Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card VIII

0:01Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dax Shepard, and I'm with Monica Padman. Hi. And Sharon Beasley. Hello. Today is wild card. It's going to get wild. Let's see. Yep, they all delivered again. Wow. Yeah. Do we need a trigger, pun intended, warning? It is a trigger, right, because actually there might have been some abuse. Oh. Potentially, we talk about. We're not sure. But anyway, you got to listen. I'll just say don't eat when you're listening to this one, too, because the last story is fucking nuts. Don't masturbate while you're listening to this one because it might make you go crazy.

0:39Okay, okay. All right. Please enjoy Wild Card. Hard times come and go. Good times take them slow. My life, I had them old. Remember one thing you gotta know. I'm gonna keep on shining. Hello. How are you guys? Good. Is this Jordan? Jordan is my husband. I'm using his account. My name is Gabby. Oh, wonderful. I have a niece named Gabby, and I love her. She's a real spitfire. Is it short for Gabrielle? Gabrielle, uh, with an A at the end. And where are you? Indianapolis, Indiana. You just had the Indy 500? We did. And what happens in town when that show arrives? Can you feel it everywhere or only around the track?

1:32Only around the track, maybe downtown, but out in the suburbs, you're not really feeling too much. Because this is an enormous group of people, right? I want to say like 500 ,000 people spectate that. Oh, yeah. They were sold out this year. How many people can that house? Rob will look it up. 300 ,000? Is that way too much? No. The Coca-Cola 400, well, it's not even called that anymore, but in North Carolina, that race I went to, they had 250 ,000 people. 350 ,000 attendees. 350. Wow. Yeah. Okay. But do you go? You don't go. My parents go, they have the grandfathered tickets, but it's just not my thing.

2:07I think it's really cool that they go super fast left. So you're wildcard, so anything could be on the table. My story takes place when I was about 14 years old. I was a freshman in high school, and I was taking a jewelry class. On this particular day, we had a substitute teacher, and I remember that she wasn't really like an art sub. So she came in, took attendance, and basically left us to our own devices. I had a necklace project to do within that week, and I was almost finished. All I needed was some light buffing. So I head over to the Dremel tool station for a quick polish, and I realized that I have forgotten the hair tie.

2:42And I have very long hair at the time, like almost touching my butt. The class had one major rule. If you had long hair, you had to tie your hair back because we're using power tools. We're using fire, you know, safety first. There's certain tools. Like if you're using a belt sander and your hair gets like, not only is it going to get your hair in there, it's going to pull your face directly into the thing that's dangerous. Yes, definitely not that big. It was a small dremel tool, but I start buffing away, trying to be quick and careful. And someone in the class calls my name and I whip my head around.

3:11And the next thing I know, I can feel the dremel grip some of my hair and yank. So I instantly jerk the tool away from my head and the dremel takes a clump of my hair with it. I'm sitting there stunned and one of my classmates gasps and the entire classroom looks at me and the sub who was probably in for way more than she bargained for takes me straight to the nurse's office now at this point I haven't seen the damage I haven't touched it I'm still filled with adrenaline so I'm not feeling any pain did you even look at the Dremel to see how big of a chunk of hair was around the Dremel? honestly I was just so like is this even happening that I don't really remember the nurse taking me to the office I don't remember it actually happening.

3:54It was just such a blur until they gave me two Advils and an ice pack. Okay. Okay. So the nurses call my sister to the office because she was a junior at the time and my mom who worked just down the road. My sister shows up first, totally confused because she has no idea why she was even called. And the nurses tell her that there was a small accident and that I lost a chunk of hair about the size of a half dollar and then sends her in. Not being adequately prepared for what she was about to witness, I lift the ice pack from my head and there's a bald spot about the size of my palm. No way. Fuck, the size of your palm?

4:29Yeah, right in the front. Oh my gosh. Right where you wouldn't want it. So I want to say that I was holding it together pretty good up until that point. But when she started freaking out, I mean, I lost it and I just started bawling. Yeah. Was there not a ton of blood? There was not. So it was only kind of like prickly with blood from the individual hair plugs, but it wasn't filled with blood or anything. What's lucky is that you could imagine that you would tear off all the skin it was attached to because there's so much hair. I will get to that. Oh, okay. Oh, boy. So my mom arrives. She takes one, looks at me, and has a very similar reaction, you know, like great poker faces in this family.

