essentially, like half of the kids on the trip just didn't talk to us the entire time. Oh boy. We were done shopping for the day and the teachers wanted us to head back to the hotel. So a big part of our Spanish education is we learn a lot about the metro and the different types of modes of transportation native Spanish people take for their commute day to day. And they were like, oh, why don't we go use the metro to get back to our hotel? So we all head down to the tunnel, we loaded onto the train and it was pretty packed.

5:41It was Spanish locals. And then my entire high school class that was there. Looking so obviously like tourists. Screaming tourists. There's a bunch of kids not knowing where they're going. They were standing room only. All of a sudden, I just feel something's off. I slowly just slide my hand down into my bag to see if my wallet's there. And my bag is empty. I turned to my friend next to me and I whisper, I'm like, I think somebody just pickpocketed me. And so we turn around and there's this suspicious looking guy behind me looking up and then looking back down. And I think he realizes that we're on to him.

6:22So we turn back around and then all of a sudden my wallet just kind of like appears on the ground. Oh, that's good. Remorse. I snatch it back up. I open my wallet and the money is gone. My debit card's still there, but the cash is completely gone. I was like, this is the only money I have. I need to get it back. And I know this guy just took it. I turned to my Spanish teacher who's sitting on one of the chairs and I say, hey, I think this guy just pickpocketed me. Is he making his way out of the train car or he's still in there? We're still in route. And you can't go into another train car? Could you walk in between them like on a subway?

6:58No, it's really crowded. So you would have to very obviously push through. Okay. Okay. Okay. I tell my Spanish teacher and almost immediately she just snaps into action and she's yelling at him in Spanish. She's saying something like, it's a young girl, we're on vacation, please give her back her money. And he's responding to her in a language that I don't recognize. I later found out that he's speaking in Portuguese, which I guess it's a very common for Portuguese people to come into the tourist centers of Spain and rob people. So she's yelling at him. It's causing a scene. And then all of a sudden the train comes to a stop and then the doors come open and he immediately tries to split.

7:39And then the PE teacher runs out after him, pins him up against the platform wall. Oh, yay, gym teacher. We all pile off the train very quickly. And all of a sudden everybody starts to gather around. And I guess as the guy was leaving the train, he had handed off the money to his accomplice, which was a woman. She got dragged off the train too. And then all of a sudden you just hear the Spanish police running down the platform. Oh, they were on it. There's like a sea of people, but it's split down the middle. The guy is pinned up against the wall by the PE teacher. I'm standing there with my Spanish teacher, the Spanish police, and the woman who has my money.

8:23The Spanish police are yelling at her, I guess telling her to give it back. And then all of a sudden, you just see her take her hand and shove it down her pants. Oh! Down the front. She felt frisky? No, I think she's trying to hide the money in her vagina. Uh-oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. She put it up her vagina? Well, she just thought, okay, I'm going to put it here. No one's going to search me here. I doubt it made it into her vagina. That would take a minute. Sorry, Jess. So we're all watching this. the police, me, and all of the students. And she is groaning and making weird noises while doing it, too.

9:03Oh. So maybe it is a kink. I told you. There's a lot on the plate of the teachers. They got a bunch of teenagers. I know. This woman's manhandling her vagina with a fistful of stolen money. What a thing to explain. And as we now know, teachers are just humans, too. Yeah, they were probably 28. Mind you, this is day one of a seven-day trip. eventually everybody's watching in awe gasps kind of like coming from the audience as she's trying to i guess store this money for later and then eventually the spanish police they get her in handcuffs and then they get the guy in handcuffs and they kind of roll them away i'm standing there and then all my friends rush up to me they're like oh my god are you okay That was crazy.

9:54Also, some of them just laughing because of the ridiculous story. All of a sudden, one of the girls from that upper group I was talking about runs over to me and she like links arms to the line. She's like, oh my God, I'm so sorry that you had to go through that. Oh, she wanted to be a part of it. She did not leave my side for the rest of the night. And later that night, I haged my Spanish I was like, please don't make me call my mom because this is just going to prove her right. Yeah. And they're like, no, you have to. They make me come to their hotel room at night. They give me their cell phone.

