#65 Meredith

0:06Pushkin.

0:09We have quite a story for you today, but before we begin, a warning. This episode contains themes of drug use. Listener discretion is advised.

0:27Yeah. Oh, finally. I wanted to tell you about my billboard in Times Square. Oh, wow. You're jelly. You want a billboard, too. I would die. I feel like you like it. What gives you that impression? Your relationship with being, you know, famous, I'm sure, is something as an artist that you— Wait, hang on a second. Did you just say that I was famous? No. It sounds like you did. And something of an artist. I said you wanting to be famous and your relationship to wanting to be famous. Do you remember— Do you remember? Are you recording? Because I said, do you remember? I'm asking. I'm recording you in my memory.

1:06Am I going to hear this on the radio? You're definitely not going to hear this on the radio. Oh, yeah, because it's a lot of radio because it's a podcast, right? You know that I do a podcast. Am I on speakerphone? No. Because, you know, when you put someone on speakerphone, you're supposed to tell them.

1:33From Pushkin Industries, I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and this is Heavyweight. Today's episode, Meredith.

1:45Right after the break.

2:09we tell the stories behind the inventions and entrepreneurs that shaped our economy. And we try and understand the lessons behind their success and failure. Our new episode is about the rise and fall of Sears, an incredible story that is really the story of America in the 20th century. Sears, rise, fall, America. Done. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. And for full video episodes, search Business History Podcast on YouTube.

2:35I consider myself a fair person. If a plumber enters my home, I offer him, or her, a cup of coffee. When presented with a bowl of restaurant mints, even when unobserved, I make sure to leave a few for the next guy. And if you have the good fortune of eating tapas with me, you should know right now you'll be eating at least half the plate. So when Meredith, a fellow Minnesotan, asked me to weigh in on a matter of fairness, I was raring to go. And so it is on a sunny day in late March that I find myself pulling up to Meredith's. Hi. Jonathan in the flesh? Yes, it is. Hello. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.

3:20Hi. Meredith ushers me inside. I thought you'd have, like, bigger hair. I have no hair. Really? Has it always been that way? Have I been... I was born bald, yeah.

3:33As Meredith acclimatizes herself to my unexpected baldness, We settle in. Okay, I'm going to get some coffee. I got a half cup. How much coffee have you had today? Can you tell? Meredith fetches her fourth cup this morning, and I have a look around. She just moved in here three months ago, but the house is already feeling homey. You have a quote from the Dalai Lama? This was a gift to me from my Galentine's party. There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow. So today is the right day to love, believe, do, and mostly live.

4:14Well, no offense to the Dalai Lama, but I've built a career on the idea that something can be done yesterday, or at least about yesterday. And so I have Meredith tell me about her past misfortune, which all began, she says, three years ago on a Saturday morning. You have to understand that, A, I'm a sweet tooth. And the second really important piece of information is that my sister-in-law owned a candy store. This sister-in-law routinely sent boxes of candy to Meredith's three children. And because of the whole sweet tooth thing, Meredith would tell her kids to keep the candy in their room. That way, she'd only have access when she was in their rooms tidying up.

4:58The agreement even had a name. I would take what I would call the candy tax as a price of me helping them clean up their room. And cleaning up is what Meredith was doing on the Saturday morning in question. She was in Aiden's bedroom. Aiden is her son, 17 at the time, and Meredith was hunting for his leftover cereal bowls. When I saw on the table some peach rings, you know, those like little chewy gummy candies? Yeah, I know them well. Right? They're really tasty? And I shoved them in my mouth, like, num, num, num. Meredith finished Aiden's entire bag of peach rings, candy tacks. From there, she moved on to her daughter's room to continue cleaning.

5:44And it was about 30 minutes later when I started to feel a little bit, you know, like a little bit, oh, something's not quite right. At that moment, a thought popped into Meredith's mind. What if the peach rings weren't just peach rings? Um, maybe a small detail. Most times, peach rings look like orange and white. Yeah. These were purple and blue. But I didn't think anything of it, other than, oh, it must be a different version of peach rings. Maybe they're flavored blueberry. Sure, those blueberry-flavored peach rings. Then there was also where she'd found the blueberry-flavored peach rings. In a Ziploc bag.

6:27They don't usually come in a Ziploc. Oh, they don't usually come in a Ziploc. How big was the Ziploc bag? Like those little... Like the kind you would put drugs in? No, Jonathan, the kind you put a sandwich in.

6:42Meredith just thought Aiden had put the gummies in a Ziploc to, you know, preserve freshness. But now, as her head began to swim, she thought a new thought. And in the moment of time it took me to think that thought, my knees buckled. I drop on all fours because whatever was coming for me hit me like a freight train. A freight train freighted with boxcar after boxcar of gelatinous marijuana.

7:13My son comes running up the stairs and I yell to him, what was in those gummies? All he says is, what were you doing in my room? I then say, what was in those gummies? He says, how many did you eat? And I remember trembling. I said, all of them. How much was in those? He's like, Mom, 25 milligrams each. Meredith had eaten four peach gummies. That is, 100 milligrams of weed. I'm the person that takes the gummy that somebody gives you at five and starts shaving it down. So I knew like two and a half is my limit. She'd ingested 40 times her limit. And then I start yelling, well, you just killed your mother.