5:05Eventually, the assistant principal comes in, and they tell me that I need to go home and that I need to stay home for a couple of days. If the spot turns purple or starts swelling, that means I have to go to the hospital immediately. It means that my scalp has disconnected from my skull and the empty space has started to fill up with blood and I would need immediate surgery. Wow. Did they look that up on the computer? Maybe they knew this about these tools and the hair. I imagine they had this prepared because if they're telling us to bring hair ties, they understand the possibilities of what could be happening.

5:35I'm surprised they don't make you do a hairnet. Maybe now. This was almost 15 years ago, but thankfully none of that ever happened. I stayed home for two days and I went back to school and everything was fine. Ish. Yes. my consolation prize was a handwritten laminated note that said I could wear a hat for the rest of the school year, which was very special because hats were against my high school stress coach. We had a protest at my school over hats. Really? It's ridiculous. Like, welcome to the white suburbs. But yeah, there was a walkout that was scheduled and it was about hats. Wow. And we were all outside and I joined just because no one else was in school.

6:11I was kind of opposed to it. Oh, you were. Yeah, it just seemed like a ridiculous thing to protest. But it's also autonomy, which you like. I would have loved to have worn a hat. It just felt like this is what we're protesting over. Oh, wow. Okay. So when I was out there and the big gaggle of people was just after the 90210 episode had aired where they kicked out Tori Spelling from having drank at prom. They weren't going to let her graduate. Donna Martin, graduate! Yes, that's right. So I started chanting, Donna Martin, graduate! And I will say Almost everyone joined in. Nice. And that made the whole thing worthwhile.

6:46The best part of the whole thing was the original teacher came back. She put my clump of hair in a Ziploc bag and thumbtacked it to the cork board in her classroom. Kind of like a weird, slightly horrifying, cautionary tale for anybody with long hair. That was the right move. Like, this is what no hair tie equals. This is a classic Final Destination plot line. Right? You know, Final Destination. I don't. Oh my God. I'm totally out at sea right now. What does that mean? It's a movie series where basically all these people die in crazy ways. Like the tanning bed closes on them and then they fries them.

7:25The lumber truck where all the wood falls off on the highway. See, yes. Every time I'm behind anything where a truck has stuff hanging out, I move lanes. Immediately move. Your hair thing could have easily been a whole final destination. Sucked her whole head off. Yeah. I feel like if I didn't pull it away, which essentially was pulling all of my hair out, it could have been way worse. Like if the Dremel came towards my face. Well, it would have. It would have wound its way up to your skull. And then that thing would have been spinning against your skull and ripping all the hair out. Yeah, it would have been like a chainsaw.

7:56Perfect for a 14-year-old to experience. Absolutely. Oh, Lord. I'm glad you got to wear hats. How long did it take for that to grow back? I had some stunted hair growth for a couple of years. It would grow maybe an inch or two, and then it would just stop. Oh, were you panicked that for life? Yes, but I also have a lot of hair. So I just parted my hair on the other side and it was pretty much fine. What a good attitude. Great attitude. Yeah, admirable attitude. You rarely hear nice toot, but that's a nice toot. Yeah, it is. Lesson learned. Always put your hair back if you're using absolutely anything.

8:29Anyone in the audience that's about to use a Dremel or any power tool. Also, being a substitute teacher has got to be one of the worst things ever because everyone's so disrespectful. That's a good prompt. Oh, substitute teacher, write it down, Wobb. Yeah, because that could either be there was one or you are one. We had teachers written down, but I'll add substitute. Substitute is so specific because you don't know what you're doing. I hate to say this to offend them, but you're a babysitter for the day because you don't know what the fuck they're... You can't teach. No. Yeah. I'm sure she thought she was just going to come, maybe put on her headphones, get a little bit of work done, and now she's taking this poor girl with a bald butt to the nurse's office.

9:06And she's probably like, fuck, I bet the normal teacher would have. Not allowed her. She probably took on that responsibility. If you had final destination, she would have been feeling a lot of guilt. Yes, yes. Well, Gabby, it's delightful to meet you. Thank you so much. My husband is actually the one who introduced me to your show. Is it okay if I go grab him real quick? Of course. Give him one of your ear pods so he can hear us. I will, absolutely. Why can't I remember earbud? Because you want to say ear buds. And that's what it is. It's an ear pod. Air pod. Air pod or earbud. Yeah. And I'm mixing them.

