Armchair Anonymous: Substitute Teacher

24:08I don't know, Dax. Okay. Hello. Is this quote Marla? This is Marla. Okay. So this is a fake name and you have selected it. Please tell me more. I chose it because it's a reference from one of my favorite movies. And you might find out later because another character in the story also has the name that's connected to it. Okay. Great. It's kind of a riddle too. I love a riddle. Yeah. It's a story ones, actually. This story has to do with two prompts combined, student teaching and stalker. Oh, my God. Great. Amazing. Okay, let's hear it, Marla. This happened about 20 years ago. I graduated mid-year from college.

24:49I had to get a student teaching job before I could get my next job. And so the first day ever student teaching, they sent me to a middle school behavior disorder, emotionally disturbed classroom. And now they call them like social emotional therapy classrooms. Whoa. Okay. So this is like jump in head first kind of thing. I asked a kid in the class if he wanted to play a game and he just stares me in the eyes and he stabs a pencil right through his hand. What? And is like just looking at me and he's bleeding and doesn't say a word. Oh my God. He stabs himself immediately in the hand while staring at you in the eye.

25:20Because I asked him to play a game. He was like, this is my idea of a game. A game killed my dad and now it's going to kill my hand. Oh, wow. I am kind of stunned and don't know what to do. But that emotionless stare with his head down doesn't say a word. He does that this whole entire time that I'm there. And so I obviously handled this situation pretty good because they asked me to come back for a month in that classroom. Stop it. So really quick, when the kid stabs himself with the pencil, I presume you call down to the principal's office or you walk him down? To first aid, the nurse? I took him down to the nurse and we had put something on him as we walked down.

25:59and then they took care of it. They kind of seemed like he does this stuff. This is upsetting. Then I'm back in the classroom for a month. During that month, I find out that that pencil-stabbing kid, I'm going to call him Tyler. So my name is Marla. His name's Tyler. Have you guys figured it out yet? Marla and Tyler. No. It's not Marley and me. It's a fight club? He had disassociative identity disorder. Oh my God, Rob got it. So I find out that school year that Tyler has, at home, burnt his mattress and almost burnt his house down. And this is the kicker. He killed the neighbor's dog that year.

26:35This is some real sociopathy. Yeah. Dissociative identity disorder along with other mental illnesses. He and I actually made a pretty quick connection, even though he really didn't talk to me very much. He kind of just gave me that look all the time, that same look. We didn't really have any other problems that year with that kid. Eventually, it ends up at the end of that month, I leave the classroom. I move on with my regular life and teaching. But I do hear about him throughout the years. And when he was 17, he stabbed his dad four times. He did not kill his dad, but that did get him sent to a mental health juvenile detention facility out east.

27:10So I thought at that point, everything was over. He's out east. I won't hear much more. Well, 10 years later, I'm in a tanning salon because that was the rage back then. And I know better now. Sure, sure, sure. And he's now 27. 10 years from when I was in his class. So he's now 20, 21, 22, somewhere around there. Okay, great. So 10 years later, I'm in a tanning salon. I walk out of the tanning room and I literally smack right into a younger 20-year-old-ish guy. And I say, sorry. And he's just staring at me blankly out of the top of his eyes. No, no. Ew. Oh my God. This is a horror movie. And he says, I know you.

27:50You're Marla. And he says it like three times. I know you, Marla. You're Marla. And he kind of like just stares at me and doesn't say anything else. My gut sinks because obviously I immediately know who this person is because I cannot forget that stare. I'm starting to get nervous. And I think the person that was working there could tell that I was nervous and uncomfortable. So she says, sir, do you need a tanning booth? Because I thought you knew this young lady, which I loved her calling me young lady because I was not at that time. She's like, I thought you knew this young lady. You've been waiting outside her tanning room for 15 minutes.

28:28So then I'm starting to go, okay, did he follow me here? Did he just see me walk in? How does he know? And the part that really bothered me was how did he know my first name? Because teachers go by their last name. And then I don't really remember much after that because my mind was kind of racing through all those questions. I just hop in my car really quick, lock the doors, call my mom. I do get home safe, but I'm obviously rattled. What was that encounter? Because I could tell he was not mentally right in that state. Otherwise, I'm all about saying hi and talking to my former students. So basically, I thought getting home, being rattled was the end of my story.