8:12the next several hours i can only describe as um kind of coming floating in and out of consciousness i mean i have moments of sort of dreamlike um i was in a forest running and then the tree roots started coming up and wrapping around my legs i mean that's not fun trees twist around your legs and are trying to like suck you down to the earth like what is that meredith didn't know if she needed to go to the hospital. She wondered if she would die. She phoned a few friends to ask them to check up on her throughout the day. You know, by, like, voice dial? Because you weren't even capable of using the regular dialing?

8:52Jonathan, I couldn't move my fingers enough to get the right buttons.

9:01It's like laying there with a piano on you.

9:14Her friends later told her she kept repeating things like, am I going to be okay? And God help me. All in all, 23 hours. Oh my God, that's like longer than labor. It felt, it felt in some ways eternal. Sometime around 10 a.m. the next morning, Meredith finally began to feel herself coming down. And with that, the anger set in. Anger at her 17-year-old son, Aiden. Well, now we got to deal with the problem. You didn't know that he kept drugs in the house? No, I did not know. Meredith says she'd always had open conversations with her kids about drugs and alcohol. But for the kids to keep drugs in the house was not allowed.

10:03And on top of that, leaving them out in the open when he knew about the candy tax, how could Aiden have been so careless? And what made it all the more upsetting while Meredith was on all fours? Aiden flees. He's like, I got to go to work. And I'm just left here having to somewhat fend for myself. Was a part of you proud that you had raised a son who, you know, honored his work responsibilities? He was so committed to his work. at P.F. Chang's, that his mom took the back burner. You know, I probably did raise a kid with a good work ethic. I'll give him that. But here's the thing that three years later, Meredith still can't get over.

10:48Aiden refused to apologize. Instead, over and over, he uttered the same refrain. This is not my fault. Aiden felt like this was on you. Aiden, 100 % felt this was on me. and that no other parent would be that clueless. Meredith admits she is the sort of person who often gets herself into these kinds of noodles. Oh, I've got a few. I rescued a stray dog that was loose from a yard. What happened was, Meredith's dog was routinely escaping her yard, and people around the area would post about it on Nextdoor, writing comments like, who can't control their dog? And, Meredith, your dog is out again. She felt publicly shamed.

11:39And so, when she saw someone else's dog that was lost, it felt like a chance to reclaim the respect of her neighbors. And I proceeded to pick it up. It was a 40-pound dog. And I took it and really felt that I was doing a good deed.

11:59As Meredith started walking home, the dog started jolting. Spasms of gratitude, perhaps? She got the dog home safely, made a post, and waited. Finally, the owner showed up. And I was expecting to be met with, like, oh, I'm so happy that you got my dog. I've been worried sick about it. Well, it turns out that I had taken a dog from a home that had an invisible fence. Oh, that's why it was jolting. Yes, it was jolting, yes. And instead it was, you took my dog from our yard and you shocked it. And thanks. Is this why you had to move? It was probably a considering.

12:57As for the drugging, however, Meredith doesn't think it was all her fault. This could happen to any of us. I even Googled, like, looking for validation of like, oh, this happens all the time, right? Sadly, Meredith didn't find the validation she was looking for. A lot more stories about dogs. But you know what? I think this has probably happened to a lot more people, but maybe they're harboring some sense of shame about it. They're just not talking about it. They're not talking about it. If it happened to you, you are not alone. If it could happen to you, beware, okay? Maybe assess the color of the gummies, maybe assess— Sorry to interrupt, but who do you think you're talking to right now?

13:38I'm talking to parents like me that wouldn't think their kid would have gummy candy in their room. The thing about people like Meredith, people who can laugh at themselves, is that it can be hard to know when they need to be taken seriously. Meredith can joke about the gummies, but it doesn't mean it wasn't scary at the time, or that she doesn't want some acknowledgement from Aiden. I keep waiting for this moment when he comes through the door. He says, Mom, I've been reflecting a lot. And I thought about that time when this happened. And I just want to say, I get it. I'm sorry. Has he never apologized?

14:23No, he's never apologized. Ironically, of my three kids, he is probably the most sensitive in terms of care and concern. So it was somewhat surprising to me that he could dismiss that experience so flippantly.

14:43Meredith has tried to draw the apology out, bringing it up once or twice a year. She tells herself it's an important, teachable moment. She tells herself that Aiden's refusal to apologize reflects poorly on her parenting. So she keeps nudging him, most recently in a canoe. Just the two of us. There was no escaping. And I went so far as, like, negotiation. Okay? I started at 50-50. Meaning percent of blame, 50 % on her, 50 % on Aiden. Aiden is an econ and computer science major, and Meredith was trying to speak his language. I went down to 80-20, okay? 20 % on him. 20 % on him. You wouldn't accept that?