9:37Or a headphone. I'm smashing. I'm conflating. No, not conflating. You're doing a portmanteau. It's a mashup mashup. Portmanteau. Portmanteau? That's when two words come together, I think. Oh, wow. I love when you speak French. There's a baby. There's a little baby in the mix. Oh, my goodness. That's a cute one. A lot of hair. No wonder. I know. This is in keeping. This is mine. It's been Jordan and my daughter, Amelia. Hi, Jordan. So nice to meet you. Great to meet you. And you, Amelia, is she about 10 months old? She's four. Four months? Four months old. Oh, fuck, dude. I thought you were saying four years old, and I was about to have a real panic.

10:18She is four months. She looks like when I started with Delta. She's that size. Big cheeks. Jordan, what brought you to the podcast? It's not normal that the husband introduces the wife. I'm from Gary, Indiana, originally. And I have about a two and a half hour drive. and my mother was going through answer treatments. And I stumbled across you guys and been listening ever since. Oh, that's so nice. I've been to Gary many, many times. You must know Sturgis, Michigan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every time you guys bring up Michigan, I'm like, yeah, the proper place up north. I'm technically from Indiana, but I like to try to pretend I'm from Michigan.

10:55Oh, good. We'd love to have you, Jordan. Thank you. Well, it's so nice meeting you and your family. Thanks so much. Yes, it's great. All right, tell Gabby we said thank you. Bye. Bye. I can't with Amelia. She was so cute. She was. And she's just hanging out. When you're four months old, you just hang out. Wherever they lift you up and carry you, that's where you're at. You're just squish. Yeah. Gosh. You're pudding. Hi, is this Kristen? Yes. You're in a little person's room. I have two little people. One's five and one's three. They're both girls. And does five-year-old sleep on the upper bunk there?

11:33No, actually, she's kind of afraid of the top bunk. So her sister sleeps on the top, and then the five-year-old sleeps on the bottom, and she has a slide. I was just going to ask, does she depart every morning from bed by going down the slide? Yes, or she jumps over. You see this chair right here? Of course, yeah. She'll jump from there onto the chair. She's my kind of gal. I'd love to start my day by sliding down a slide. Yeah, that's so fun. I should figure that out. Add a little playfulness to the start of the day. There's a little shot of adrenaline to wake you up. In what state are you in or country?

12:05Would you like to guess? I feel like you're Midwest. I feel like you're Southern. No. I'll give you a hint. I've met you before at Sprouts. In Texas or in Tennessee? In Texas. Oh, okay. You're in Texas. So, Monty, you were right. I'm a little right. A little right-ish. Yeah, about 30 minutes outside of Dallas in a town called Lavon. Okay, wonderful. And that whole area is really exploded, right? The whole Metropolitan Dale is here? Yes. My husband works in Rockwall and it's crazy. Do you hate it or love it? I'm sure it's brought in new restaurants and stuff. I love it because he's a barber and he owns his own business.

12:39So lots of hair that needs to be cut. Well, tell him from barber to barber, I say hi. Okay. So you have a wild card story, which is our favorite. My dad is definitely the star of the story. I love dads. Yes. He is amazing. His birthday is actually tomorrow. The story takes place in Rolette, Texas. It's about two towns over from me now. The year is 2006. I am 16 years old. And our normal morning routine would be that my dad would wake up at six o 'clock, his alarm clock would go off. And it's so insanely loud. And it was always on 92.5, the classic rock station. Oh, good for him. I like him. So I would hear his alarm clock going off, but I would just stay asleep.

13:25And he would come in and wake me up at about 6 30 i'd get ready we'd be off to bed or off to school that's what monica does wake up and then off to bed yeah you love to paint a lazy picture i know i just made that joke when we were looking at your house two seconds ago i'm doing what i can with what i got so on this one particular day my dad woke up and he just had this weird feeling and he felt like he needed to go look out the front door oh so it's 6 15 in the morning and he goes and looks out the top of the door. We had like one of those little half windows and he sees a man walking up our driveway in the dark.

14:01It's completely pitch black.

