Armchair Anonymous: Unauthorized Evacuation II

0:00Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman. Hi. My favorite prompt. Oh, it's your favorite. What's your favorite prompt? Gosh, that's like picking children. Me cute. I love me cute. No, I like these. Okay, unauthorized evacuation to baloney. it's the second time we've done that specific prompt we've done plenty of oh more prompts that are more specific this is this we threw a broader net okay we went back to a broader net and once again guys it's perfect they're so fun they deliver every time it needs its own feed just well just okay story enjoy unauthorized evacuations part whatever

1:17Hi, Doug. Douglas or Doug? I just go by Doug. Okay, great, Doug. Where are you? I am in St. George, Utah. I love St. George. That's right when you enter out of Arizona and it turns all red and pretty. Yep, it's great. Just like an hour and a half outside of Vegas. If you're an outdoorsy person, it's a great place. And a lot of pants shitting happening over there. Not here. So this story actually takes place out in Jacksonville, North Carolina, May of 2018. I was stationed out there in Camp Johnson because I was in the Marine Corps Reserves. So I was out there for my MOS training for my occupation in the military.

1:57What's MOS? I was a motor vehicle mechanic. Good for you. Just to kind of give you a little backstory. So it was the end of the week. It was a Sunday night. All my buddies and me were getting together in my barracks room for just an end of week celebration. So we decided to order this big pizza. We ended up devouring the whole thing. It was great. Toppings? Oh, God. It was all meat pizza. It was like pepperoni, sausage, anything you can think of meat-wise. And next morning floats around. And every morning we have to be outside in front of the barracks at right around like five in the morning. So usually I wake up, do your morning business, take care of whatever, and then head on outside for the morning run.

2:38This particular morning, however, I did not have enough time to wake up and do everything that I needed to. So I woke up late, was scrambling to get my clothes together, slapped on my workout shorts. Are the shorts loose or are they tight like bike shorts? Very flowy green running shorts. Okay. Starting to head outside and I already know I'm not feeling too well. Something's going on down there and I was like, well, this is the worst M &K guy felt a long time but didn't have time to really like go about it. How long is the run scheduled to be? It's like seven plus miles each morning. Oh my god.

3:18Oh, my God. And also, are you allowed to call in sick? No. That's for civilians. But he's lost me so many times. It's like anything where I would have to be at attention at 5 a.m., which means I'd have to get up at 4 a.m. Because my movement takes a little finessing. I've got to have coffee and nicotine. Not if you're in the Marines. You can't do any of that. Well, no, I just have to wake up at 4 to get this whole thing running. Do they let you have nicotine there? Of course. They all do. They do. But you're not supposed to really have it, like, on the job. Yeah, you're not supposed to. Okay, I was over in Afghanistan twice, and 90 % of the people were dipping.

3:54Listen, Doug is right here in front of us. Okay, Doug, do a lot of the guys dip? Oh, yeah. Dipping was a huge thing. Let's let the soldiers talk, Monica. Ew! Oh, my God. It's disgusting. Okay, go on, Doug. Go on. Sorry, Doug. So we start out on this run. We get probably two and a half miles into it. I really have to go at this point. And so the sergeant who's leading the platoon in this run, he's up at the front. I'm about four Marines back, run up to the front. And I was like, hey, sergeant, I have to go. Is there anywhere I can go? And he's like, no, it's 545 in the morning. Nothing's even open.

4:34There's barracks around us and like office buildings, but nothing's open. So he's like, you're just going to have to hold it. I'm sorry. I get back into formation. Just keep running. I was regretting all my life decisions at this point. And I probably ran for another like 15 minutes or so. And at this point, it was not happening. Shit was starting to flow. I was prairie dogging. Oh, no. This is so sad. Well, this is you got to get tough. No, no. Bodies are bodies. We're on this paved road and there's a little ravine off to the right. At this point, I don't even care about humiliation. I need to go.

5:14and so I barely make it down into this little ravine, pull my shorts down. They're about down to my knees, I'd say, and my ass is out in the woods and my head is sticking out of the woods and everything behind me is at this point getting painted. It's like a Jackson Pollock painting. It was an explosion. It was an explosion. Hey, sorry, that's a little insensitive because it's the military. Well, hold on. They specialize in explosions. We don't know about PTSD. I don't know. We got to be sensitive. At this point, everything is going to hell. My shorts are covered. My shoes are covered. My socks are all covered.