29:06But I did some research and apparently he is back in our hometown, which I still live in. And it was posted on social media that he is window peeping and stalking people and that he is off his meds. And please don't give him any alcohol. Off his meds. This is not good. There's a chance that my story isn't over. I hope it is. Oh, my God. Marla, I don't like this story at all. Can you tell the police? Now it's 10 years past that time. Now it's been 20 years almost. And I haven't seen him again. And I don't even know if that was just he remembered me then. You know, I don't know. But we don't even know how he found you.

29:42I hate to be morbid, but I do think you just got to tell them like, hey, this happened. In the event, something happens to me. Right. It's likely this. Probably. I think that's not a terrible idea. And then maybe they'll patrol more around you or something. As we've interviewed a lot of stalker victims, the more incidents that have been documented, the better off you are. You do this one. It's like, hey, this is nothing, but I do want there to be some paper trail of this. And then you see him again at the grocery store. He says something a little bit weirder. You go in and you go, hey, does another thing happen?

30:11I would imagine hopefully you're getting to a point where you could probably get a restraining order. Yeah, exactly. If you did feel a little nervous. The more things that are documented, probably the better. I was just like, oh, it's just one little incident. But you're right. Like it could be one little incident leads to another little incident. A huge incident. And I mean, his history is probably enough.

30:46It brings up a lot of new thoughts for me. One is, I guess I never considered the notion that you can be very impactful as a teacher on somebody in a very interesting time. It can be more impactful for them in a way that you maybe not be aware of. That's an interesting part of this. In good ways. Yeah, in great ways. And then probably in equal measure on the other side of it. And then the next thing I was thinking is just, it is so rough that there's 7 billion of us and there's going to be some people who are dangerous. And it's not their fault. I'm not angry at them. I feel bad and compassionate for them.

31:20And also, what do we do? There's so many stories. It's like all the signs were there for a very long time. I don't know what we can do about that. We've got to figure out something. Or is it just the reality of life on planet Earth? No, I don't think it can be a reality that it's clear he's going to kill someone. And we're just like, I guess he's going to kill someone. We should be able to have a plan in place. That's what I'm nervous about, too. You know, I'm a big mental health advocate. I am on some meds myself as well for certain things. And I'm very much about going to therapy and about getting the help that you need.

31:50And I do just worry about people who are possibly going to have their insurance taken away or Medicaid or Medicare. If they don't have that, what do they have? Yeah, exactly. Because that is their path is to harm somebody. And I would never want to see that with a former student or anybody else. The whole situation is really sad that he's off his meds and he's not getting help. And he deserves that help. And if he did harm someone, he would find himself in a situation where he could get therapy. You're right. That's the irony of it. Do you think there's like a way potentially for some people at that high risk of causing harm that it's illegal for him to be off his medication?

32:25Can that start happening? This is why all these philosophical conversations are hard and important, which is you're trying to preserve the liberty of the 99.99 % of people who aren't a threat to anyone. And you can't really have laws that are only for this 0.01%. They have to apply to everyone. So you're in this very tricky situation where you either have to open up the door to take away a ton of people's liberty who do not deserve, like saying that the government can tell you what medication you have to take. Like that's a crazy road to enter onto. And then you got to have a category that's so specific that will allow the government to tell you what you have to put in your body, which no one would want.

33:02It's just very hard. So then I go, I think at the end of the day, we all have to be more like the Swedes, right? That are like, yeah, shit gets stolen. That's how life works. It's almost like that's how life is. There's so many of us and we can't really throw people in jail before they've done something. Not in jail. I guess that's my whole point is like we're not throwing him in jail. We're saying, OK, so there are real things that could help mitigate this danger. Let's put those into place. You have Jeffrey Dahmers. Like there are people that there's no medication or therapy that's going to help.

33:32They need to be in prison away from everyone. Of course, it's just a catch-all. You have to wait for them to give you that reason, which no one would want to do. But at the same time, you would lose so much if you could do it the other way. That's tricky. There's no answer to it necessarily. That was my point, is that sometimes there's problems there's not a good answer for. This is kind of a hard question. Thank you guys for letting me on here. Oh, thank you. But I do want to say this. I was a lot excited to be on here and a little nervous. So I asked AI for pointers and it was so cute. It said, don't worry, Dax and Monica are some of the easiest and friendliest people to talk to.