14:22So he's confused, like, what is this guy doing? And then And about halfway up the driveway, the guy starts to turn and goes toward my bedroom window, which is in the front of the house. So I had just moved bedrooms into my sister's bedroom because my dad made these really cool shelves. So he turns on the light and the guy runs away. He then kind of tries to act like everything's normal. And he comes and he just wakes me up and I get ready for school. Can I pause you for one second? I want to have a little debate with Monica. Okay, so I would definitely go outside and see what's happening. Yay or nay?

14:59You know I'm going to say nay. You're going to say nay. I understand why you should, but for me, maybe you took care of it by just scaring him. Yeah, yeah. So to add more chaos, like why? Okay, great. My dad is normally like you, Dex. There have been times where there was a guy following my sister home, and my sister called him and was like, what should I do? And my dad said, you need to come home. drive right here would tell you to like drive to a police station but no so this guy's following my sister my dad is outside in his underwear with a shotgun yeah sure sure he built his own shelves i get it for some reason he felt like you monica then i just go to school and he didn't tell me anything he didn't say anything he waited until i got home from school him and my mom sat me down and he's like i really didn't want you to be distracted at school so i didn't tell you this morning.

15:50Then he tells me what happened. And I am completely shocked. I am running through my head. Has he seen me like dancing, getting ready for school? He's obviously some weirdo watching me get dressed. He's probably seen a lot of tank top layering at that time. So much tank top layering at that time. He says, also, I've looked in the flower bed in front of our house. And there's like a part where grass is not growing. It's like a perfect size for two grown men's beets. He has been watching me for a very long time. This is very you. The show. The show. Can I make a request? From now on in the order, I want you to say, this is very much like the show you.

16:41I can't promise that. Not you, then the show. I can't promise it. We were talking for quite a while before I realized, oh, there's a beagle on the ground behind her. Did you think it was a stuffed animal? I thought it was immediately a beagle. And I thought, oh, what a calm beagle. Yeah, I've seen him. And then you moved your head enough. And I was like, oh, we got a second beagle on the bed back there. Oh, my God. Did you see that beagle? No, I did not see that one. I'm now kind of expecting I'm going to discover six or seven more beagles in this room. Oh, my God. It's like a magic eye. Yes, yes.

17:08They start popping out. Yeah, where's Waldo? That is Lady. And that's Ninja. There's only two of them. Okay. You can probably hear this one snoring. I could hear that a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. He snores really bad. They know that I'm nervous, so they wouldn't let me in here by myself. That's so sweet. So cute. So they sit me down. They tell me this has been going on. It's kind of fuzzy a little bit from that point, just because I was trying to absorb all of this information. So my dad's like, we're going to call the police and we're going to report this. So the police come. What I remember my dad asking the police officer is, can I put a bear trap in my front yard?

17:51Literally before you said that sentence, I was like, God, I wish it wasn't illegal to bury a bear trap under some mulch. Then you got them. How does it work? A bear trap? You step on the center and then these jaws snap shut and they go into your leg and then that's on a chain. So you can't go anywhere unless you want to cut your leg God, wow. Yeah. That's crazy you just said that. That's exactly what I was thinking about. I kind of knew that you would be on the same page because you're so very much like my dad. The cop said, no, sorry, unfortunately, you can't do that because then all of the animals and children in the neighborhood are at risk.

18:26There was another, I'm not going to go down this rabbit hole, but there was another time that he did booby trap the backyard. Okay, yeah. The police officer said, no, sorry, you can't do that, but can you give us a description? So my dad is giving the description. And it's a very, very short man, probably like 5 '1". And he says he has the same facial hair as our next door neighbor. We need you to talk to him. So the police go and they talk to both of our neighbors on both sides. They come back and they say, that guy's really weird. He wouldn't look us in the eyes. His wife answered all the questions.

19:02Oh, no. And he was super shady, but without knowing exactly who he is, we can't just arrest him. They're like, we'll patrol your neighborhood every morning at this time. So my dad then takes me to Walmart to get black curtains because we had realized that there was an inch on the side of my blinds that you could see through. He also nailed every window in our house shut, then put a fire bat next to each window just in case the house caught on fire. We can still get out. Oh, smart. OK, I love this. About a month goes by and the police call and they say we caught him. Oh, we need you to come to the police station.

