Rerelease: Dax's Mom (Laura Labo)

40:12is it a rhubarb? But then by the time he was like four months, he was the cutest little. Oh, he was so adorable. Well, my cheeks really came in powerfully, right? And your head straightened out. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

40:38But then we moved about a mile down the road on Middle Road. To our house. To the house, which this is David, my older brother's utopia. This is the greatest period of his life from five years old to eight years old in Middle Road on property. Right. Yes. Dirt bikes. Yep. A day out of mom. Everything was great. Well, I, in fact, even now in my current home, when I ride my tractor to cut my grass, I often say a secret prayer to myself and say, don't be an idiot. Don't don't blow this this time. This is your happiest. because I remember on middle road being so happy riding the tractor cutting the grass and two little boys I we had a dump cart on the tractor and I'd put the boys in the dump cart and I would take them out in the woods and we would find wild pear trees and pick pears and it was just like heaven it was like everything I ever wanted it was just I was so incredibly happy it was perfect and then things go sideways and we don't need to get into that yeah just 23 year olds being married with two kids pressure he's not home you guys god knows what kind of hanky panky you're both up to but suffice to say you leave dad yes in 1978 yeah i'm three right yep um this is a very bold decision how much fear did you have going into it lots you did i would have left sooner had i not been afraid i was very afraid of how i was going to support you and david i was well aware that it costs money to rent an apartment to buy groceries to do things And I had been a housewife and although I had two years of college, I did not have a degree.

42:12I did not have a skill set other than waitressing. And I really didn't know how I would support you. And I started sending resumes once a month to the GM Proving Grounds. And every 30 days I'd send a new one in. And I got this call and it was in July. And they said, we have a position, a per diem position as a janitor. and i thought jesus i got two years of college don't want to be a janitor and i said how much does it pay and they said 50 75 a day oh that sounds pretty good for 50 dollars and 75 cents a day that was gigantic it was like winning the lotto well in my world anyway i said yeah i'll come down for the interview and i got the job your dad called me he called that afternoon he said how'd your interview go and i go really really good i got the job and he said so you're leaving aren't you oh wow just like that yeah he knew it was in the tea leaves yeah and uh i said yes i am and he said okay wow and uh here's the part that confuses me and of course is um uh exhibit a when i used to build my case against dad and why i hated him how on earth is the decision you're getting divorced he'll he'll keep the house he'll stay there he'll stay in the three-bedroom house on the property and you'll move to a little apartment an adc special yeah yeah i i don't even remember i don't remember just feel like you felt guilty about leaving and taking the kids and you thought then i didn't want to just keep that house he had worked hard he deserved everything i walked away okay i took maybe guilt motivated maybe maybe guilt i mean yeah possibly it could have been guilt because you deserved first of all you deserved half of everything oh i didn't feel that i felt like he had worked really really hard i knew how hard he worked yeah but the part of the deal was you were a house slave who cooked all the meals clean the house raised the two kids so he got to have everything he wanted cut the grass his life was turnkey because he went to work so it was a partnership but yeah yeah at any rate you didn't ask for anything i didn't ask for anything but that just that's always been hard for me to swallow because let's just say if for whatever reason Kristen and I got divorced and she left with the two kids and my two little beautiful daughters were going to go live in a welfare apartment and I was going to stay in our house.

44:32I just I really will never wrap my head around that. Yeah. Maybe it was different times. I don't know. Maybe I raised you better. Not that his parents didn't raise him better. They could not have been proud of that decision. They were your papa was very angry with him because they loved you yeah yeah so you start out on your own you have a job as a janitor we moved to this um you know it was it was the i don't think i'm exaggerating to say it was the worst apartment building in our area it was pretty bad yeah it was pretty rough that one of the one of the tenants who was crazy wanted to murder my brother yeah drove a car up on the grass chasing him with a car tried to kill him yeah uh real crazy stuff happening right out of the gates when we got to this place.

45:17If you've seen that movie about a boy, it's a... Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's similar to that, right? Yeah. It was a rough go. Yeah, so it's a... Boyhood. Boyhood. Is that what it is? The one? Boyhood. Yeah, yeah. Richard Linklater. Yeah. Yeah. Such a great movie. Yeah, when I saw that movie, I cried my eyes out. I thought, oh my God, I'm not the only one that lived this life. And she wasn't bad. She just kept making bad decisions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I've never ever related to a movie more. The scene in that movie where they're at the table and that stepdad is drunk and they're all waiting to see how bad this is going to get i was just like oh my god i've sat in that chair a hundred times and i know oh man did it bring me back god that movie just to me watching the professor come up to her or then professor but later husband come up to her and just be so kind to her and tell her how he thinks the boy is just a wonderful person and oh all boys do this and stuff like that and just baiting her and then seeing her out in the garage and him just talking so horrible about her children and just being slapping her and stuff it's like oh my god this is my life this is my life and I fell for it every time I've always been dying since seeing that movie to talk to him and ask if that was his life I don't know how he could do that that authentically without having had that experience It was a great movie.

46:41So you now when you start as a janitor, you don't start on night shift, do you? No, I started on day shift and I worked six weeks as a janitor and there was a posting for an opportunity to go into material control. So I applied for that and they had never had women in material control. And what material control is, is not only do you unload trucks and you put parts away, but they send you to school and you learn how to build a car top to bottom and so when you're in an environment that they're using current model cars and that are a mix of future model cars you're always trying to figure out parts when they're yeah they're using old parts to create right so you have to realize yeah and so anyway so i i went through that training so i went from day shift to afternoon shift to midnight shift and then after the training was done then I was on afternoon shift for a couple years and then I was on midnight shift and in midnight shift then I went to fleet operations and I started working with computers and and how are you juggling because you didn't have babysitters when we lived in middle road but now you have to like have a pretty full-time assistance right because we're yeah because I'm three so you're dropping me at my little cottage or whatever when you were three you went to my little cottage in milford uh-huh and david went to school and david went to school so that was day shift and when i went to afternoon shift that's when i ended up with the babysitter cycle and that was it must have been so stressful i when i think of moms today that work it's your job is not the hard part keeping the house up is not your hard part the hard part is solving daycare yeah it's a constant solving daycare.

48:27Yeah, because these are young hourly employees, so they're calling in all the time, right? Or they're just not in the mood. Oh, they quit. They don't show up, you know. Yeah. And, you know, you're constantly, at first you start out with these, I'm not leaving my kids with anybody that's not, you know, I interview them and make sure they're really good people. And by the end, you're like, oh, their eyes were open. If you find a stranger on the street that'll sit there with them, because you've got to be at work, because now you're on probation, because you've missed days because of babysitters.

48:54Oh, man. Sounds so stressful. It's horrible. So you're also you're at work on, I assume, afternoon shift one time and you get a call from one of our babysitters. And what what happens? I hear this for the babysitter was Robin Wakeford. And she says, I need to put Dax on the phone. And I said, what's happened? And she says, I'm going to let him tell you. And she was clearly upset. And I hear this little voice come on and you're like three and a half, four years old. and I hear this little voice. I said, Dax, did you do something bad? I threw a fucking rock through the auto parts window. And I...

49:37Now, I want you to know, I did not condone him using this language and I did not encourage this language. And so I said, wait a minute. And I pressed speaker and I let my coworkers hear this. It was so hilarious. and i was presumably um first of all my older brother urged me to throw the rock through the auto parts window and then i have to imagine he also gave me the line to tell you i mean he must have suggested i say he threw a fucking rock through the uh yeah he and i got no we were really um you were starting to feel the first part of being unsupervised which by the way are some of the highlights of my childhood is that we were also we would just stand on the side of the road we'd throw shit at cars and i threw a mat my david told me to throw this car mat and it hit a guy's windshield and the guy swerved off the road then he chases my brother left me in the dust the man caught me uh there was just you know it was the beginning of a lot of mischief i think suffice to say that i just was in florida the other day and my brother tom was telling me stories about you and when i wasn't around when you would visit grandma for the uh-huh in the summer and um suffice to say everybody that knows you and david would say things behind my back that i'm now learning about how awful you guys were yeah yeah they were terrorists they were a tag team mm-hmm um this isn't in defense of my bad behavior but um what because i started saying when you were on day shift uh you came home i'm sorry afternoon shift we were asleep and you shook us awake and you said come on let's go let's get in the car and it's like two in the morning i know where you're going you have cans of spray paint and we go to a apple orchard that is down the road from our house and this apple orchard what did the sign say it said pick your own apples and so i encouraged the kids we sprayed over the word apples and we wrote the word nose so that the billboard said pick your own nose for five cents or something and we but it was like a middle of the night operation well and how about when we took the sign and put it on ray barns store that said hard salami because i knew he was courting that girl and we brought that and i painted the water tower happy birthday david and yeah scaled the fence to paint the water tower spray paint so it was in your it was yeah i think we came by it honestly oh there were many many scotch taping the placemats and the nap.

52:10That's one of the funniest. My mother always carried scotch tape in her purse for, I don't know why. Um, but, um, one of the things was we were at an ice cream shop in Greek town in downtown Detroit, and there were two workers. One of them was behind the counter. The other one was dead asleep, clearly hung over, uh, at a table. And the guy that was alert kept nudging him going, Hey man, my shift's over in five minutes. You got to wake up and run the place and the guy's like oh yeah no problem i'm on it so that the responsible one leaves his shifts over the other guy goes right back to sleep so we're just in this uh ice cream parlor unattended unattended and so my mom goes oh i have tape in my purse let's make signs that say build your own all you can eat sundays 25 cents which at the time was they were that was free that was a hell of a bargain so we sat there we must have took 30 minutes we made big signs with crayons and then we taped it to the window and then we went across the street and we just sat there and watched we sat on the curb and watched and more and more people start going in there right now the place is getting very full of people who want this incredible deal and of course the guy sleeping's now up but he can't put two and two together and there's a lot of folks in there before you finally see him go to the window and tear the signs down where he figures out why oh boy that's a good prank monica yeah you guys are good pranksters yeah so um we are you know again in my memory we're there for a while but probably we're not like by my now timeline we're not in those apartments long huh we're in there one year one year okay oh and i just want to add one thing that was so great about my mom my brother was obsessed with kiss and um she knew he was bummed that we were leaving middle road and everything his motorcycle So she hand painted murals of every member of KISS on her wall and she did a phenomenal job.