34:08And their producers and editors are top notch. So they'll make you sound great. Wow. Is Monica running your AI? Because it sounds like one of us wrote that. I'm flattered and it's creepy. One of my mental health is ADHD, so I was super nervous. And I'm on medication for it. And I was like, I can't tell a story start to finish. But you guys made it easy. It was great. It was a great story. You'll appreciate this, Marla. I just made an ADHD joke in the previous interview, which is a substitute was berating the kids and he was swearing at them and yelling. And then he left the classroom for a while and then they were only third grade.

34:43And then two of the kids decided they were going to be the ones that escaped in the hallway Wayne went and told the principal. And I said, two kids with ADHD for sure. I'm like heroes. We need every variety for when you're in a situation. Definitely. Well, thank you for chatting. Have a good rest of your day. All right, you too. Take care. Oh, that story was scary. That was like what lies beneath. Kind of. Isn't that an alligator or a shark? No. A fair and ghost and pop outs, obviously. Hello. Hello, sir. How do I pronounce your fake name? Talon or Talon? Talon. Talon, like a hawk's Talon? It's actually T-A-L-Y-N.

35:23It refers to a sentient ship from the series Farscape. So it was a ship that could think and had consciousness. And was actually born to a female ship. Wow, I love this. Very specific. And did the ship have character flaws and wisdom? And was it like a multifaceted type of consciousness? It was a tormented ship because it was genetically modified. The original female was a ship that was meant to bring peace. What they did is they mutated the quote unquote fetus to be a warship. Oh, okay. And so it was tormented because part of it had a big cannon and it was supposed to go and destroy things, but part of it was peaceful.

36:04So it was like a real character. Yeah, mixed messages. Yeah, fighting its nature. Yeah. Love it. So Talon, where are you? I want to be semi-anonymous. I'm in Western Connecticut. Okay, great. That's plenty. I just like to know the region. You know, I like to find purchase and some stereotypes before we continue. Okay, so you have a substitute teacher story. I do. And this story actually takes place in El Paso, Texas. I was in grade school there. This is a long time ago in the early 70s. And this is an important part of the story because things used to be different. Yeah, tell people how it worked back then.

36:36And I have some taste of it in the early 80s, but hit us with how it worked. The first thing that was interesting is the part of El Paso I lived at was the northeast side, which was next to the Fort Bliss, which is the fort where they would train people around desert warfare. There were a lot of soldiers that lived in northeast El Paso. So kind of it's a little bit of a rougher type of culture. Sure. You could get in a fight at the bar pretty easily. Guys coming through the window every now and then. Yeah, yeah, exactly. There's three pieces of context I want to give around this school to really set the stage.

37:06I think these first two are kind of pretty much banned in schools these days. But in the grade school, teachers had paddles that they would use for discipline. I don't know if you ever had that taste of that, but they had paddles and public spankings. In retrospect, it wasn't to bruise you or to cause damage to you. It was more to humiliate you in front of your peers. It's giving the administer of that punishment a lot of faith that they're going to stay on the right side of that and just go for humiliation and not also then hurt. You're really entrusting that person a lot. Yeah, to make some judgment calls.

37:39It's funny, the coaches would have the paddles that were supposed to be stronger. They'd have holes in them. So they would pretend to hit a little harder just to increase the cumulation. So that's the first thing. The second thing is that there was a related tradition, which was on your birthday, the teacher could paddle you gently. The number of years, it wasn't mandatory, but the thrill seekers would be the ones who'd volunteer because they wanted to be up there and get all the attention. And so in our school, the third thing was they wanted kids to behave. they could be kind of rowdy. And so what they did is they had a list of substitutes that they would pick from, usually their favorites, and that would be the ones you would always see.

38:12So on this day, I was in third grade and a substitute was needed and they picked a substitute that no one recognized. It was just somebody kind of out of the blue. She looked like she was maybe in her 50s. She was probably 25 because you were in third grade and everyone seemed 50. You're probably exactly right. She was wearing these polyester pants that were really form-fitting. I would say kind of the equivalent of like leggings these days. And it was a little bit more common back in the day. So it wasn't out of sorts, but most teachers didn't wear those. And she had a quiet demeanor as well.