5:58Really quick, did the sergeant peep what was happening? Yeah, they were calling it out. I dipped off into the woods and all this is happening and they can't leave you. so this platoon just keeps doing u-turns running by me as i'm shitting my brains out on the side of the road so all of my buddies 35 40 guys probably are just running past laughing their asses off at this point i'm very embarrassed most embarrassing moment of my life because all my buddies are seeing me like this so finally about like the fourth or fifth pass by the sergeant's finally like, hey, you take care of you. You do whatever you have to do.

6:39We'll meet you back in formation after the morning chow hall. So he takes everybody to morning chow and I'm left just by myself, me and like Smokey the Bear out in the woods. Nobody's even there. And this is about a mile from my barracks where I have to get back to to change. Oh, and you're just covered. Yeah. I have like one of two options in my head. I can either put back on my shorts and my underwear and they're soaked and run back to the barracks just covered in shit. Or I can leave them there and run back just with my shirt and my shoes. Oh, wow. For whatever reason, I chose the latter. There was a third option on the table, which is remove your t-shirt and then like step through the arm holes and make a little dipe.

7:28You could have covered your testicles. I mean, it is a good solution, but I wouldn't have thought of it. Okay, so you chose to run back with your dick and butt. Winnie the Pooh style. Yeah. Yeah, so at this point, I have the shirt long enough down where it covers my junk, but I'm just in my white sneakers that are now a white shade of brown and my white socks, and I'm running back to the barracks, and I am worried about everything because a base higher up can see you. Like there's a lot of different factors that could happen if I get caught streaking on a military base. We finally make it back to the barracks.

8:07And I was like, I can't let my roommates know what happened. So I just stripped down to nothing, run inside, shower. I Febreze the whole room. You can't smell a thing. I was very proud of myself. So I get back out and I have to dispose of the evidence. So I toss it in the trash can, get dressed, and I meet them in formation after they get done in the chat hall so we can head to our normal classes and stuff throughout the day. So I was feeling great about myself. They checked in on me. They were like, hey, you good? And I'm like, yep, I'm good. Second part of the story, we march back to wherever we were going for our training that day.

8:45and about an hour or so into the training I'm sitting there and I'm like oh my gosh my hands are getting so warm and my ass is on fire and I was like what's going on no and then it occurred to me that out in the woods I had nothing to clean myself up with and the trees behind me had these pretty decently large leaves and so I was like this is all I can do to clean myself up. So I grab these leaves and I start wiping myself off. And I was like, great, this works. Everything's left in the woods. It's done with. And so now it's starting to occur to me like, what did I wipe my ass with? This is horrible.

9:31It ended up being poison oak. Then another half an hour or so goes by and it was on fire at this point. I needed to get like help. It was burning. And so I asked the same sergeant who had taken me on the run, like, hey, I need to go to the doctor. He's like, Doug, you're a disgrace to this unit. Yeah. What if he kicked you out of America? So he's like, do what you need. Just take care of yourself. Get better. So he sends me to the doctor, which is probably two miles down the road, I'd say. And so at this point, chafe on level 10 and it's May. So it's already hot and humid in Carolina. They gave me some ointment and medication and it ended up clearing up in like two weeks.

10:16So I was in pain and I still had to go on the morning runs. Oh, geez. They have all these really intense tests of durability and resilience. They should add this to like SEAL training. Now shit in the woods, now wipe with this and now carry on. I would argue what you went through is about as tough a situation as you can find yourself in it. It was very implicit, but moral of the story is if you order a big pizza, don't eat it and then try to run the next morning. That's the moral. I wouldn't have thought a pizza, I mean the meat, something probably, but it was only you. I'm not willing to blame the pizza.

10:52I think it was a bug. It's not the case of the painful pepperoni pizza. No. Are you still in the service? I actually get out my contract in September 11th of this next month, so I'm out. And did you like it? I loved it. It was great to do once, but I wouldn't do it again. Okay. Oh, well, Doug, that was so much fun. Thank you. Yeah, I'm sorry that happened. Yeah, me too. Thank you guys so much for meeting with me this morning. Of course. Bye. Okay, I just had a full revelation. What is it? Do you think Winnie the Pooh, the reason he only wears a shirt is because he pooped everywhere, and that's why his name's Winnie the Pooh.