53:58It was really sweet. And I use metallic paint and I painted it on the wall opposite of the street light outside. So at night the light would come in and it had silver. Make a street. Oh, wow. It was pretty darn good. That's cool. You probably didn't get your deposit back because of that. No. So we then moved. We moved to at the end of Main Street, which was a step up. this is i told the story the other day that we had jewish neighbors and that was the first jewish people i met and i couldn't figure out what was different about them other than that they drove a beetle bug and i assumed all jewish people drove beetle bugs i was like oh i guess that's what's different about that i don't really know what's different about them you were a human scab in that place because you were learning to ride a two-wheeler yes crashing regularly um but you at this point now you meet we can say his name because he's passed away uh you meet greg who's a friend of my dad's and you guys fall in love quite quickly yeah yeah yeah quick courtship and then you get married and when you guys are dating he has two jobs very productive and then you guys get married and he has zero jobs and then he has he goes down to zero jobs right and uh we're not there too long either right how long are we at the end of main street a year a year and um so this This marriage goes south quickly.

55:16And I think you could be very illuminating to a lot of us because when I have been on the outside, listening to women who are caught in a cycle of an abusive relationship, it's so hard for me to comprehend how you could stay in that. And you are a very, very strong woman. And so I think it would be enlightening to know what what is happening mentally when you're going through that, because you don't take shit from anybody yet. You ended up taking shit from somebody. Right. Yeah. Boy, I think what goes through is I had kids again. And I'm thinking about one of the things that was an issue with him was he was unable to tell the truth and he was a drug addict.

56:06And so I had gone from being self-supporting with you and David to marrying him and taking on a ton of debt because he was constantly charging things at a gas station that the guy would give him cash so he could put it up his nose and things like that. So by the time I was aware that this was not a good situation, I need to leave, I need to get my kids out of this, I need to get me out of this, it was like I was so in debt. What am I going to do? How am I going to support this? How am I going to move on? That was one issue, and that was a big issue because, again, you know, I'm pretty logical.

56:41That's a pragmatic issue, yeah. Right. But the emotional issue is I was brought up super-duper Catholic. and I being divorced from your dad was to say sinful and a disappointment to my parents would be an extreme understatement and I felt a lot of shame about that and so now here I am married less than a year it's a very bad situation I've been kicked around the kitchen bounced off the floor humans do bounce um and uh i i need to get away and yet i cannot admit defeat i cannot the failure the second failure thing was so i was so ashamed uh-huh so so ashamed and it was just beyond me to you know like i'll just try harder i'll just try harder i'll figure this out yeah and it was just a very bad situation did you guys go to counseling or anything the first time um i was physically abused um i kicked him out and um i stayed in the house this time i was getting smarter um i kicked him out and his mom called me and really pleaded his case and how sorry he was and he would go to counseling so okay i took him back and we went to counseling i'm gonna say maximum two times and that was the end of the counseling he was not up for that and so then the behavior was repeated again sure um counseling didn't work talking about it didn't work and then it happened again and when it happened again i didn't know it but i was pregnant with carly and i uh right away the next day um a friend of mine came over nels yeah and he yep he uh changed all the locks on my door and he bandaged me up he was so nice and i went to the lawyer and I was sitting in the lawyer's office and they said are there any children from this marriage and I said no and then I started thinking oh my god like it started occurring to you at that moment I'm pregnant it occurred to me when was my last period oh my god if I'm late I'm pregnant I'm never not pregnant oh my god and I just had this real like oh and I didn't say anything to the lawyer I went down in the lobby I called your dad from a pay phone and i said oh my god i think i'm pregnant i just you know i just filed for divorce and i think i'm pregnant and your dad said to me tell them it's mine i won't deny it and i'll take care of it just go ahead and divorce them and um and he said unless you want to have an abortion and if you do i'll drive you and you know i'll be supportive so i said i i can't afford three kids i just can't i there's just no way i can do this alone right so i scheduled i went to the doctor scheduled um an abortion uh-huh and um when i went for the abortion my doctor um said let's just see if we can get a heartbeat see how far you are and he put it on speaker and i heard the heartbeat and i believe very much in abortion i think it's a necessary option for people that need an option uh-huh but for me i could not do it right and so i decided to have So then I was single and pregnant with two kids.

1:00:02And it was just like I would I remember riding my bike in Oxford Acres and I would ride past people's houses and I would see their lights on and think that they were all having dinner together as a family. And I would cry on my bike and say, why can't I have this? Why? Why am I? I'm so not good at this. I just can't figure this out. It was awful. Yeah. It was a bad time in my life. And financially, I was just so because I had to provide him a car. I had to pay him half the house. But but but that's that's down the road because he then joins us in terror and he lives there when Carly's born. He came back for a short period of time again.

1:00:42That's my memories of him being violent is in that house. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he was a very physically imposing guy. he was like a athlete. He had played in the minor leagues for the Red Sox or something. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and he was, uh, you'd come home from work and Carly would be crying and he, Carly had pooped her diaper, right? The worst one was, um, I, well, he, he kept the car. So he had a car, so he would drop me off at work. I work afternoons and he's supposed to pick me up at midnight and on several occasions he would get hammered and not show up and there was a time i walked from the proving grounds at midnight back to expert acres oh jesus yeah and there were times that nels would be suspicious and nels would come back and give me a ride nels was my gay friend he was just the most wonderful buddy anyway um this one particular time he did not show up did not show up and um nels and this other girl my little buddies they were suspicious and they came back to the proving grounds like at one o 'clock in the morning and i'm still sitting there waiting for greg to pick me up and uh they came and got me and they drove me home and they said you know we'll come in the house with you because again nels was very suspicious of what would be the situation we opened the front door again what a brave sweet guy because he was not physically imposing to throw himself in that situation he was such a good friend and um we opened the door and smoke is billowing out the front door.

1:02:18The smoke alarms are going off. The stove is on fire. Flames shooting out of the fire. And my children are asleep. All three of them are asleep in the house. And he is passed out drunk on the family room floor. And the house is on fire. The steaks are on fire in the stove. Oh, my God. And it was like, okay. so you know nels is putting out the fire diane's helping me get the kids out of bed and out on the front lawn to breathe you know i just it was like that's that's very chaotic yeah it was very chaotic so shortly after that there was the the breakfast departure which we all know the story of the breakfast departure well but there was another there was another moment in that that i think you considered killing him at one point.

1:03:09Yeah. Yes. Yeah. One time I had been beat up pretty bad, badly. And I was really in bad shape and I was up in the bedroom, locked in the bedroom. And he eventually passed out on the couch in the family room. And I got up because it was quiet. And I came down into the kitchen and I had a cast iron skillet that Grammy also had given me. and I I took the skillet and I went to the couch and I stood over him. and I was so black and blue all over I mean my logic was I'm going to take the cast iron skillet and I'm going to hit him on the head and I'm going to smash his brains out and when the police get here they will see how physically beat up I am and it will be self-defense and it'll be okay and I stood for a very long time and then two thoughts ran through the first one which was not the most overpowering which was if i don't kill him in the first swing he'll get up and use the pan on me yeah the second thought which is the one that won was if you kill him and if you don't get off on self-defense the kids will be alone i cannot lose my kids i went back upstairs and locked the door and i did not do it but that's how desperate i was i was very i mean and we saved you a couple times throughout your life right that same rationale where you were contemplating hurting yourself and that kind of was the life raft yeah that's it because i knew because at that time your dad was using very heavily and my family lived far away yeah and it was like i was literally all that you guys had right yeah and i knew that carly dad couldn't raise the three of us yeah yeah yeah i knew that this was yeah i could not if you're wondering why would i just drag my mom down this terribly traumatic memory lane i think what's really powerful and amazing about your story is if you are 28 years old right now and you're getting beat up and your life is miserable and you think that's it and that's the rest of your life what's coming is so beautiful and there's so much ahead there was so much ahead for you i can't imagine in those moments you felt like there was so much ahead for you there was so much i i was so far in debt and it was such my self-esteem was so smashed it was so it was such a horrible horrible time that looking back on it i'm amazed that was my life i'm amazed you know because it feels like someone else's or a movie or something it really does yeah it really because you know well even i would say even at 17 you know being pregnant and my father was very disappointed to me and made some very hurtful remarks to me and i would say to anybody that is in that situation any bad decisions that you've made that you got yourself there that was that decision and tomorrow is another day and you can choose again right dust your knees off you can you can choose again yeah you keep picking yep you're saying to yourself Monica that oh my god I've met this lady a lot of times I would never think she'd be that stupid to be in a situation like that no that's the opposite of what I was thinking I was thinking that how easy it is to get there so easy it is so easy and I think it's easy to say like I would never it would never be me I would be stronger people that are like that in my opinion are such top drawer bamboozlers yeah I mean there's been books that have been written called smart women foolish choices and it's like I know really smart women that are incredible I worked with a lady that she was like my role model and she was really a great person and sent herself to school to become an engineer then got a master's in business and just did all sorts of things and I know two different times that she was in relationships that she just like would come home from a business trip and her Her husband was in bed with another woman or met this guy and he promised her the moon.

1:07:27And all he did was ring up her charge cards and stuff and not work and left her in complete debt. Like, yeah, it happens because we want to believe we want. Exactly. I think that people underestimate that power. But also that I'm sure what is maybe hard to admit after the fact that he was also giving you something. He was in or at some point did. Yeah. so there's also that that well maybe that'll come back or that was well i think that there's there's something else involved here that maybe i don't know if anybody else can relate to this but um maybe it's only the time or the era that i grew up in but being prom queen or being the head cheerleader are all those things that we when we're very young and impressionable and you know we haven't got things figured out those things kind of cement like i don't want to say maybe values or criteria to judge yourself by goals yeah and so i think that we become for me somebody telling you you're pretty and that they want you to be desired and those butterflies that you feel in a relationship become very addictive they're absolutely i mean it's a it's a high for sure.

1:08:43It's a drug. Yeah. And so like any other drug, it's like I feel like when I would get in that situation and what would happen was the cycle was that I would get out of a very bad relationship. And so then I would be alone because I'm not going to be bamboozled again. And I just need to protect my kids and be with my kids. And you get so lonely that the first person that comes along that suspects that feeds into that and supplies you that drug again. Yes. And so there you are down that path again. Yeah. That validation I think is, um, the most powerful. And I, and I, and I, and while I take responsibility for my own actions, I, I think that a lot of our society really sets females up for that.

1:09:25I mean, every advertisement is you look hot and then a guy, you get that validation. Yeah. That's how you find love. Yeah. It's rough. So when I finally met Dave Barton by then I was so jaded. Yeah. That when a nice guy came along, I mean like I remember we went a couple of years where he had an engagement ring for me that I just would not accept because every time he would say, I would say, I'm not good at this. Yeah. I'm not good at this. Yeah. The pattern shows one thing. So how could. I'm a failure at this. I can't, I can't, I don't know how to be married. Yeah. But then you did it. I finally did it.