38:46So she gave us assignments, and I presume they're the original teacher, and we were kind of going through them. And people were behaving well. But at some point during the day, just to get our attention back up, she started telling us that it was her birthday. And she said that she had heard about this birthday tradition that I talked about earlier. Oh, my God. Really quick, we gave Talon so much shit about her age, and he might actually know. She might have asked for 50 whacks. Oh, you're right. But also then maybe she was really 35 and wanted lots of whacks. Okay, let's just hear. Yeah, yeah.

39:15Yeah, well, she thought it would be good to follow the tradition. And so she said that the room didn't have a paddle, which in retrospect, I don't know if that was true or not. And that she also didn't want to go out and find one because she didn't want to leave us alone. We're third graders. We had 25 kids in the room. And so she said she was too old to get the number of whacks. But she did want the whole class to participate. So she said what she was going to do was she was going to walk along the aisles up to each student and then turn around. and that each student was to whack her on her butt.

39:45Oh my God. With her bare hand, smack her ass in tight polyester. She also said that since there was no paddle, a paddle would have been harder, that it was okay for the student to hit her as hard as they wanted to. Oh no, she's kind of a pedophile. We're laughing, but like, yikes. I know, isn't it crazy? I was immediately thinking like, man, when it's a man and a woman, it's just a completely different scenario in my head. If it's a man doing this, I'm like, we need the cops in there right now and get them out of there. And then this, I'm like, this girl's a little off course. She's off course.

40:14Yeah. I mean, we're third graders, right? So we're generally not really understanding. There's no worldwide web. So any kind of stuff you heard about sexual things you heard from your older siblings or cousins or something like that, this activity that was about to happen wasn't anything that was really discussed. Right. It probably sounded fun, actually. All the kids are like, we have to do this to our substitute now. And in fact, the Thrill Seeker students, they were looking like they were going to have a great time. Knock her to the ground, yeah. As promised, she started walking down. She turned around and students would whack her.

40:46She had large butt cheeks, so it was really easy to like... Find your target. Big target. The first students were a little bit shy, but they still did it because they were being told to do it by the teacher. Things changed when she got to the first of the thrill-seeking students. Oh, fuck. This student was one of the most athletic in our grade. We stood up, and the best way I can describe it was it was like he was up in the pitcher's mount, and he started winding his arm up. Oh, my God. And he put his foot forward and he just ripped out like a big whack. And it was so loud. Oh, wow. And everyone started laughing and hollering and hooting.

41:19The ice was broken and it was a party. Oh, my God. What was her reaction to that? Did she let out any kind of a moan or anything? I thought she was going to be angry because it was such a big whack and everything. Or at the very least, she was going to tell people, just take it a little bit easy. But instead, she let out like a little cooing noise. Oh my God. She is. This is one of the kinkiest, weirdest stories I've ever heard. You could see the energy in the thrill seekers. All of a sudden they're looking at each other and they're mumbling to each other. And you knew they wanted to outdo the bar was set high.

41:54If someone walked by, they could have seen what was going on. But she went through everybody. Did she yell at anyone for being too soft? Like you call that a smack? I don't remember her doing that. I do remember people starting to hit her harder because you wanted to be seen in front of the cool kids. as being strong. Yes, paddle that ass. Really lay into it. Okay. Needless to say, I don't think this is the first time she ever did this, but at the end, she went back to her seat and thanked the class for helping her celebrate her birthday. Oh my God. When she goes, that was the best birthday I've ever had in my life.

42:24She's going to each class saying it's her birthday. Definitely. Yeah, she gets spanked every day at work and she loves it. She loves it. Oh my God. And they loved it too. They didn't love it at first, but then they got like riled up. I wonder if people felt weird after. I bet they loved it And then I wonder if anyone was like, that was a little bit weird. Yeah. Do you remember what you were thinking during this? I was thinking it was very strange. I could feel there was something wrong about it. Okay, yeah. But I still smacked her because I was supposed to smack her. I do remember that I tucked it away in my brain for like a decade.

42:58And then it came out one day. It's like a source of shame kind of. I want to meet her so bad. She's dead. Well, she was 50 in 1970. Yeah, probably. Unless she's a centenarian. She was wild. So she lived a big life. And I think it's over. We wanted her to come back as kids just because of the spectacle of it all. And maybe to better process it. Yes. We sometimes return to the source of our trauma looking for answers. Exactly. Oh, Talyn, I love this story so much. I shouldn't, but I love it. It's very good. The epilogue is that apparently some of the parents must have heard something because we never, ever, ever saw her again.