11:29Or I think it's so he doesn't poop himself because he's Winnie the Pooh. He poops a lot and he couldn't risk putting pants on. Okay, it's similar. It is. It is. It's just what direction. I just wish you would let me just have my ideas. Okay, I did let you. It's still your idea. I think one time he pooped in his pants, right? Okay. And then he was like, oh, I can't be wearing pants anymore. I'm not built for these. Yeah. And so then he became, his name was Winnie. Which is interesting. Original. Winnie is from Wonder Years. It's a female name. And then he pooped, and then he became Winnie the Pooh, and he took off his shorts forever.

12:09I never overthought the name, but it's a wild name, because it's a woman's name and then Pooh. And it's the Pooh. Yeah. Good for them. They snuck that right by us. Hi. How are you? Do you have a fake name in mind? I don't. I was going to see if y 'all could pick one. Mickey. I love that. I'll take it. Can you guess why I chose that? Monica's repping it. Yes, exactly. I'm wearing a Mickey shirt for the listener. Mickey, where are you? I am in South Texas, kind of along the Gulf Coast area. Oh, okay, great. And you want a fake name, which means this is either ultra embarrassing or there was some illegality to this evacuation.

12:48Both are exciting. Not illegal, just incredibly embarrassing. Just saving the shame for my mom in case she ever hears it. Oh, that's nice. Okay, okay. Looking out for the parents. Right. I understand. For context, I went to a very, very small school. This takes place in junior high. So that is critical information. Okay, Mickey, I can't think of a worse time for this kind of an event to happen than junior high. Absolutely. Unlike you, Dax, I was not cool in junior high. That was not my time to shine. I'm sorry. Oh, no, it's fine. I'm great now. Okay. But I went to a very small school. Our entire school fit on one city block.

13:28Even our junior high and high school were in the same building. So it was junior high kids walking the hallway with high school students. Dangerous. Yeah, very intimidating. Yeah. Being at a small school, everybody plays every sport, whether you're good or not. You're almost begged to to make teams complete. So this takes place circa 2007. In seven, I was in seventh grade on the basketball team, and I was not a star athlete. I was a very chunky, very round kid. I was a good trier. Okay, great. A lot of heart. I'm usually the personality hire. I rode the bench a lot, but I still went to every game and still showed up.

14:12When they put you in, what position were you playing? Oh, I don't know. Playing, please don't pass me the ball. Okay, stay away from the ball position. We had an out-of-town game this night. And being small schools, you usually have to travel pretty far to go to another small school. And it's always two-lane back roads through no-stoplight towns until you get to your no-stoplight town, which is home. So the game went all fine. After the game was over, tradition was that you change into your street clothes. We dump all of our uniforms in the dirty bag. Like the coach takes them back to the gym, washes them for the next game, and we're all riding home in our street clothes.

14:52On the way home, we always stop at somewhere very Texas, a Whataburger, a Dairy Queen, something along those lines. Where the only options are greasy burger, greasy chicken strips. So I'm sure I had one of those two options on this evening. And how long was the ride, do you think? Probably right at about an hour. Pretty much all back roads in between. So we all load up on the bus and I get the covented cool backseat. You know, the one in the very back of the bus that's the single seat because you don't have to share with anyone. So I was like, I'm cool. I'm in seventh grade. I've got the cool seat, you know.

15:29And so everything's going fine. It's dark on the bus. Now the windows really roll down. It's old bus. So it's just quiet. Everybody has their headphones in, listening to music on our iPod Nanos at the time. and I just feel this gut punch of a pinch in my stomach. And it just hits me like a wave. And I just start getting a little sweaty on my forehead. And then it turns into full body chills. And this all takes place in a span of about 90 seconds. And if you've ever played sports or rode a school bus, you know there's no point in even asking to stop because it's not going to happen. And in this case, there's literally nowhere for the bus to even pull over.