1:10:09And it's surprising that I did do it because even if Dak can tell you the day of my wedding, David begged me not to do it. He said, I can't pick you up again, mom. Wow. Yeah. I'm sure we'll talk about it, but I want to know how you met him. Blind date. Oh. Oh. I'd never figure it out on my own. Yeah, that's what it took. Somebody. Yeah. Honestly, if I had to figure it out on my own, I still believe that. Like if I should ever date again, which right at this moment I have no intention of, I would not date without like Dex picking up the person or something, you know, like somebody I trust. That's how I feel.

1:10:48OK, the one little thing I want to go over before we move off of Greg and Tara and all that is to me, I feel like this is where my first introduction to being a love addict kind of starts because and by the way, these are my fondest memories alive. So I'm not being critical of this. I'm just aware of it. You worked so much. You had so much going on. You were so fucking tired. You were cleaning the house. You were making all of our meals. I sincerely don't know how you do it. Kristen, I can barely do it with Carly helping and Monica helping and everyone helping and having money. I don't know how it was done.

1:11:25I don't think you do either. But the way we dealt with that is Saturdays, we would often just get in the bed. we'd get we'd be allowed to come to your room and we would lay in bed virtually all day long and snuggle is that your memory of it oh my it's my favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite memory in my whole if you know how if you could time travel yes the moment i would go back to would be those weekends where we would start in the morning we would have breakfast in my bed and Carly was little and she would crawl around on us and David was reading David Copperfield in school required reading and I would read chapters of David Copperfield and we would all be snuggled under the covers and we would spend the whole day it would be like lunchtime oh I'd go down to the kitchen and bring more food back up and we would just it was just so so happy it was the best it was and it was euphoric and it was drug-like and it was so opposite of the rest of the week that i got this association with like i don't even know how to describe it but just like real highs lows highs lows highs lows and not even like i i when i think back in that time there is a period of my childhood where i do remember being lonely which is coming up but at that time I don't feel that I remember like being friends with Trevor and I had all these friends and I felt like you were around enough and then I remember those Saturdays but clearly now that I have kids and I'm aware of how much time my job affords me with them and I recognize well there's no way yours could have afforded that much time you know um I was probably on my own more than say my kids are or whatever is even I just remember like when I was on midnights that I would try to stay awake during the day with Carly.

1:13:19And that was why I took midnight so I could still be with Carly. And then I would leave at, you know, 1145 to get to work. But after dinner and Carly was in bed, I would lay on the floor with you and David because I wanted to have time with you and be with you. So we'd put the pillows on the floor by the TV and you guys would watch your TV show and I'd have one of you on each side of me with my arm around you they were such terrorists i would be so tired and i'd be asleep and i would hear them they would like clap their hands really louder they'd say or i'd hear them say mom mom and i'm half asleep i'm so tired and they would say we're taking the car we're going up to kroger can we have money all right and i'd say see my purse let me also add on top of all the um the the jobs and the divorce and everything that was going on David and I were also fucking terrible kids I mean we fought non-stop we were constantly in a fight that you were separating us you wanted my attention yes boy do we we fought non-stop oh I can only imagine what it was like the only thing so anyways you and Greg um you get divorced and then you meet another man we'll keep him anonymous because he's still alive and uh you've now been through this twice what what was it that this time around you're like fuck it I think this I'm gonna go for it again did you have to talk yourself into that or i um very candidly i will tell you that we had a visit from my in-laws and uh they were sitting in the family room and they started openly talking about how good my two stepchildren were and how awful my three biological children were because we had custody of all five and they started talking about it and i said to them very uncomfortable with you speaking badly about my children and I need to ask you to stop and they kept going and I asked him again and when they kept going a third time which I actually think it was choreographed by my ex-husband and um I just stood up and I yelled down to your bedroom Dax, pack your shit.

1:15:33We're out of here. And I went in the kitchen and got a garbage bag. And I went to Carly's bedroom and started throwing her shit in and my shit in. And, and we, Dax came running up from the lower level with his bag and David ran out of his bedroom with his bag and we got in the car. But what had happened just prior to this happening was all in one weekend while they were visiting. And I was so. Well, just really quick. Cause we skipped over you met a man at work and you married him and he had two kids. So now there were five of us kids and this man had to travel during the winter time. And so you were often throughout the winter left with five kids now and also a full time job.

1:16:13And I was going to school at night. Right. And I I did not have a problem with his kids. I actually loved his kids very much. And I felt very much like in that movie. I felt bad when we separated that I had to cut off that relationship. Yeah. And did you get a different awareness about how hard it is to be a step parent? Oh, like prior. Right. Because before it's just you're seeing through the lens of you would probably want Greg to be a better stepdad or whatever. Yeah. And until you're in a situation like that. Right. It's hard to imagine what a hard fucking role that is. I don't know how people do it.

1:16:48Honestly, I admire anybody that can do it successfully. And I gave it my all. In fact, I remember seeing a therapist at the time and saying, I just can't bake enough cupcakes to make this right. It just was the hardest. You're dealing with kids that have a lot of baggage because they've been a battleground for their parents to fight their property in a divorce. And they're damaged. And you're trying to blend them with your kids. And you have a partner that has his baggage and your kids that have their baggage. and it's everybody living in one house and it's just yeah it was horrid and wow it's just striking me as you were talking about this because i have this terrible chip on my shoulder about rich people that i wish i could get rid of i aim to get rid of it but i do wonder if it was that's where it maybe started is that they were perceived as higher class than us he had been raised the stepdad had been raised in a in a family with money and they were kind of upper class and we were shitty or maybe i was even reminded no she she even made comments about how bad our english was and our manners and our manners and our grammar and mine as well and what she even said when we got engaged she said to me she said well of course congratulations i want rick to be happy and she said um uh of course we would be happy for rick to remarry if he if he should find a nice girl and i heard that pretty loud and clear yeah yeah and then his father actually told me one time that i was the worst thing that ever happened to their family so oh really yeah and then the fact that we went at christmas and we watched them open presents and everybody got presents except my children and carly was like three years old and carly kept waiting very patiently for her turn to open a present oh wow it just ripped my heart out it was just so yeah that that that go around was um very hard on my self-esteem yeah hard on your self-esteem because this was a much different version now and again we'll edit out his name um this was um whereas greg was physically abusive this was very mentally abusive right this person was incredibly intelligent um very very tight i looked up to him yeah he had patents and and he jogged marathons and he raced motorcycles he was like he was incredible he was crushing at life and he was uh he looked like the marlboro man he was he was everything a girl would want in a husband i mean when you were shopping you would think oh my god this guy is a deal he's like one step away from a surgeon yeah he was excellent and then it became very apparent to me very quickly in the relationship that he was very very to to to dump out the silverware drawer on the floor and say that i was pig because i didn't stack the forks in the drawer or the meat wasn't filed in the freezer as in beef all goes with beef and pork all goes with pork and chicken all goes with chicken and i'm a very neat person yeah i'd say so very clean house tidy um i was often told i was a pig and controlling is oh yeah and also yep because i started really believing it i started really you were trash i did believe I was really trash and low rent in that.

1:20:06How long were you married to him? Two years. Again, now this is something that in my mind occupies. That's what I was about to ask. 20 years. Yeah, it's like a chapter, but it's not. It's like a few pages. And I'll also say this. Tons of great stuff came out of that. Oh, heck yeah. That guy who, you know, I disagree with all the ways he treated my mom and us, taught me how to be very present and mindful of what I was doing and thinking about how I was moving through the world. And he was so smart. He could answer any question. Um, he, uh, he was a crazy good example of like just the intellectual life and, and, and pursuing things passionately.

1:20:48And he got, he's probably why I race motorcycles and race cars, very physically fit. He believed didn't exercise you know the running marathons and yeah there were like all it was such a mixed bag of things oh this is what i was going to say the number one thing he gave me is that i am like him in in a lot of ways and i will be on the verge of saying who didn't squish the sponge out before they put it back that's how it gets mold right i'm like the sentence is on the tip of my tongue and i go oh i know what it's like to live with someone like that and it's fucking miserable deal with the fucking mold on the sponge or whatever thing i want to say it's not being done to my standards.

1:21:24I'm grateful I had an example of what it feels like to be on the business end of that. It's it's grueling. It's exhausting. And you just can't do it right. And you're never going to do it right. And it's so I thank him for giving me somewhat of an awareness for that. I got to the point living with him and we were in therapy, you know, almost our whole marriage. And I just got to the point where I just realized this is not going to get better. and there's nothing I can do to make it better. And then subsequently, the next thought in my head was, and I cannot go home to my parents and tell them I'm getting divorced again.

1:22:03I cannot tell people at work I'm going to get divorced again. I cannot drag my kids through another divorce. I cannot do that. The only option is to die. And so I had a friend at work that had given me a key to her house and I told me she I never confided in her never told her anything that was going on in my house but she had an antenna and we were not close girlfriends we were just work friends and she walked into my office one day and said here's the key to my house she was single here's the key to my house if you ever need a place for you and your kids to come you are always welcome and your children are welcome as well that's ann oh that's so cool yeah well she ended up being a therapist a yeah alcohol and substance abuse therapist yeah but anyway she walked out and i thought why would she do that i nobody knows what's going on she knew i mean it was so obvious she was an angel she was an angel and i'm so forever grateful for her i mean there's so much she gave me yeah and And so anyway, I was having just a horrific day one day.

1:23:13And I went to her house. She wasn't home. I opened her garage. And I pulled my car in to, I was going to run the exhaust and kill myself. And I went in and I knelt down on the floor to, I forget what I was doing now, kneeling down on the floor to get something. Oh, to suck the tailpipe. You wanted to get close to the tailpipe? Yeah. This is brutal. It is brutal. And I had on white pants. And all of a sudden I realized, Jesus, her garage floor is dirty. My pants are going to get dirty. And the absurdity of that, that I was going to kill myself, but I was concerned about my pants getting dirty. I went into a hysteric laughing thing, opened the garage drawer, drove the car out, and said, no, I've got to fix this.

1:24:01You can't just run away from everything. You have to fix this. Now, while all that's happening, which is, you know, the personal life is not is not thriving. You are climbing the ladder at General Motors very successfully for someone without a college degree and a woman. Yes. Against many odds. You end up at this point, you're the you're a fleet manager, right? Which is a good supervisor over three departments. Right. So you're a baller now at GM. you've you've done very well and they start they have this wonderful thing for the employees at the GM proving grounds they have a family day and they invite everyone to bring their family and the proving grounds if you have no awareness of it is this you know dozens of square miles of race track it's Disney world for cars there's hill climbs there's tracks that you don't have such steering wheel if you're going 70 miles an hour it's just a blast and so you started volunteering because you wanted overtime, if I remember correctly, to start organizing this huge event that they would have at the Proving Grounds.