10:30Mind you, that girl is still with me. And then she's calling her friends from the hotel room like, oh, my God, I can't believe this happened to us. Oh, my God. She's a heat seeker. My mom was like, I'm not sending you any more money. You should have listened to me, which I should have. Did they ever retrieve the money from her vagina and return it to you? They did not. And I don't think I wanted it at that point either. That's the problem. She knew that when she stuck it up there. That money still spends. I would want it back. Wow. So that was it. And then normally if you were home, you'd probably have to go into court and testify against them, but you're leaving the country.

11:07So you never heard anything about it again? No, they dragged them away and we didn't hear about it again. Was your PE teacher feeling wonderful after that? I guess it makes sense why they would tack him on as one of the chaperones to the trip, just in case an altercation like this went down. Yeah, safety measure. He earned his keep. He did. He earned that free trip. Shout out. Wow. Well, I'm sad you didn't get your money back, but that is a good story. That's worth$150. Before we wrap up, I just want to say thank you for doing your podcast. I've been a listener since this podcast started. So this is such a cool opportunity.

11:46When you guys started the Armchair Anonymous series, I was like, damn it, nothing interesting happens to me. I'm never going to be able to submit to this. And then I heard the first travel or vacation story prompt that you guys did. And somebody had a similar situation where they got robbed. And I was like, I have a story. And ever since then, I've been waiting for a prompt. You manifested it. Yeah, I did. I've learned so much from the guests that you've brought on the amount of books that I've read as a result of all the experts that you've brought on I'm an engineer so my job is very technical so whenever I listen to your guys's podcast it's a good kind of brain break to explore more gray area stuff oh thank you we're so delighted you're a part of it all thank you guys so much all right have a great day watch some Netflix in there take a break yeah I'm gonna wait about 30 minutes before I get back out there.

12:41Okay. All right. Great meeting you. Take care. Bye, guys.

13:02Test, test. We hear you, but we can't see you. Hold tight. Here we go. Oh, here we go. Oh, look at this broom. Got a drum kit behind us. What do we got? Little man cave. Yeah, it's the drum studio. Stick Monkey Studio down here in the basement. What kind of kit are you playing? Tama. Oh, nice. I'm going to say that your shirt is of a VW thing. That is correct. Are you so impressed, Monica? Do you know what a thing is? No. Well, okay, show her the whole shirt now. But I got that from the windshield. So the story about this thing is a year ago, I was at a classic car show. There was a charity raffle.

13:41I bought a$20 raffle ticket and I won a 1973 VW thing. No way. Was it in gorgeous condition? No. There's a reason why people donate cars to charity. For the last eight months, I've been restoring it. First was mechanical safety because it ran, but it didn't stop. And then there was an enormous amount of rust that had just invaded the whole car. So I just finished that restoration. so we've been enjoying that over the last two weeks and then I kind of have a bigger plan. Can I guess what the plan is? Go ahead. WRX motor? Nope. I'm going to try to pull a Downey Jr. I'm going to drop the engine and pull the gas tank and convert it to an EV.

14:18Okay, another great option. Yeah, that's a cool option. Okay, so you have a public transit story. She knows once we get on cars, we could never come back. I'm into that, but we're here for the show, so let's get the public transit story. So I live in Boston. Boston has a subway system, which is actually the oldest subway system in the nation. Part of that system is kind of like a trolley more than a subway. So when you go down, there's no lower ground. You literally enter at ground level. 1992, I had just graduated from Northeastern University. I was valet parking cars because I didn't have a job yet from my major.

14:57That's a job I always wanted and never had. Did you love it? It's a lot of fun. Being a car enthusiast, you got to drive a lot of people's really expensive whips without owning them. And then tips. It was a good gig. I got off of a really long shift. I lived in an area of Boston called Alston, which is, you know, maybe five miles up the road. You would typically take the T, the subway, home after the end of the shift. So the place I was valeting was right across from the Boston Common. So I went to the Arlington Tee Stop. I go down the stairs and I'm waiting and I'm waiting and I'm waiting. And I realized that I probably missed the last tee of the night.

15:37Right. Bummer. Now I got to blow part of the tips that I just made on getting a cab home. So I go to walk upstairs and the staff has locked the place up tight. Oh my God. You're in jail now. They didn't check? I am locked in the subway station under the city. Remember, I said it was 1992. We didn't have cell phones. Right. Or flashlights in your pocket. And I'm a 22-year-old guy, so I'm still not really fully formed. I'm not even thinking to look for an emergency phone or even a pay phone. I just think to myself, well, I've been riding the T for five years. I know where I am. And if I look up the subway tracks, three blocks up is Copley Square.