19:45My dad goes without me. I didn't want to go because I didn't want to see him. Spoiler alert. It was the next door neighbor. he lived so close to us that we couldn't file a restraining order in the state of texas though you can have an order that basically says if you come on my property i can do whatever stand your ground law kind of thing how had they caught him did they catch him at your house or someone else's so they tell my dad he was doing the same thing to a girl down the street he's been watching her through her bathroom window and it's like one of those like frosted windows so he thinks that she can't see him.

20:20And this girl, who is in high school, pretends not to see him, kind of walks close to the window and with her bare fist, punches through the window. What? And hits him in the face. He is bleeding. Good for her. Her dad comes out and apprehends him. They call the police, everything. It's insane. Is she a long haul truck driver now? I don't know. Diesel mechanic? My mom asked me, she was like, do you want to go meet her and like be friends with her and talk to her? Form a support group. And I was like, I'm kind of scared of her. Right. What if I get on her bad side and she beats me up? But that's how he got caught.

21:03Wow. How old was he? He had to have been in his 30s. Okay, so not that old. It's hard for you to know when you're that age. Yeah. What happened to him? I know that he's on a registry. I think that he had to deal with some legal ramifications. We didn't have to really deal with him for much longer because the girl down the street, her family, made it really hard for him to live there. They put a sign in his yard. Oh, boy. A little vigilante justice happening. Yes. So he moved very quickly. Oh, his wife. She feels like she has to defend him, kind of. Oh, this is awful. Yeah, like what? Your husband is leaving at 6 o 'clock every morning and then coming back.

21:44And do you think she knows? She was asleep. She was a heavy sleeper. He was sneaking out. No, she knew, but she didn't want to know. I mean, I wonder even if he had like a schedule of the girls in the neighborhood. Like she wakes up at this time and she wakes up, you know? Oh, yeah. Boy, boy. Oh, boy. I'm sorry that that happened in your neighborhood. I'm really sorry that that happened. I wonder where he went. And do you do it again to a new neighborhood? What I would be thinking if I were you from the second your parents told you that I would be so distracted with literally trying to go through every single thing I've ever done in my bedroom.

22:15Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's all I could think. I think that that's for a long time why everything was so fuzzy is because that's all I could think of. The innumerable weird things we do in our bedroom by ourselves. That's kind of universal, I think, is that weird in your bedroom. Oh, God. Well, thank you for telling us that story. Thank you for listening. It's wonderful to meet you a second time and not a chat for much longer. And tell the beagles they did a really good job. Definitely. It's so good to see you guys. And it's really, really great to meet you, Monica. I love you so much. Oh, thank you.

22:47I might need to get a beagle now. You've really sold them. They're really pretty great. Lady can tell when you're nervous, sick, or pregnant. Oh. She's predicted some pregnancies. Yeah. Lola used to do that sit on Kristen's belly all the time. Yeah. They have powers. Oh, all right. Well, much love to you and have a great summer. Thank you. Okay, take care. Those dogs were so calm and nice. Those are not like my dogs. I know. I've been looking at dogs on the street, seeing which ones I like, which ones I don't. Okay. There was one the other day I liked, really fluffy. So you're looking for something maybe more fluffy.

23:25Big, fluffy, but can be mean. You need a doodle. But can also be soft. No, they're not mean enough. Well, they bark like crazy. I know Erin's dogs. If you come to the door, they go bananas. That's really all you need, I think. I guess that's true. I'm looking for more of a wolf type. Oh, husky. Yeah, I like husky. Did you see Maru put up a sign with no animals allowed in? That's a big change. They used to be an animal establishment. There's probably 100 fights. They hated the dogs in the line, remember? Yeah, I was eating at Mustard Seed yesterday at the end of my bike ride. And yeah, this dude comes and he's got a pit bull.

24:01And then this chick comes with like a boxer's pit bull. fighting and they're like parking each other and then the woman's dog literally pulls her into the street and i'm like you can't have a dog that you can't control and they're both so crazy and i was just like get them away from the door see this is how i feel hi hi what name should we say for you i'm gonna go with taylor taylor because of taylor swift you got it monica i knew you would i love it taylor where are you in the country i'm also gonna keep that anonymous these are great starts It's fake name and fake location and a wild card. Let us have it.