1:25:02So you're doing that. You do that a few years in a row, I guess. And the Longley Press show. Yeah. That they had out there. Yeah. Right. So you're dabbling in this side thing just for overtime, which is basically event planning and execution. So you get an offer to go work at an ad agency in Detroit, which is Cambly Wall, which at the time had the General Motors account. I don't know if they still do or not, but, um, Chevrolet account, Chevrolet account. Okay. Um, and then you are now working in advertising, which again, pretty miraculous because there's no reason they should have hired you for that.

1:25:37Right. I started as an account executive in, um, what do they call that product information. And by the time I left two years later, I was vice president in motor sports, um, merchandising and marketing. Yeah. And you You loved that job, right? Loved it. Loved it. But the only drawback was that to be in that job, you really should be a single person. You really needed to put in a lot of hours. And it was very, very hard for me with three kids. Yeah. Yeah. And just having left a husband and trying to. So let me also fluff your pillows. So with all that going on, a divorce, a new job, my mom says, I'm going to build my own house.

1:26:18Always wanted to. This is something I can do myself. Since I read Henry David Thoreau in high school, and he said that it's as fitting and proper to build your own house as a bird builds a nest. And I said to myself, I'm going to do that someday. And you decided to do it right in the eye of a hurricane. I actually paid cash for the property because your brother David had given me a stock tip. He was in high school, and he was taking a class in school and was watching stocks, and he told me to buy Consumers Power. Oh, really? And it went, it like, I forget, he'll tell you, but it tripled or quadrupled or something.

1:26:54Oh, no kidding. So I had the cash and I paid cash for the lot off of Herb and Margaret Hoover. And then I went out and thought, because I didn't think there was going to be any issue with building my own house, being my own contractor. And I went to the banks and as a single. With zero building experience. I'm not going to say they laughed at me outright. I'm just going to say there was some snickering. But so I went when I bought the property, Herb said, if you need a building loan, I would be happy to loan it to you. But I thought I'll go to a bank. Right. I'm not going to do that. So I went back to Herb and said, are you still interested in giving me a building loan?

1:27:27And he said, absolutely. And the guy had met me just two times. Wow. And but he just believed in me. And so I took that loan in. So while you were doing that job, which was very labor intensive, it was fabulous. You then started building a house and we did stuff like run the wire, us kids. And my favorite part is there was a painter who you had employed that we regularly had to go. We knew what bar he hung out at and he in the most, the loveliest man ever. But we would have to go as a family and urge him to leave the bar and continue working on the house. Right. Yes. He didn't just paint. He roughed it in.

1:28:07He did a lot of things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you built a house, which was our first really nice house. It was a turning point in my life because I found out that when you build a house, like anything in life, that you dig the hole one day. You don't build the whole house. You just dig the hole. And then, you know, you can get a book on it, which now you would go online, but I had bought a book. And the next thing after building the house, you need to, you know, pour the basement walls. And then you have to, you know, put the cap on the floor. and then you build the walls and then you do the rough plum and you do the rough.

1:28:44And I learned that everything was just one step at a time and that you didn't have to conquer the whole thing. And then pretty soon you actually have a house. And it was like this huge victory to me. It was this, look, I could do it. If I could do this, I could do anything. Yeah, it's the climbing a mountain one footstep at a time metaphor. But I'd never internalized that concept prior to this. It was really a big, big moment. And if you focus on the little steps and not the overall project, you can kind of do things. And I want to give credit where credit is due. I want you to know that while I was doing this, I worked for Brent Morgan and Brent Morgan, I probably could have done it without him.

1:29:25However, thank God for Brent Morgan, because Brent Morgan would give me so many little tips like any new guys and stuff. Oh, he would recommend people and he would tell me, you know, like, did you did you go prop those basement walls? You know, you got to walk out basement. You really need to brace those walls before they do this because you know you could have trouble with it and it was like how do i brace the walls and he would tell me and i'd say okay and i'd go out there and do it you know but like what a great person to be in my i've had so many really awesome people in my life a lot of mentors along the way oh i'm so grateful stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare

1:30:08so while you were working at campbelly wall you've now built this house that we now live in and to me weirdly when i think of my childhood even though time-wise it's not the bulk of where we lived my childhood is those three years in milford michigan before i'm your middle road it's my middle road totally yeah we had a big yard and a nice house i was so proud of it and uh half pipe in there i met aaron weekly the love of my life when i hired in at camp leewald one of the things i said in the interview was that i was starting a business and that i would need time off for that business from time to time and they agreed to it ah and i was on salary with them that's great yeah i had a great interview and a great it was a real good thing but what it was is brent morgan called me said hey listen there's a new person at chevy pr doing long lead.

1:30:55And I bet if you called her, she could really use some help putting it together. And so I called Janet Echoff and I said, hey, you know, I understand you're doing long lead. I've done it before and I would be happy to contract. And she went in to talk to Ralph Kramer, who knew me. And that afternoon they called me back. And that afternoon I went in and I had a purchase order. And that was the start of the business. Right. So that was your first bit of business, your first job. And this starts, you, of course, do a great job because you're so competent it's crazy you do a great job on that and that starts leading to more and more shows and how long are you working at Campbell Ewald and before you decide I'm going to quit Campbell Ewald and do this full-time and how scary is that two years and it was very scary um I um when I finally did make the release it was um it was tough financially the first year of shows and shoots.

1:31:50I think I made 31 ,000 gross. Oh boy. And so I had to pay payroll out of that and expenses and feed you guys. It was, it was a little sketchy. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but we did it. Right. But we did it. And then we doubled the next year and we doubled the year after that. And pretty soon it was a real full fledged business, but you did not heed your father's best advice, which was the, the tube steak steak story, which he told all members of the family. And he very much urged people that when you can afford a steak, just go ahead and eat steak and stay in your position. Don't don't climb up and then eat tube steak again.

1:32:28Right. Just at some point, eat steak and be where you're at. But you didn't follow that. Right. Anytime we had an opportunity to live somewhere nice. I guess what I'm saying is we were never like on super solid ground when we would make these leaps like out of the main street to Tara. That was by the skin of our teeth. And then obviously this house was by the skin of our teeth. Yeah, my theory has always been, I think because I was a waitress when I was young, is if I have to bet on me, if it's a 50-50 chance if I'm going to make it or I'm not going to make it, if I'm the variable, I bet on me any day of the week.

1:33:02Yeah. And that's how I felt. Like, okay, I'm going to start this business. And yeah, I read a lot of businesses fail. But if I've got a 50-50 chance, I'm going to tip the scale. I'm going to do that. And so one show leads to another and then you quit and then you're now doing, I don't know, six or seven shows a year at some point when I'm in ninth grade or something. And then you take on David, my brother, as a partner and you guys start growing this business. Spoiler alert. So where it ends up is that this turns into many, many shows throughout the year. 25 years. For 25 years, you had this business and the shows where the events turned into a fleet management business where we would house all these General Motors cars that would get lent to journalists around the country.

1:33:46So then we were delivering cars, managing fleets, receiving cars, prepping them. And then you get asked because you do a great job at this to service other zones in the General Motors world. And then at its height, there was a shop in Chicago. you had a partner shop down in Atlanta you had some set up down in no not New Jersey but down in Texas down in Dallas you had a shop and at one point you had how many employees 42 42 employees and you're managing hundreds of cars yeah and it was a big big company it's so impressive it's really really mind-blowing thank you and I was in the catbird seat because I was 14 years old and I I went to work for you and I obviously got way more leeway than anyone would give me other than you.

1:34:37And I got to drive all these cool cars, which is all I cared about my whole life is cars. And I go on these, we go to racetracks and I get to do photography with the journalists. And I was encouraged to get sideways in cars and act like an idiot and do donuts. And it was all, everyone was happy when you did that. You got paid at the end of the week, but also suffice to say, the hardest job I've ever had where you would regularly you turn in your hours at the end of a week on long lead in Wisconsin and I was regularly working 105 to 120 hours in one week it's almost impossible you'd have like three hours off a night yeah when I tell people in Hood River that know me now as a retired 66 year old woman that well I own my own business and I worked 100 hours a week you know they're sometimes more than 100 they look at me and I think they think that's not possible you're not working 100 hours right that's an exaggeration but you did you work seven days a week so we had a car show in new york this central launch and we did three weeks seven days a week at least 20 hours a day and it was just but the culture in the environment at shows and shoots was such a party it was so fun it was all young people it was many of my best friends.

1:35:47I loved every one of them. Yeah. And do you think that that was being around that many young people for that period of time was like energizing or did it change your life? It was lifeblood. When I would be with my shows and shoots crew, I just would be so happy. It was just so fun. It was hard work, but we, we always joked and we always had stories and it was just, they were all so beautiful. Every one of them were so beautiful and they were so invested to do a good job and i don't know it was just it was like magic yeah and you're the best boss i've ever had any boss that and i've tried to model you when i've directed movies like i try to work the hardest so that you're encouraging other people i never asked anybody to do something i wouldn't do no you were always if you had to do we would go on these shows and every single night we'd have to prep 120 cars and you would do wheels which is the shittiest job you know whatever it was you always did the shittiest job with all of us and you never went home early and you were always up with all of us.

1:36:45It was great leadership training for me. But as the business is growing, we're in this house. You meet Dave Barton. Dave Barton comes along and he is thus far opposite of what you've generally been attracted to, because you're attracted to kind of people who are bucking the system, who are living out loud, who are attention getters. Right. And here comes this sweet man, an electrical engineer who dresses terribly drives a minivan and is just soft-spoken and not looking for attention he's just the most wonderful human being yes and you but i didn't know it at the start yeah you didn't he didn't he didn't have a fast come online he he didn't uh he wasn't the fast dancer with the hottest moves and you know uh clothes that he couldn't afford and charged.

1:37:36He just wasn't that person. Right. And but slowly he wooed you. And you guys got married when I think I was 16, 15 or 16, 90. Yeah. In 90 and 90. I think that's right, because it would be 28 years this November. So 90. Right. And now let me just ask you, because, you know, in AA, there's this concept of contrary action, which is if you've seen the results of your instincts enough times at a certain point you have to go who let's try doing the opposite of what feels right as an experiment or at least that's been my experience i go oh yeah this feels really right i'm gonna turn away from that because when i do the thing that always feels right i know where it ends up so barton was very much contrary action whether you were aware of it or not very much you were aware of it yeah and you thought maybe this might just work because he's the opposite of no i never thought it would work i i totally went into it feeling that i'm not good at this i'm never going to be good at this and just enjoy this moment and i'm not even looking to where it's going to go and then you ended up marrying him i did but he asked many times uh-huh and i resisted because i was sure i would end up in divorce right and um i just you know it was a whole different thing and he he taught me so much yeah me too he had a um an internal confidence not an external confidence not a look how great i am but he he really was confident in on the surface you wouldn't have guessed that no but he had an internal belief in himself and he knew what is he was very very intelligent he knew that he did but yet he had zero impulse to he's the opposite of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

1:39:25He would know the most about a topic and just let everyone else talk about it and not have to be the show off and tell everyone. And it took me a long time. I don't know how long it took you, but it took me a long time to recognize what was going on that. Oh, my God, he's the smartest guy in the room. That's interesting. Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that I liked about him, and when you say this quiet confidence, one of the things was no matter how busy i was with my business no matter how many things i did he was never that person like previous partners i had had he would always say oh my god that sounds so perfect for you go do it go do it you know he was always encouraging and he wasn't threatened by he wasn't threatened at all and all the times i was on the road and anybody who's worked for gm or probably any industry when you are on the road a lot with a lot of the same people all the time there is much everyone's fucking that's right it's much fooling around and i never ever did because i would never want to have seen his face had he found out something like that but the thing is he never ever ever even remarked like do people fool around or would you ever consider yeah he was so confident with himself attractive right oh my god so it made me even more so I would never think of.