16:24I could probably walk up the subway tracks and get to the next stop. Okay, so I'm co-signing on this plan, but are you not thinking you'll surface from that station and the gates will also be locked there? Again, reiterating that I'm 22. And, you know, the stations themselves are illuminated, but the space between the stations are really not that well lit. But I start on my way. and I am immediately welcomed by the city's rats. There's just a lot of those guys just hopping all over the place. For some reason, I got the Chris Reeves Superman movie from the 80s in my head where the guy is hiding in the hidey hole.

17:04Lex Luthor pushes the button and it pushes him out so he gets killed by the train. Yep, yep. And so I'm like, okay, are they moving trains maybe after hours? Am I gonna make this? Fortunately, I make it to Copley Square without dying or getting eaten by a rat. And to your point earlier though, Dax, of course it's locked. It's after hours. The whole place is locked. Yeah, yeah, the whole subway system. Now I've got a real dilemma because now I know where I am and there's not a point that it surfaces as the trolley on the street for half a mile, mile maybe. One way to the left is known as the E line, which is where I had gone to school at Northeastern.

17:41I know that way, but that's not where I live now. That's the wrong way. and then straight ahead would be through the Heinz Convention Center to Kenmore Square and then the trolleys surface up there. I'm like, that's where I live. That's where I want to go. I'm going to hoof it. Yeah. Oh, wow. What other choice do you have? You're not going to sleep on the ground. I think that is what you do. Most people, I think, probably would have slept. I start up the next leg and this leg would be much longer and there's still plenty of rats to keep me company. and about maybe three, four blocks up, I miraculously come upon an emergency exit.

18:18Oh, oh. Oh, phew. It's a door. I open the door and there's kind of a stairwell that looks like it's going to nothing. So I start to climb the stairwell and as I near the top, I see a little bit of light and it turns out that I am walking up a staircase to a street grate in the sidewalk. There's an emergency handle there. I pop the handle. I flip this grate up. And as I'm emerging, now it's like, you know, 1.15 in the morning. All the bars are letting out. It's summertime. Everyone's having the time of their life. And they're looking at me like, what in the world? There's a subterranean - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

19:01Dweller coming up. But fortunately, I'm out and I'm free. And you're lucky no one fell in. I don't even remember if I closed it. Who knows? You know, I was just so happy to be out of that situation. I look at my watch and it's 120. Last call's at 130. Right across the street is a place called the Cactus Club, referencing a lot of stuff from Boston. Over in Harvard Square, there used to be a place called Hong Kong and they would do this thing called a scorpion bowl, which is basically a mixing bowl of rum. Uh-huh. Cactus Club had its equivalent of that. They had the Cactus Bowl. And this is for like three to five people, right?

19:35You normally have that with your friends. I walked in, I ordered one of those, and I sucked the whole thing down. That's going to help. Well, it's going to take the edge off, right? This is one of the most Boston stories ever told. Boston's got a lot of referencing points. You know, you got to know where you are. So now totally inebriated, but at least a lot less stressed. I walk out. I grab that cab. Yeah, because now you don't give a fuck about spending money. Not at all. Yeah. I'm alive. I'm drunk. I get home. My now wife, then girlfriend, obviously sound asleep. I'm like, hey, wait till you hear this story.

20:08Wow. Oh, that's great. Oh my God. I would have been having those same Superman flashbacks. I can see it very well. And anytime I think of being in a subway tunnel, I think of Lex Luthor. Monica, did those ring a bell? Did you ever see those ones, the early Superman? No, I didn't. Gene Hackman was Lex Luthor. And he had this incredible lair under the city. It was gorgeous. He had like a supervillain cave attached to the subways. There's one footnote to the story. Years later, I'm in sales now. I'm now working for this company and I have an opportunity to sell the service to the MBTA, the T. I get a meeting at their headquarters.

20:48I'm in the big conference room with all the maps and the guys come in and I'm like, listen, before we talk about what we're here to talk about, I got to tell you guys a story. Yeah. Right. And so I tell this tale. I can't tell if they were totally aghast or they were like, ah, that's par for the course. But needless to say, I got some good cred going into the meeting. We didn't have closing the deal, but it doesn't really matter. It was the point of telling the story. Well, you're so honest because you could have easily said you closed the deal. He just demonstrated some integrity. I love that.