43:39Oh. Yeah, that's right, Dax. That's the right. Sink ships. Everyone's having a good time. Everyone won. They didn't, though. Talon had to hold this story for 10 years before he was able to talk. Let me ask you, just be dead honest. I don't want to lead the witness. Are you grateful this happened to you, or do you wish it hadn't happened? In retrospect, I'm grateful partly because I'm here. Yeah, it's a fun story. Sure, sure. and also because I think it was just at the verge where you don't really understand things like if it would have been a sixth grade class it would have been really strange right it is still so strange a bunch of like nine year olds like slapping this 50 year old woman's ass I just picture in sixth grade someone got the idea to like booty bump or you know like thrust themselves into her she's done this enough she knows the grade she's very controlled weirdly she has a lot of control over this inappropriate oh my god I think she knew the tradition.

44:33Do you think she climaxes during this? No, later. Later. When she thinks about it, probably, which is creepy. Yeah, it's not appropriate. I tried to remember and I couldn't. I took a bathroom break at some point. Yes. Thanks for my birthday. That was so fun. I just got to quickly tinkle. Oh, my God. Talon, that was great. Thank you. Thank you for that awesome story. Yeah. Absolutely. I want to shout out my wife. She's been an armchair forever. She's got me into Anonymous. She's got my daughter into Anonymous. We love Anonymous. We've heard every single one. Oh, great. I was so excited to have this prompt.

45:07I saw it and I thought, no way. You nailed it. That was a good one. Yeah, I think if people wait long enough, there will be a prompt for them. Have a great rest of your summer, Talyn. Okay, thanks. Take care. All right, bye-bye. Who am I going to say it reminds me of? My dad? Yeah, thousand percent. So much your dad. Like that really playful sense of humor. Uber intelligent, you could tell. Yeah. An observer of like, well, yeah, he's reading like this science fiction and stuff. And then he's giggling at this other thing he's observing. Oh, that makes me happy. No wonder I loved him so much. I really felt like I was talking to Ashok a couple different times.

45:43And your dad's a little rascally, which is fun. I've heard that he was a big rascal in his youth. So bad he had to leave India. He was kicked out. Even before he got arrested. Wow. That was fun. I loved that last story. And you're not supposed to love that story, but isn't it funny? It's like right on the verge. It's because it happened so long ago. There's something about it that feels like. It was like 70s. Yeah. She had this all pants. She wore those pants. She wanted thin, tight pants so she could feel. Some of these stories are really sick. This is a Jonathan Haidt. It is. I should almost email him about this.

46:13No, this is bad. Is this ethically. It's not ethically okay. Well, if everyone flourished and no one suffered. No, no. You can't say that. It could have scarred some of the kids. Like, I really feel bad. I smacked a woman as hard as I could. Yeah, like that's bad. She forced me to. Yeah. Like I was a hero on the day, but on my bike ride home, I was like, I heard a woman. But she cooed. She cooed. What if it's they hit her as hard as they can. Everyone laughed. She liked it. And then that person became an abuser. Whoa. Like they got positive reinforcement for smacking their teacher. Do you think her name was Miss Chevious?

46:48Miss Chevious. No, I don't think that that guy would think it's okay to then hit women. but I could imagine it forming a kink for him. That's what I'm saying. It could get very complicated. He might have been extra horny for late 50s S &M trying to recreate this great moment. But especially the S. Sadist, yeah. Yeah, because he got to administer it, so now he has. So don't do this, guys. And then she ran over the doorknob. I can't get this door open. Oh, I gotta fucking shove it. Okay, stop. Okay, all right, all right. I love you. All right, love you. Bye. It's stuck. It's stuck. It's stuck. It's stuck.

47:28It's open. It's open. I opened it. You made it so much worse. Now it's definitely back. It's open. It's open. It's open. Everyone go back to your seat. Don't look at me. It's open. Bye. 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 going to ask some random questions. And with the help of Armchairies, we'll get some suggestions. On the flyer, I'm Dish. On the flyer, I'm 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.

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