1:40:45Yeah. Then a super fucking patient guy because you were gone a ton. Oh, I regret that. So much, right? I regret that now. I feel like I'm lucky I didn't lose him. I mean, he was a married man that didn't have a wife often. Right. Yeah. And you were kind of we were watching a John McCain documentary last night, which we both loved. And I was saying, man, the dudes in the 50s, they had a different program. Like they just pursued that career and they saw their kids 10 minutes a week and that's what it was. But you got to try on an unconventional hat, which is you were building a fucking business.

1:41:20And I knew we all understood that. Like we knew our roles. We knew that you were doing this thing and we were going to have to be patient about that. And that was going to happen as if you were a 50s dad. And by contrast, Barton was the one. And he never, ever balked about it. He stayed with Carly. and he didn't just babysit her or you know cohabitate with her he taught her things and he was gentle with her and he was patient with her i mean she tested him i mean you think about a stepchild yeah she threw a pencil at his eyeball and tell him she couldn't do the math and he would just very calmly well that's not gonna be you know that's not gonna work and you need to take a breath we're gonna try this again yeah he was an amazing stepdad to carly oh god he was fantastic with carly was in outward bound at cranbrook and in her 10th grade year which is a thing where you go hiking out in the woods and you kind of learn self dependency yeah it's like you go for a couple weeks out in the woods with a compass and a sleeping bag yeah and it's a real deal and they do it in march and the previous year there had been an incident with the cranbrook crew and they got stranded they got stranded and somebody got frostbite and it was bad yeah it was real bad so when carly went here we are watching the news back in michigan and we see that there's snowstorms in the mountains and i think about my little five foot two carly and she's so little and i say to dave you know dave they're having snowstorms i'm so worried about her she's going to get hypothermia and dave says she's not going to get hypothermia she's going to be fine and i said dave you know i'm not like that i need to know why she's going to be okay give me something logical and he says very calmly she's not going to get hypothermia because her clothes are going to be dry and i know her clothes are dry because i unpacked her bag before she left and i put everything in individual ziploc bags so that everything is dry in her backpack and again didn't tell anyone he did it didn't want the credit i would have been bragging all day about having done that god and to me it was like that's you guys here i put uh carly's clothes and ziploc guys deliver in the mail hey man what's your name i just did a good thing i need to tell you about it exactly but to me it was like this is what real dads do right real dads that really love their children do yeah and i also want to applaud because i found myself in the same situation in life and it is hard uh in fact i wish i would have been able to talk to him about it more but uh for a man to have a wife who makes more money than him and is basically driving the ship you got to go in her direction because ultimately it's worth more to you know if someone's going to sacrifice something it's going to be me not bell it just doesn't make sense for the family and that has that took me years to get comfortable with and barton seemed to just never bothered him that his wife was paying for things or taking us on vacations or buying stuff all that stuff didn't didn't bother him no yeah he just totally or even when you're smart enough to go oh this is fucking nice she's gonna buy a house in bloomfield hills but even the day that your brother got married that day your father called and on the phone and said hey when they do the dance where the bride and groom dance and then the parents dance also i want to dance with you.

1:44:45I don't want you to dance with Dave. I want you to dance with me because he's our son and he's our baby that we're giving up. And I said to, he said, I said, well, let me talk to Dave about it. And I said to Dave, how do you feel about this? And he said, I don't have a problem with go right ahead. He was so secure. He was so gangster, never, ever got in that testosterone. Yeah. And I just want to, I want to add that layer is that one thing I'm, I'm so happy that you did was that you my dad you always kept him in the fold he was allowed to be at the house on Christmas night if he wanted to spend the night and wake up with us on all our family vacation I even bought his tickets yeah you always kept him you never bad-mouthed him you always kept him around and I can't imagine that was always the most pleasant thing but that was just a really nice of all thing that you did and I would pray I had that kind of thank you I to me it was like you kids didn't get divorced we did right i didn't ever want you to have to choose right now it's nice um okay so you marry barton you have this thriving business you guys have a pretty storybook life by my estimation from 91 to 2000 whatever your left bloomfield hills right you really found your stride you made good money carly went to crambrook she then went to michigan state I was in college.

1:46:10Things were great. You and Barton were happy. Life's damn good. You guys decided to retire. What year do you retire? I retired twice. Right. The first time. The first time I think was in 2002, maybe. For a bunch of reasons that don't really matter. The business ended up crumbling after you retired and then you had to come out of retirement. And now is a phase of kind of just a really long period of pretty darn good happiness yeah instability yes is your depression at through those years can you remember it being intolerable at any point i i definitely had depression right during that time but did you realize you had depression because no right because in retrospect we could all go oh yeah you wouldn't get out of bed sometimes times yeah yeah so apparent yeah yeah there's all these things you would do what we just same with dad like all of a sudden when dad goes oh i'm going to treatment i'm an alcoholic i'm like oh yes of course you're a flaming alcoholic but i don't know why until that moment like yeah you took us in the morning to the bar and we hung out there all day that's not what most dads do with their kids uh so yeah so um but i'm just gonna jump ahead when you had to come back out of retirement you had then some really bad bouts with depression really really bad enough to force you to finally confront it right yes and uh and and it just like you're saying about your dad it's like i never really thought of it that i had depression until i had a really really serious episode i the long and short of it is is i had someone say something to me that really triggered from my past being sexually abused as a child and i went into a real severe severe depression And I honestly went to work in my pajamas for a couple of weeks and did not bathe.

1:47:59When you own your own business, you can get away with that. Right. And then I and Dave was taking care of his mother at the time in Florida. I was alone at the house and I just got to I mean, I don't know how explicit you want me to be on that. Well, you tried to kill yourself again. I tried. But a real serious attempt. This was not I mean, other times I thought at the time it was serious. This one was I did the double whammy. I mean, I heat duct taped all the vacuum cleaner hoses to the car to make sure I would get asphyxia. And I took every single pill in the medicine cabinet to make sure that I would die.

1:48:34And by the way, what I just want you to think of is this is someone who's now both kids are in college. I'm a working actor. I have a great life. You've built an incredible business. You have a successful marriage. David has children. So just I just want to point out that you can have all the indicators that you've told yourself will make you feel great and that you'll love yourself and have self-esteem and all those things. And those outside things all of a sudden will be absolutely powerless. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's because even are you even building a case in your head like, oh, you shouldn't do this.

1:49:08Your life's good. You your kids are doing great and you're you're happily married. Oh, so many. Yeah, absolutely. And they just have no weight. Right. You list those things and they don't mean shit in that moment. In that moment, the only way I can describe it is it's like if someone took you and put you in a black garbage bag and cinched the top and you are in a garbage bag suffocating and you're so hot and so miserable and it's so black and so that the only thing you can think of is. I have to die because I can't keep going like this. Right. and and again like you say i had all the indicators that my life was successful but i wasn't able to feel it yeah i was only able to feel that i was suffocating and that i just could not take another step i was so tired right just could not take another step and you luckily you did not die i remember getting a call i was in new york at the time and david called me like uh this is for real you need to you need to get involved here we need to the circle, the wagons, and you went to an outpatient treatment.

1:50:16I did. They wanted to put me inpatient, and I did not want to. I did not want to be away from Barton. And so I did an outpatient program, which. Yeah, that would make sense then. But for me, it was like, here's when the lights really went on is, first of all, as soon as Dave Barton came home, and he was this wonderful self, he wrapped his arms around me, and I asked him to take. I surrendered for the first time in my life. I surrendered. And I said, I need you to take care of me. And he said, I've been waiting for you to ask. And so he immediately drove me right from there to our family doctor.

1:50:52We had no appointment. It went to the nurse, explained it. The doctor came out, told us of a psychiatrist that he wanted us to go to. We left there and went to this office and we sat down. And the guy's first words were, you've had a suicide attempt. I assume you were sexually abused as a child. really and to me that was i was so pissed off at him like that's to me like oh you hate too easy oh and you hate your mother i mean it was like are you kidding me what a cheap shot and i was sitting there just steaming and i answered his questions very curtly and short and he wanted to put me in treatment and i agreed to go to the outpatient we walked out the door i got in the car and i said i'm never seeing that guy again and dave said what what's the matter and i go are you kidding me ask me if i was sexually abused what a crappy thing that's just crappy it feels lazy right or oh yeah it was like you can't take the easy road yeah and like you're not paying attention to what's going on in my life right because you're pretty convinced in those moments that it's all the things around you right now right now yeah yeah and then the lights went on and i connected in the car in that same moment all of a sudden the light went on and it occurred to me that the comment that the me too moment i'd had with a gm executive and that sexual abuse as a kid the powerlessness of being a kid and it was my dad's boss and i could not tell anyone because i didn't want my dad to lose his job yeah and so here i am with a gm executive and he did it and it's like I can't tell any exact situation.

1:52:33I can't lose my my purchase order. I can't tell anyone. Yeah. And it was so the dots connected and it was like, oh, my God. Yeah. And so then I went very open mindedly. We share that. Sadly, many members of our family share this experience. For me, what it tells you is. Oh, wow. The world's not a safe place and people will take advantage of me if I don't have my guard up and the whole world changes in a moment like you you are still an impala on on the plains of the serengeti like yes it's just very it changes your world view really quickly that i can be i can be outsmarted i can be overpowered i can be outmaneuvered i can be all these things and that i'm vulnerable in this world and it doesn't matter how smart and how cunning you are No, that's for me.

1:53:24The biggest chunk of the shame is the embarrassment that I could be out outsmarted or outmaneuvered or outwitted that you can't see it, that I couldn't see it, that I didn't realize what was happening. All those things are so shameful to me because I hang all my self-confidence on my competence. To me, it's a real confusing squirrel cage. When I said that to Barton that I need you to take care of me, the longer version of that is when I said that to him, I said, whatever everybody else has learned in life, I was absent that day. I can't tell the difference of who to trust and who not to trust.