21:19Yeah. Well, Matthew, this has been a damn joy. Yeah, how fun. My wife is a huge armchair. I guess this was a prompt a number of years ago, and she knew the story and she missed it. And so when the prompt came up again, she's like, we got to get you in this time. She wrote it. She didn't really write it all that well. I had to obviously rewrite it with all that color, but she would love to say hi. Yeah, please get her in here. Jen, here we go. And if you want to do a drum solo, I'm also up for watching that. Hi there. Jen, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you both. I have to say you're the soundtrack of my life.

21:55Oh, good. So nice. That's flattering. I used to always cut out articles in like the Times or the Globe that would pertain to like a friend or a family member. And now I just send different episodes to people. Oh, I love that. Send away. Yeah. It's like a multi-level marketing system. Yeah, we need you. I gotcha. We're driving user listeners. Well, it's delightful to meet you guys. You're so fun, both of you. Thank you so much. We really appreciate what you guys do and we love it. Okay. Thank you, brother. Take care. Bye. Hello. Hello. Oh, you have the role. We both have the robot on. Oh my God.

22:33How cute. I didn't get the memo. Monica, you're in your closet. Yes. You sound great. I'm trying to make some conclusions based on your wardrobe. I do think you live somewhere that's cold. Yes. I'm in Chicago. Oh, yeah. Can we presume this story is about the L? Yes. Yes. Oh, good job, Monica. Thank you. I know about the L because Matt Damon goes on it in Ocean's Eleven. And do you know why it's called the L? Because Matt Damon goes on it in Ocean's Eleven. Yeah, that's right. And his name starts with an L. It stands for Elevated Train, right? Yes. You're not impressed. I'm looking right at your face.

23:10I wasn't listening. Oh, you weren't even listening. You rebailed out. I was thinking about Matt Damon. You know, once I say his name, I do have a minute or two. You go through like his greatest hits in your head? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who's your number one celebrity crush? I don't get as obsessive about the crushes. I get obsessive about fans. I'm a big Taylor Swift fan. Oh, yeah. I feel like I get more into that. But I am watching The Pit, and Dr. Robbie is big crush right now. He's doing it for you. He's just the hottest. Oh, my God. As hot as it gets. Okay, let's get to your elevated train story.

23:45Yeah, let's hear it. That Monica was not impressed with. Oh, I'm impressed. This takes place two summers ago. It's Lollapalooza weekend. Do you guys know what Lollapalooza is? Yes, music. Big music festival. I know the original one, Julia. Oh, really? Yeah, back in the 90s. I've never gone to Lollapalooza. It overwhelms me. It's very crowded. But normally, I would not take the L home at night. I tend to transit their Uber home to be safe. But I feel like most of the fear around being on transit at night is when it's an empty train car. And since it was Lollapalooza weekend, all the trains are packed.

24:19super late. We went to an after show and it was like one in the morning and there was still a ton of people. So my girlfriends and I were like, this is fine. We don't have to ride that far. There's a ton of people. Nothing will happen. So my girlfriends have to get off two stops before me. I'm the last one to get off. Probably like the stop right before they have to get off. This man boards and he is holding like a cup of brown liquor. He's got the glassy eyes. He immediately grabs this open bag of flaming hot Doritos that's on the L and just starts like shoving it into his face. He's got the red all over his mouth.

24:57And then he locks in on us. Wait, when you say us, how many? It's me and three other girlfriends, but they're all getting off at the next stop. Oh my God. Everyone's a little like, uh-oh, do we want to leave Julia alone? We don't really want to. We're all texting each other. and I was like, I have two more stops to go. It'll be fine. We went to the concert with another friend. He's sober at home downtown. He doesn't live north like us. So I was like, I will call Sam and he has his wits about him and if something happens, he'll be aware of it. It'll be fine.

25:47So I give him a call, they get off, and now the guy moves to sit directly across from me. No. How old is this guy? I would say maybe late 30s. Hard to tell, probably. Okay, late 30s. All right, so not like a 60-year-old. I call Sam, my friend who's at home, and I'm like, hey, he's feeding me like, I don't know if you see like those TikToks, people on social media, what to say if you're in an Uber and you think you're being kidnapped. And it's like, yes, I'll meet you at the stop. Trying to like make it sound like somebody's going to be there when I get off. He's like, it's probably fine. I doubt anything will happen.