16:09There's not shoulders on these roads. And be pulling into a ditch. Exactly. Which I would have been fine with. Yeah. So I feel this rush of anxiety, this rush of heat, full body sweat come over me. And the next thing I know, I just explode. No warning. No warning. No warning. You weren't even like fighting it. It just came over me, like literally exploded. And it was so bad. It filled up my jeans. It went up and out the back. It was all over the sea. Oh, no. Oh, mama. It's a bucket, it sounds like. Oh. Oh. To this day, I have never seen that much diarrhea in my life. Oh, God. Oh, my Lord.

17:14Were there high schoolers on the bus too? No, luckily this was only junior high, but it was still, you know, about 25 of my peers, which is not ideal. It just starts moving up the bus row by row, tidal wave of smell, and you just start to hear, oh God, what's that?

17:36And someone said, oh my God, did somebody fart? And all I could think was, babe, I wish. Oh, yeah. Were you considering being like, I know. Ew. What is that? At this point, I knew I was going to have to make peace with my mess because there was no hiding it. Like I said, it was all up my back, all over the seat, all in my jeans. Oh. There was no, let me just quick change into other pants. This sounds very much like a baby's diaper. Yeah. There's like a baby diaper situation. Yeah. Yes, I just had a baby and we just had our first blowout. So it brought back trauma. TST. There's a piece of this where I definitely trauma blocked.

18:17I don't 100 % remember. But I know the girls just started moving up to the front of the bus. They're like three deep piled in the seats and the front two rows. Like I said, the windows wouldn't roll down. So the few windows that were, they're like breathing out of it. Were the adults like, oh my God. I can imagine adults like, girls, get to the front. Yeah, yeah, run. There was one adult and she was driving the bus. Oh. Oh, no. Someone must have put together, like, this is more than a fart. Someone shit their pants. And probably it was evidence that it was me because I was the only one not making my way to the front of the bus.

18:53What if you also just started going up there? Think of this tableau of how sad this is. I know. It's just the reverse shot of this little girl. I am picturing all these people. Cowering. There's nowhere to stop. So I just had to sit in my shitty pool of mess. You know, the back of the bus is most bouncy. It is. Splish splash. Yeah, until we pulled into a Walmart. And it was like a very small Walmart before they were like super Walmarts. So the bus driver makes her way to the back with that can of sawdust that they usually put on throw up and a pair of gloves. Did all the kids get off the bus immediately and just you and her now?

19:34Yes. And so she walks to the back and assesses the situation. And literally, she says, oh, God, what did you do? Drop your britches to poop? I said, no, ma 'am, it was just that much.

19:54Oh, Lord. So she kind of sprinkles some sawdust on there. What is the sawdust supposed to do? Neutralize the smell? Keep it from splashing around. It absorbs it. Then you can also sweep it up now. You can't sweep up, throw up. But if you get it all in that sawdust, you can't. Yeah, and I don't know if sawdust is designed for diarrhea or just throw up. Yeah, I don't think so. You know, the different makeup. So it may not have worked very well. But she was working with what she had like we all were. Sure. Yeah. So she goes to the uniform bag. And this is the callback of where I was a very chunky kid.

20:26So she goes to the uniform bag and she just kind of fishes for probably the biggest one she can find. Not my uniform. to put on to give me a clean pair of clothes. So she hands me this random uniform and says, okay, go into Walmart, clean yourself up, change. So I'm waddling through Walmart, probably dripping shit, just this trail of smell probably following me. So I go in there. Also, all the other girls decided to take this time to come in there and use the bathroom. So I'm, you know, can you wet this toilet paper and hand it back to me so I could clean myself up? Oh my God. At this point, it was like, swallow your pride and get it done.

21:05So I come out of the bathroom wearing someone else's uniform. Poor number 13. You know, every time they put that uniform on the rest of the season, we're probably like, these are the shitty uniforms. So we all load up in the bus. The bus driver had called my mom, because I don't even think I had a cell phone at this point. And, you know, I was like, you need to be there, because it's like 10 o 'clock at night by the time we get back to the school. So luckily, it had happened right before Thanksgiving break. So my mom let me stay home for two days because I think she just knew that's way too embarrassing.