1:54:02I need you to be that person that tells me who's untrustworthy. Because I don't have that skill set. And that's how I've gotten myself in the jam of all these marriages and everything else, because I don't have that skill set. And so when you say like that feeling is like so not only is it vulnerable, it's like you just want to keep looking in the backpack for the tool and everyone else has got the tool. Why don't I have the tool? And maybe it's down here somewhere. No, it's not down here. I don't have it. And it's so it's confusing to me and it's baffling and it's vulnerable and it's horrible.

1:54:40Yeah. It's frightening. And one of your worst qualities, and we share it, is just a complete inability to ask for help. Oh, God. Right? Oh, my God. You'd rather fucking bleed to death than pick up the phone and admit you cut yourself. And I always thought it was I didn't really want to be helped because I didn't want to owe someone to help them in return. But I realize I don't think that's it. I think it's just my ego and being able to be vulnerable and be flawed and admit I'm flawed. Flawed. You're not capable. Yeah. Why can't you take care of yourself? Yeah, it's really embarrassing. Yeah, and we all need it.

1:55:16So you went to this treatment center, and I'm going to readers digest this for you, but one thing they asked you right away is how do you sleep, right? And you didn't sleep, right? No, I have a very hard time sleeping. And you started learning a lot of the warning signs of depression. You learned how it worked. You learned about medication. You got on medication. You learned how to make a game plan, right? In a program, it's not just medication is that, you know, you do need to get outside and get vitamin D. You do need to be walking or exercising so that you can get rid of the lousy chemicals you're producing and bring in good ones.

1:55:53You know, right. It's imperative. And also what I've noticed you've gotten great at over the years is and this is a mistake a lot of people make in a I made it my first few times of trying to get sober is a failure to plan is planning to fail. So if you're going to go to a party, you're newly sober. You can't wait till you get to the party and the guy you really want his approval hands you a drink. And in that moment, you're going to figure out your game plan. You're done. That's too late. You got to go Friday. I'm going to a party as I pull into the driveway of that party. I should probably call someone in AA and just check in and remember why I'm in AA and blah, blah, blah.

1:56:28And then when and just expect that that thing's going to happen. And when it happens, I'm going to I have this plan. You cannot expect a different outcome unless you have a completely strategized game plan going into these situations, right? Absolutely. So you just dealt with the most heartbreaking thing ever, which is Barton died a few weeks ago. And we shared that together. Yes. And going into that, I think all of us, which is great because you've opened yourself up to be checked in with, which is wonderful. So all of us are like. you, what's your game plan to work out? you know what what's your game plan for this what like what we know what's coming that's not that's unavoidable we can kind of be prepared for it so and I think I did make plans I think I was really looking ahead and it wasn't like I was planning Barton's death or looking forward to his death it was when he dies what is my game plan you know how am I going to get through this and I know that it's going to require a lot of faking it until I make it.

1:57:35And so how am I going to do that? It's going to require you acting your way into feeling different, right? Absolutely. You're not going to sit in your house and just wait for to feel different because that's not going to for us work. I have rules and rules that I didn't have before he died. Like when he was actively dying, we had a lot of sleepless nights because of the pain he was in and stuff. So it was on. It was not uncommon for us to take a nap during the day together because we had been up all night yeah and right now it's napping and sleeping are they're no-nos i'm not allowed yeah i can't allow myself because that's the sliding yeah i'm not allowed to stay under the covers yeah that's like putting one foot in the trash bag it absolutely yeah and so and what's great is you got a dog you smartly I got a dog.

1:58:25I did that ahead of time. Because you knew something was going to be reliant on you. If I won't get myself out of bed to exercise, that's one thing. But I will never, I mean, you know it with you kids, no matter how depressed I was when we were going through all that when you were growing up, I would get up and go to work to feed you guys. I would get up for you guys. I might not have gotten up for me, but I would get up for you guys. Yeah. So I have the dog now. You're a good codependent. Absolutely. It's my specialty. Well, what's really funny too, and I haven't pointed out yet, But you never met an addict you didn't love, right?

1:58:56You just fucking love addicts. I could find if you buried one addict in Cobble Hall with a couple million men that were all healthy, I will find the guy and I will take him home and try to fix him. Yeah. Do you think it's a little more exciting because there's like an element of the unknown. You really don't know what's coming day to day with an addict. But do you think there's some there's some relief or there's some peace in having to focus on someone else's issue? that gets you out of having to think about any of your own issues is that part of the appeal subconsciously maybe but usually if you're with an addict they have the same um they like the same drugs you do most addicts love the butterfly feeling that drug that you get in a relationship they love a good codependent relationship yeah yeah yeah i do it's singing a lot of my song yeah but but i do applaud and again it's worth its own whole podcast but um you you were were very present during the whole thing.

1:59:56You were checking in with a lot of people. You read books. You felt like you owed this experience a lot of attention and you didn't want to just wake up and it be over and have not experienced it. Yeah. One of the things I'm very, very grateful to Barton for is we made a pact. We consciously talked about it and we repeated it. Often we would talk about it and reiterate what our pact was and that was that we would be 100 % honest even if we didn't want to during the process and that we would experience it together because I said to him I can be by your side and I can be supportive and I will you make all the calls to all the shot you know you call the shots on this on what your treatments are and how you do this and I will be there and be with you but I need you to be honest all the way with me and I need you to share it with me.

2:00:52And this is a man, he's an engineer, you know, not necessarily foaming at the mouth with, with discussion. He's not overshare as like you and I. Right. Right. And so it was probably the very best other than that first few months when the butterflies are crazy in the beginning, but, um, probably the best part of our marriage because we talked regularly, openly and really shared the experience and just like sharing an experience like a pregnancy and a birthing of a child the bond that we were able to you know forge from that experience was extremely intimate yeah very very close and very intimate and i'm actually grateful i feel really grateful for that experience with him even though it was living hell yeah i'm grateful for it Yeah.

2:01:41And it was a long, it was a three year process. Yes. Yeah. So it was a big, it was a big chunk. Yeah. Yeah. Of your life. Before we go on, I want, I just want to pass on some of the things I feel like you gave me that I'm most grateful for. And one of them is I realized really set me up to be interested in anthropology because anthropology, at least when I went, it's probably changed, but they were very into cultural relativism where your goal was not to. judge or label a group of people as primitive evil backwards you could look at something like infanticide which on the surface seems absolutely unimaginable who could kill a child that's just been born they must be evil but they didn't have that interest they had the interest of understanding why would that have happened and you can't understand things if you're only there to label them and you were this crazy example of that we'd read about a murderer like there'd be a there'd be a murder and a murderer and it'd be in the paper and your first line of thought was always wow that guy was a little baby one day right what are you always saying that somebody passed out cigars for that baby yeah you know that was somebody's little boy that was somebody's son and he was loved and celebrated what happened what went wrong yeah the tragedy on both sides the tragedy that a victim was killed and then the tragedy that a life with a lot of potential went down that road that's that's equally worth mourning and you kind of always had that perspective there'd be like you know kids would kill other kids in drunk driving accidents in our town and in the town is going on that motherfucker drove drunk about and you would go straight to They're like, holy cow, he woke up in jail cell this morning.

2:03:33Yesterday he was going to college. How awful for his parents. What his parents who saw that potential and put all this time and energy into it. You never seem very interested in just labeling something good or bad or black and white, evil, good. Thank you. That's wonderful. Sinful, heavenly, whatever the things were. You didn't live in this binary thing. and you were very interested in the nuance and the details and the context and all this stuff. And it's such an awesome way to process the world and just very empathetic. And it was such a great example for you to have given me. It's very interesting.

2:04:08It's weird. And you and I went through this. I start sharing my story publicly and it overlaps with your story. And it's a little in one time I offended you, I remember, and I felt really bad about it. And then you called me a week later and you said, you know what? I'm wrong. That's your story. You're allowed to tell it. it yeah so do you even remember what it was i forget it was something that you said something oh my mom's married a lot of times and because i'm so ashamed of that uh-huh you know i you know it was it was hard for me that oh geez that's the dirty laundry you know do we have to air that yeah you know yeah it's weird right um it is but then again at the same time it's like you know what you went through that too i didn't go through it on my own you kids i i drug you through it and And it's one of my regrets, but it is what it is.

2:04:58And we got where we got because of it. Yeah. It's yesterday. Yeah. And. Yeah. So I just I thank you for for giving me, you know, the the the permission to drag you into this. And I bet it's a weird scenario. I'm sure if Lincoln or Delta gets famous, I'll start hearing all these things about myself. Do you know what, though? Just, you know, not to keep beating it to death, and I haven't talked about that movie in years, but that movie that we were referring to. Boyhood. When people do art and when people do come out and talk about things like that, since that movie, yeah, I'm still ashamed of how many times I've been married and all the things I went through.

2:05:45However, that made me realize that I'm not an idiot. I just made some bad choices, And a lot of other people made those bad choices, too. And guess what? They're not idiots. They're nice people. And so I feel like if you have your story and you share your story and something comes of it that someone else hears it, it's like, gosh, that would be great. You know, I think everything that's good about me is something that you taught me. I think I'm genetically was destined to be my father. we have the same broken shoulder the same missing knuckle the same everything the same crazy stupid alpha male get out of the car at a stoplight and so much wonderful from him yeah i'm sure but i i credit you with um uh taking all that and adding your perspective and your empathy and your in and how endlessly loving you are and uh you're the greatest thing that's ever happened to me in my whole life thank you buddy you're the number one love of my life that's so nice through all that stuff that I complained about here on the show.

2:06:48I didn't hear any complaining. Yeah, I would not. I can't imagine being luckier than having been born with you as my mom. Thank you. I hope to God I can do half the job with four times the amount of resources that you have. So I love you. Thank you for coming on the Armchair Expert. Thank you. All right. It now begins my favorite part of the show. Fact check with Monica Padman. This is my mommy's fact check. Yeah, that's right. Oh, boy. Shall I bring you in with a song? Yes, please. Well, I'm scared because I don't really have. Generally speaking, I have a song circulating through my mind all day.

2:07:25And then I just plug your name into that. Not to give away the recipe or tell you how the sausage is made. Okay. You don't have no songs in your brain? Well, I guess Delta was singing one this morning. It's still kind of in there a little bit. Okay. Here she comes to tell us all of the facts. singing do-a-de-de-de-de-dum-de-de-do. She's holding some papers with some corrections, singing do-a-de-de-de-de. Okay. That was good. That was enough. That was good. Okay. Thank you. All right. Let's begin this very special fact check. Most special. The very special episode. I'm so glad we did that. And you really instigated.