15:28You would not accept that. At this point, I was like, well, now what do I have to lose? I went all the way down to 99-1. I'm looking for a shrapnel, okay, of accountability. But she hasn't even gotten that.

15:44For three years, Meredith and Aiden have been at a stalemate in terms of who should be held accountable. It keeps popping up, and nothing gets settled. Meredith has tried recruiting friends to adjudicate, but Aiden has always questioned their impartiality. So I thought a real, independent, objective third party might be the ticket to finding our path here. Someone that could see both sides and talk empathetically with my son about accountability. Do you think it's something you could be able to broker? While we're all familiar with the idea of a claim adjuster, what Meredith needs is a blame adjuster, someone who can adjust some blame onto her son and make him apologize.

16:34I accept the job, beg forgiveness once more for my baldness, and ready myself to leave. When... You want to take it? Yeah. Meredith's phone rings. Hey. Hello. Hey. Hey, hey. On the phone is Meredith's eldest daughter, Quinn. I'm here with Jonathan. Hi. Hello. Though Quinn was out of town during the weed dosing catastrophe, she remembers it well. Oh, right. As long as we have her on the line, I ask Quinn if there's anything more I should know about. Quinn pauses, then asks her mother a question. Was this before or after your airplane incident? Oh my God, Quinn. The airplane incident. What's the airplane incident?

17:19Enter Exhibit B. The airplane incident.

17:27I need to have my side of the story on this because there's some definite biases from my mom. This is Meredith's son, Aiden. And when I phone him up at college, he tells me that the gummy incident is only one of two accidental druggings in this family. My mom was on a business trip out to the U.K. and Scotland, and then it's a birthday present I had just gotten to go with. Three months after the weed gummies, Aiden went on a trip with his mom. They were in the Amsterdam airport, about to board the nine-hour flight back home to Minneapolis. I knew she had, like, some sort of, like, sleeping aid.

18:03And I was like, oh, maybe I could, like, have some for the flight. Aiden's about twice Meredith's size, so when he asked, she figured it couldn't hurt to give him half of what she normally took. And then I just remember, like, being in the Amsterdam airport, and I was like, man, I feel really gross, right? Like, I felt, like, pretty nauseous. When boarding started, Aiden was having a hard time standing straight. Like right as I hand them my passport and ticket, I just completely pass out. He's behind me, and then I hear a crash as Aiden has collapsed into the stanchions. Basically, what I remember was kind of just like half consciousness.

18:42She had just like kind of grabbed me by the shoulders, and she was like, we need to get it together. You need to get on this flight. They look at me. They're like, there's no way you are going on this flight. and you need to go to medical emergency or whatever. And I remember they, like, ran tests and, like, had to contact, like, poison control.

19:04Just like Meredith, Aiden was fine, eventually. But also like Meredith, Aiden was disappointed by his mom's reaction. Does she accept blame for the incident? Oh. Has she ever apologized to you for that? I don't know. I don't want to flat out say no, but I'm like leaning more likely not. Aiden says when he first collapsed, Meredith was mostly focused on getting him onto the plane, even if it meant dragging his still limp body down the jetway, Weekend at Bernie style. I would have expected that the priority is that I'm okay, not like, oh, but we need to get on the plane. Right. Meredith wanted to keep things on track, which, not so different from Aiden, who hurried off to P.F.

19:54Chang's. And to top it all off, when they eventually were rebooked on a new flight, Meredith's ticket got upgraded. And guess who didn't offer that upgraded ticket to a certain somebody? I remember asking her, oh, did you ever consider, like, maybe if I got the seat for that flight? That you had been the one who was drugged, so... Yeah, and then she said, I was supposed to be home 10 hours ago. Which, like, that behavior in that scenario, was uncharacteristic.

20:24They're very good pals. This is Meredith's daughter again, Quinn. But I think they have a harder time being soft around each other. Hmm. When they get in disagreements, both of them just harden up really quick. Quinn says Aiden and Meredith are both similar in their stubbornness. To which, regarding the gummy incident, Aiden holds a hard line. He says Meredith is wrong about basic facts. Like for one thing, the drugs weren't out in the open, but rather stashed in an old iPhone box on a shelf. And he says he would never have left the house while Meredith was still panicking on the floor. It was only once she was panicking safely in bed that he went off to his job.

21:10Of which... I never worked at P.F. Chang's. Aiden briefly worked at a Panda Express, but that was months earlier. The job he was rushing off to was his caddying job at a golf course. My son had to head off to go serve Chinese food. Does that sound like more egregious than so my son had to leave to hit the golf course? I mean, both of those, when you say it like that, that just sounds like selfish. When I first got into this, I was certain that Aiden, and Aiden alone, was to blame. But now that I've spoken with Aiden, I'm not so sure. I'm still willing to adjudicate, but I'm starting to feel a bit out of my depth.

21:54Which drugging was worse? I don't know much about drugs. I couldn't tell you the difference between happy dust and happy powder. Lucky for me, though, I know a medical expert. After the break, a very special guest. A very special doctor guest. It's Jackie.