21:37Let everyone have their fun for a couple days. Then we'll go on break and hopefully the ruckus will have died down in 10 days. Do you think people thought you like died? That would have been great. I might have gotten some sympathy out of it. Maybe there was a rumor about that going around. The really only blowback, no pun intended, after I got back to school after the Thanksgiving break was one girl in art class did come up specifically and sit next to me and said, did you shit your pants on the school bus? And I was like, yeah. She was like, well, why'd you do that? And I was like, I couldn't help it.

22:12Why'd you do that? Kids are so fucking stupid. Kids are so stupid. It took me probably 10 years to be able to speak about this out loud. It was something I just buried. But truthfully, listening to y 'all's podcast, hearing the other unauthorized evacuations. Survivors. Yeah, the survivors. I'm not the only one. So I figured if I can survive that, I can survive anything. I truly think that's why I don't get embarrassed anymore. I'm probably more confident than I should be. It's definitely because this traumatic event happened in my formative years, and I was fine. Now having a little baby girl, too, I told my husband, I was nervous to come on and tell this story because it is embarrassing.

22:54But I said, I want her to know it's okay to be embarrassed. You'll survive. So I can't wait to show her this at some point. Oh, wow. I told my best friend I was coming on to tell this story. She said, oh my gosh, which story are you going to tell? The airplane story or the school bus one? Oh, great. You've shit your pants more than once. Oh, it happens like every six months or so. Oh, my. You're kind of like a dude. I like this. Yeah, we could hang. This could be a sphincter issue. Well. I don't want to say issue, but. I think you're perfect as designed. I think it's a character building. Design.

23:34But yeah, character building design. There we go. Oh, that was great. Oh, I love that, Mickey. Poor Mickey on that bus. Everyone deserted her. She was a woman without a country. They had to do what they needed to do for them, too. Yeah, don't blame them, but man. But it's sad. It's a sad scene. I felt so bad that so many people were also affected because usually you poop your pants and it's a pretty insulated event. Maybe one other people. Not 25 of your peers in junior high are also participating in the misery. This is about as bad as it could get, save maybe hooking up with your dream crush.

24:15Oh, that's bad. At least that didn't happen. But other than that, the seventh grade school bus has really got to be up there. Yeah, it was pretty rough. Well, Mickey, thank you. That was delightful. Thank you for sharing it. You're very brave. Thank you. Well, lovely meeting you. Yeah, it's so nice to meet you. Beat the heat down there. I will. I'm trying. Okay. All right, take care. Bye. Bye. Thank you, Monica, for this beverage. Well, Rob ordered it. Thank you, Rob, for this beverage. You got it. I don't know why I thought it was on your account somehow. Well, it was my idea. It was going to be.

24:47Hi, Tony. How's it going? We just got some beverages that were ordered by Rob and Monica, and they've just arrived and we're so excited. Cheers, guys. Look at this. What do you have? What's your beverage choice? Yeah, what do you got going? I'm a cold brew fanatic. Bootiful. Where are you at, Tony? Well, I live in New Orleans, but at the moment, I'm on a road trip. I'm in Asheville, North Carolina at an Airbnb. I'm going in October. Have you been? Oh, yeah, many times. But Aaron and I are going to go on a motorcycle trip and be based out of there and explore. That's very beautiful. The coffee scene is next level up here.

25:23Oh, is it? Okay, so from New Orleans, but in Asheville. Not from New Orleans. I've been living there for 10 years. I'm originally from Omaha, Nebraska. Wow, all over the map. I'll say. You're getting a taste of everywhere. All right, so where did this unauthorized evacuation take place? This unauthorized evacuation took place in my hometown in Omaha. Surprisingly, not New Orleans. I would imagine plenty of people have shit themselves in the morning. Oh, yeah, yeah. I got bourbon-faced on shit street. It's my favorite shirt. That's a great t-shirt, isn't it? Yeah. So, yeah, this took place in Omaha circa 2012.

26:00I have to provide some context in two ways. The first is I had a very boring day job. So to spice things up a bit, I took a job moonlighting as a bartender. It was at this three-story sushi and sake lounge called Blue Sushi. They now have like 20 locations across the country, a couple in Nashville, by the way. Shout out to my homies at Blue Sushi. It's arguably the busiest restaurant in Omaha. Very high volume, very popular. And the other thing you need to know is I lived in an apartment building across the street. This was all in the Old Market District of Omaha. I also have to tell you about Jason, who was the manager of our apartment building.