2:08:07I mean, I had always wanted, we always knew we were going to interview her, But you really seized the moment when she was visiting to set it all up. Yeah. Because I think it's, well, for one, she's super inspirational and interesting. And she is so eloquent and is good at telling her life story. And I already knew that. So I knew that would be fun and interesting and good. But it's also so endearing and nice to have a little peek into your relationship with her. But I did have some anxiety in that, like, I certainly know how she talks at a dinner table quite successfully. She can hold court, but she's never been interviewed.

2:08:48I was like, is she going to like once a microphone's in her face, is she going to start feeling self-conscious or weird? No, she did not. No, she crushed. She did great. And it was it was it was lovely to be sitting here through that. I enjoyed it. So your mom mentioned RC Cola. RC Cola is short for Royal Crown Cola. It's a cola-flavored soft drink developed in 1905 by Claude A. Hatcher, a pharmacist in Columbus, Georgia. Oh, all the way home for you. Yes, Columbus is where I won two state championships. In your cheerleading career. Yeah. And you said you balled after both of those, right? Or was it that you balled when you lost?

2:09:36No, we won both times. Oh, okay. You got hurt, though. I got hurt before the second. My senior year, I pulled my hamstring before the state championship, but I did it anyway. Oh, you just put muscle up through it. You had to. Because you were the high flyer? I was a flyer, yeah. And then, yeah. And then, well, we knew it was going to be very close between us and Peachtree Ridge, our rival. We knew it was going to be so close. It came down to one point. Oh, my goodness. Out of how many? What if he's out of 10 ,000 points? No, that's not how. I don't know. I don't know what the perfect score was.

2:10:16You could get hundreds or. Yeah. Like maybe it's like 300 or 200. That is significant. And that's like ninety nine point eight percent. Yes. And I was, you know, they were like fourth place, third place. And so then waiting to hear who's second place was. Have you ever been more alive in your life? No. No. Never. Like truly never. And I never will. Even if I give birth, I won't. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. And then I just like lost control over my whole body. Did you go wee wee in your slacks? Maybe. In my bloomers. In your bloomies? In my grundles? In your grundles? Your grinders? Anyway. You should call them grinders.

2:10:57No. That's not what they should. Well, I guess. Yeah, you're right. Never mind. Never mind. I was going to say it's not what they should be encouraging these young girls to be doing. But we should be, I guess. Yeah, you're right. Let's have some fun. But they're not very careful, those young girls. That's why. Well. It is why. Like, I wouldn't encourage. Why can't you just encourage them to be careful? Yes. That. Yes. Yeah. Most of my friends were really careful who were having sex at that time. Just pop on birth control. Yeah. Get on it. But you have to be able to, you have to feel comfortable to tell your parents.

2:11:38Well, I don't think you have to. Yeah, you can just go. Yeah, but that requires, I'm saying that requires a lot of a 15-year-old. A 15-year-old brain is going to think, oh, someone has to drive me to Planned Parenthood. Like, it's a lot more. And then you've got to hide them. You've got to hide. It's a whole secret. It's easier to just fuck. Yeah, it is easier to fuck. I think it's one of the easier things to do. So you remind me, though, of this invention I created at 24 years old, and I just was positive it was a$100 million idea. And here's my thought. In my 20s, I was regularly coming across women who are like, oh, shit, I forgot my birth control today.

2:12:18Or they would be like, they'd spend the night at my house. I'm like, oh, I forgot my birth control. People never forget their toothbrush. No one ever forgets to brush their teeth. I'm never running into women like, oh, fuck, I forgot to brush my teeth this morning. Everyone brushes their teeth. So I thought, how about the birth control toothbrush? Let me tell you why it works on a couple different levels. Toothbrush manufacturers also want you to replace your toothbrush every month or something. At some rate that no one's doing. So this would be a perfect tie-in with like an Oral-B because you get your toothbrush from the pharmacist.

2:12:51It has 30 pills in it. And every morning you just pop one out and then you brush your teeth. And then when you travel, you go to your boyfriend's house, you throw your toothbrush in your purse. It's all great. Isn't that a trillion dollar idea? Why would you be hating on my birth control toothbrush? I'm not hating on it. I think it's good. You're trying to poke holes in it. I am. Because I know that there are some, but for some reason, none are popping out. It's a solid idea. But also, why not just... Some inventor in Columbus, Georgia is going to hear this. and he or she is going to make this.

2:13:26Claude Hatcher. And the next time we see them, we'll be on a 400-foot yacht in St. Barthes.

2:13:35Someone's going to take my idea and run straight to the bank, to Deutsche Swiss Bank. They might. But look, also, if you get in a routine that in the morning, I take my birth control before I brush my teeth. It's the same. You can train your brain. It's a good part of your routine. But let's just, I say, let's build on what's already working as opposed to reprogramming. People just go like, well, everyone's holding their toothbrush in the morning. Why not put the thing you need in that thing you're going to hold? The girls that are coming over who are forgetting their birth control are remembering their toothbrush.

2:14:07But they're forgetting their birth control. See, that to me, for me, that would not happen. But you're an uber responsible person. You recognize people have different levels of responsibility. They're responsible if they're bringing their toothbrush. They're very responsible. For their teeth. Yeah. Yeah. That's incredibly responsible. I'm reminded of my father's favorite thing to always say to young people. You would always say, be true to your teeth or they will be false to you. That's cute. Yeah. Okay. So you said Ohio when you were a little kid had a very liberal fireworks policy and you say you don't know about today.

2:14:45So I don't know if they do. I think they kind of, I think they do. but the top five states that are most that are easiest to get fireworks are. Do you want to guess? I do. I know you did. Go. Idaho is one of them. No. Bullshit. I've bought like quarter sticks and dynamite in Idaho on my way to Wyoming. Well, it's probably I'm sure many are easy, but these are the easiest. Okay. Yeah. Hit me. Indiana. Oh, sure. Sure. Also a border state of Michigan. Missouri. Missouri. Missouri. If you're from Missouri, you say Missouri. I know. I don't like that. You don't want to do that? No. Okay. Pennsylvania.

2:15:28Pennsylvania. Texas. Tejas. Yeah. Tejas. And most importantly, South Carolina. Oh, that makes those all kind of pretty much what you'd expect, I feel like. Yeah. According to this website, it said home to more fireworks outlets than McDonald's, we think. like that's great a lot that's great they're probably having they're gonna have a great fourth of july there yeah i always stop in idaho on my way to wyoming and i get these mortar tubes and i spend so much money you know i'm typically cheap but so one of the things i i will just blow so much money on is pyrotechnics and these mortar tubes are awesome and you're dropping this like pool ball size explosive in the mortar and then it's just like you're at the detroit river I mean, it is a civic level phyrotechnic.

2:16:22It's great. And I get way too many, and then I have them the whole year, and then they sit in my trailer, and then I worry about the fact that I have all this gas in my trailer, and I'm just waiting for the whole thing to blow up. Ugh, I don't like that at all. Living on the edge. Ugh. As Bon Jovi said, living on the edge. John Jovi. Living on the edge? Isn't that a John Jovi song? He said living on a prayer. Well, he also said that, I think. I used to love Bon Jovi. You did? Oh, my God. Yeah. You're so American. It's amazing. You couldn't be more American. You love friends and John Jovi. I went to a couple of those concerts.

2:16:58You did? Yeah. My friend Gina really turned me on to him. And we were also in love with him. Right. And what I've gathered from hardcore John Jovi fans is the thing they are particularly attracted to is doesn't he have infamously great buns? Isn't that one of his things? I think he does, yeah. He always shows them off. Like he really always has his denim. He wears tight pants. His denim is like tailored to it. He also has lovely hair. Yeah. And a beautiful face. Oh yeah, he's a very good looking dude. I don't know how tall he is. He might underwhelm you if you... I'm speaking out of my ass. I actually don't know.

2:17:34But something tells me he might be... Most people don't underwhelm me in their height because I'm so short. Yes, because you're a sub five foot. No. I know you claim you're not, but I claim you are. It'll be revealed one episode. We'll get a tape measure in here. Hashtag how tall is Monica. Okay. Oh, the story about your dad helping the bus driver was so sweet. The story your mom told in high school. He would help the bus driver. He would sit up front and help the bus driver. Yeah. That's so nice. No wonder he got all these ladies. Yeah. No, Delta would never help the bus driver. She's so social and nice to people.

2:18:18She notices when people get new jackets and haircuts and stuff. I actually disagree. I think she'll sit right next to that. You do? I do, yeah. I hope she does, but I don't think so. I think she's going to be too popular to sit up by the bus driver. She's going to be in the back and everyone's going to want to talk to her about her day and trade erasers with her. My mom said that Delta reminds her so much of my dad. really yeah she thinks it's my dad reincarnated yeah which is kind of sweet it's really sweet I mean I hope she doesn't develop it makes me sad I never got to meet him he could have been one of my soulmates too yeah you would have found a way to you would have found all of his idiosyncrasies endearing I think yeah he had a big heart um okay and also one more side note your mom's recall of names is as good as tulips Yeah, especially for like people she went to elementary school.

2:19:12I know. It's boggling. First and last name she could remember. I was shocked. At first I was like, is she just making up names? I guess we wouldn't know. But no, she's not. They're the same names. I almost know her names more than I know mine. I mean, I have best friends from junior high. I can't remember their names. Yeah. It's crazy. Like I've been wanting to apologize to this kid in elementary school. Like I want to find him, be it on Facebook or something, to put it out in the universe that I want to make an amends for, you know, fighting him in like third grade. And I can't there's no way I'm going to remember his name.

2:19:44What about your book? But I went back. The photos I have, remember, they were just like one sheet of glossy paper with 30 kids faces on them. There weren't names. Oh, my God. There were no names in the yearbook? No, no. In elementary. It wasn't from junior high. It was from elementary school. I could maybe, you know, maybe my sixth grade yearbook. I think he went to the same junior high. Maybe I could locate his name there. But it does plague me. I think about it all the time. And I need to. Well, you're saying it now. Yeah, but he won't even know. Might know. We fought. And you know what happened is we were in the spring mills.

2:20:17Occasionally they let us play in the parking lot. And I can't remember why. Maybe when the field was too muddy or something. But it was on one of these days where we were playing in the parking lot for recess. And I got into it with this kid. And I punched him in the stomach. And when I punched him, it knocked the wind out of him. and he fell down on the ground and he was I don't think he'd ever had the wind knocked out of him and he was really scared like he was crying and he was laying and I'll never forget it I have the picture in my head is he was right on a manhole cover in the uh in the parking lot and it was so sad and I felt so bad as soon as it happened um and I just think I got to imagine for him he remembers that and that was terrible and um although at the time I did not think that I'm sure he feels like I was a bully.

2:21:04He was really scared. Normally those fights were fine. Both kid brushed it off, but this is he got very scared. That is well, we can we'll find him and his name is, you know, anyone's guess. Jake. Yeah, that's him. Okay. Your mom brought up Sergio Mendes. Another thing your dad, I guess, listened to in the car. I didn't know who he was. Did you listen to any of his music? Yeah. And then I realized I did know that one song. He did a famous version of Girl from Ipanema I think. Oh I didn't find that. No there's a song called Never Gonna Let You Go and I can't think of how it goes right now. Never gonna give you up.

2:21:46Never gonna let you go. Never gonna run around and hurt you. That's Rick Ashley. Yeah that's not him. Sergio Mendes is Brazilian. And he has over 55 releases. He plays Bossa Nova heavily crossed with jazz and funk. It's awesome. I have some Sergio Mendez CDs. All right. So you talk about shaken baby. Syndrome. You just call it shaken baby. But yeah, it's shaken baby syndrome, also known as abusive head trauma, shaken impact syndrome, inflicted head injury or whiplash shake syndrome. All these are terrible. They are. Yeah. And it's kind of it's it's self-explanatory of what it is. You shake a baby.

2:22:32And yeah. And before having kids, that always seemed like the most insane thing that could occur. But when you have a baby and they won't stop crying and you really are like in a weird panic. I although I never shook my kids. You could see how people end up there. I was like, man, if I was 20 years old and I was drunk or whatever, I could see where it happens. Yikes. Yeah. Oh, one thing I wanted to clarify because of the structure, just the way you guys were talking, because you have such a familiar knowledge base, you can like hop around and you both know what you're talking about. So I just wanted to clarify the timeline of your houses.

2:23:15So when your mom and dad had David, they lived in a small house, she said. And then they moved into an apartment. And then I think they moved into an apartment and maybe Deer Creek was the apartment. Yes. And then they moved into the mobile home where you were born. Brought home. Yes. And then you moved into they moved into the nice house. Middle road. Yes. So it kind of seemed at first like the nice house was there and then you were born. But it seemed like it was confusing. So that's the that's the timeline. Yep. And then we left the middle roadhouse when I was three. We went to those welfare apartments for a year.

2:23:57Then we went to Main Street for a year. Then we went to Highland and we lived in a house for three years. And then we moved into unnamed stepdad's house for a year. Then we moved into our friend Ann's house for about six months. We stopped at my dad's there for a few months until they fought too bad and we left. And then we lived in Highland. I'm sorry, Milford and the house she built herself for three years. Then I moved back in with my dad. Then I moved back to so i yeah we had like you moved back in with your dad after the nice house that she built yes because my dad had gotten in a head-on collision and he needed assistance and i was afraid that everyone at milford high school was going to murder me because so many guys hated me and so as a dual motivation i i went to wald lake central and took care of him while he was recovering but then when he and i got in such a bad fight and then i moved back in with my mom in 11th grade but continued to go to walt lake central but anyways because of that i lived in my apartment in santa monica for 10 years and i've lived in this current house for 12 years i do never want to move it gives me so much anxiety because we move so much as kids yeah um okay i think your mom mentioned a christmas where like couldn't turn on christmas lights and i think she's talking about the 1979 energy crisis That makes sense.

2:25:13Time-wise, that makes sense, right? Mm-hmm. 1979 oil crisis or oil shock occurred in the world due to decreased oil output in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. They call that the oil embargo? Is that what? You called it that, but it's called the energy crisis. And you continue to call it that? Oh, you talk about colic. I think people know what colic is, but it's just like incessant crying from babies. and it just they won't stop which i got i i outgrew well yeah not if we show some videos of them singing yeah flash mobs um dax cries at flash mobs well not flash mobs when those olympians um choreographed a routine to text me no to call me maybe maybe yeah i cried when we watched it Because, yeah, so embarrassing.

2:26:09Why? It's not embarrassing. It's so sweet and endearing. Okay. You mentioned the five S's for resetting babies. And we talked about that on Ashton's Fact Check. So you guys can go listen to Ashton Kutcher's episode if you want to learn about the five S's. So you had to persist on a diet of caro syrup. I mean, when she was telling that, did you not just, I was thinking, how am I even here? You cannot feed a baby fucking sugar water. I know. I was shocked to my core that you spent so much of your little tiny baby life drinking caros. I would be 6 '5". There's no way that didn't shave off a couple inches.

2:26:50You could have been the next Einstein or something. I could have been so smart and I could have played basketball for the Pistons. For sure. For sure. 100 % no question. Thanks, caros syrup. Yeah. Caros syrup has corn syrup, salt, and vanilla. Oh, my God. I mean, it's poison. Yeah. I'm so proud of you for outliving that. I guess this is a little bit of feather in my cap that I could have persevered on that diet. I know. What a constitution that little baby had. I know, because also your mom gave you paragoric because of your colic. Okay, and what was that? And that. Was it an opiate? Yes. It was.

2:27:33Well, Jesus Christ, no wonder I'm a fucking recovering addict. I did. I literally thought that when I read this, I was like, of course. It's a camphorated tincture of opium. Oh, my Christ. It does say here that it's a traditional parent remedy known for its anti-diarrheal. Diarrheal. Diarrheal. Yeah, I don't know. Diarrheal. and some other things but it's they do give it to babies i guess but i was on heroin and syrup yeah wow wow i really really should be smarter i think which you're pretty smart i was like uh burrows who burrows william burrow william burrows bill burrows he was a famous writer and heroin addict.

2:28:29He's part of the beat movement. They all kind of worshipped him. Naked lunch. He shot his girlfriend. There's a great, I believe, radio lab on him shooting his girlfriend at a party down in Mexico and he just didn't have to deal with that. He killed her? Yeah. Dead. Doing like a trick with a gun. Some people say it was an accident and some people say it was not an accident. Wow. But there's all this great tape and interview. And yes, it's a wild story. I hope you don't kill me by accident. It's not inconceivable, right? I know. Because we do, like you go to the sand dunes with me. You've ridden on a motorcycle with me.

2:29:14There's not been any gunplay, but I would just say yet. Yet. You know? Yeah, I'm nervous. I don't want to die by your hand, okay? Yeah. Okay. Does Campbell Ewald. Also, when you were saying it, I pictured it C-A-M-B-E-L. Wait. L-L like the soup? L-L-Y-A-L-D. Like one big word, Campbell Ewald. Two people's names, right? And it's Campbell Ewald. Okay. Yes. Great. Cleared up that lawsuit for us. Campbell Ewald. And they don't have the Chevrolet account anymore. It's Campbell Ewok. 2010, General Motors moved all its important Chevrolet business to another agency after 90 years. 90? More than. That's a big hit.

2:30:15I think they're up there as the biggest spenders, advertisement spenders. You brought up Aaron Weekly, but you didn't call him by his full name. My best friend, Aaron Weekly. Yeah. Because Dax brings up Aaron Weekly all the time. Two times a day. His old friend, his oldest friend. But he always says, my best friend, Aaron Weekly. I was visiting Michigan. I went to my best friend, Aaron Weekly's house. At first, I was offended. Well, because you thought, I thought you didn't remember. Yeah. Like, of course, I know who that is. You talk about him all the time. like what and then it became sweet well but what's funny is um while i was in michigan you would like ask what delta's up to your soulmate so i was with her yeah send me pictures yeah i sent you pictures and um and every time i had done something with my best friend aaron weekly i would say to you oh i met my best friend aaron weekly at highland house and we had and now i met my best friend here and even in a text i would take the time to type out my best friend but you did i don't think you knew you were doing it until I called it out.

2:31:18It was not a bit until I said. Now it's become a bit. Now it's a bit. It was very sincere. Which is sweet. I talk a lot on this podcast about people I love and how much I love people. But just truthfully, Aaron Weekly, my best friend, Aaron Weekly, I just don't know that I've ever felt about a human being the way I feel about him. i just that's nice i just i feel like we have the same cells in our body when i see him even it'll be like a year and a half and i see him and i just my whole body is electric and we can't talk for more than four seconds without laughing so hard we're gonna cry yeah yeah what a feeling i hope everyone has a best friend like that yeah uh you mentioned tube steak tube steak is a hot dog Yeah.

2:32:11I didn't know that. You didn't. I've also never heard that. That was my pippy. My mom's dad always called it a tube steak. Yeah. I've never heard it. It's a hot dog. I mean, clearly a euphemism. We all know it's not a fucking steak. It's like hooves, assholes, and snouts of a pig. And also, I don't think hot dogs are claiming to be steak. That's what I'm saying. It's probably the worst meat product out there. I love them. Don't get me wrong. I love them, too. You can get 100 % beef. Yeah, beef asshole, beef intestines. and some beef eyeballs. It's not. Just because it's beef doesn't mean it's.

2:32:45It ain't fucking filet mignon. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. It's whatever shit that they couldn't sell to somebody. I'll still leave that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. The John McCain documentary is John McCain for whom the bell tolls. It's on HBO. You can find it now. It's phenomenal. It'll make you love him so much. Yeah. And appreciate him. Well, I tweeted about that documentary and then I, of course, got a bunch of my fellow liberals, you know, tweeting all these fucking insane things about what a terrible person he is and everything. And the whole reason I tweeted is, you know, fucking watch it before you jump in your party line.

2:33:27It's like the reason I like the documentary so much is that I am not ideologically aligned with him. Yeah. Politically there. But I am so aligned with him as a human being. I he had so much integrity. There's so many admirable qualities. And I think it's a great thing for all of us to watch to remember what little percentage of our existence as humans is our fucking political views. There's so much more to us than that. And it's a great reminder of that. But also he's that like he often not, you know, he he he has a lot of conviction for the things he cares about that I may not agree with politically.

2:34:08Right. But he also votes against his party and he does. He really does do the thing that he feels is the right thing. Yeah. And doesn't feel like it's for political gain. It's just what he thinks is right. And even more impressive is that when he has been wrong, which he's been wrong, he owns it, which is so attractive. Every single politician, I feel like, I mean, it literally shit the bed in front of you and then explain why they didn't do it. You know, it's just there was a level of ownership over his mistakes. That is that was very admirable. Absolutely. Yeah. That's it. But I mean, I also wanted to say that her story was full with cheerleaders and angels and people who helped her and could and saw her.

2:35:03And, you know, she did so much, but she had people. people and it's good to know that and recognize like those people in your life and that you it's good to be that for other people if you have the chance and opportunity to do it i just thought that was a for me that was sort of a takeaway of you gotta help people well especially in times where you've lost your perspective as she has to have a network of people that you know you're connected to who will sense oh this is okay this person needs help now yeah like a circle the wagons yeah we all just be aware of yeah you can't be an island i think that's the message you guys are that for me yeah yeah i hope to be for life yeah me too until i kill you with a handgun on the back of my motorcycle jumping a dune buggy in the sand i love you i love you too

2:36:04Thank you.