Armchair Anonymous: Haven’t Confessed to Parents

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Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous.
I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman.
Hi there. Haven't confessed to parents.
Oof. Some parents will be hearing this story, I guess, for the very first time.
It's an interesting way to get something out there. Haven't confessed to parents.
Some parents will be hearing this story, I guess, for the very first time.

It's an interesting way to get something out there.

I like that we're providing a safe place to admit to your foibles.

People had a lot on their chest and they were able to relieve it.

Yeah, I hope everyone felt lighter after this.

Some are probably scared.

Yeah, of course.

There's a couple winners in here.

There's a great one.

Yeah.

We get a real rascal. Yeah, we do.
Yeah, we deal with a real rascal on this one. This was super fun, and I can't see any reason why we wouldn't permit people.
Unless you love your parents so much that you'll feel a lot of guilt. Maybe if you have parents, you shouldn't listen.
Yeah. So everyone without parents, go for it.
Yeah, feel free. All right, enjoy.
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Hi, Brie.

Hi.

Why do you have such a stylish microphone? Work stuff, podcasting. It's a work podcast.
Fun stuff about history and animation. Oh, we love that.
The history of animation or history, and then also we do animation. History of animation.
We focus on Walt Disney's life and history of Walt. Oh, what did I just hear? Just heard of interesting factoid about Walt as you do.
Where was he born? He was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1901. Guess that wasn't the thing that I heard.
Really put her to the test there. But she fucking nailed it.
Did you see that? Probably even knows his birthday. When was his birthday? December 5th, 1901.
That's right. It's right.
Wow. This is very timely.
I'm taking my daughter to Disneyland on Friday. Oh, that would be so much fun.
Do you live in California? Yeah, I live in LA actually, in Franklin Village. Oh my God.
You live just a stone's throw away from where we are right now. She knows.
Yeah. Yeah, a little bit.
Okay, this is an interesting prompt.

I don't know that I even understand it, which is exciting, but this is haven't confessed to parents.

There's a secret they still haven't confessed to their parents.

They're still harboring a secret.

Oh, my gosh.

Oh, my gosh.

And is there any threat of your parents listening?

Probably not, but might have to send it to them after.

It's a way for people to believe themselves. Oh, okay.
I like that. Okay.
Where are you originally from? I'm originally from Bakersfield. So that's where the story takes place.
All right. Hit us with the Bakersfield story.
Summer of 2010, I was going into my junior year of high school. I was definitely in my mischief era.
I was dating a guy who was a senior and he had been trying to get me to sneak out of my house. And it was always a joke that you couldn't sneak out of my house.
My parents had designed it. They put me on like the second floor.
And always the joke with my parents was that they added a balcony off my room. And it was like, oh, you just got to look out for the rope ladder or she's going to try to like climb down and break her neck.
And we also had a guard dog. We also had this alarm system that anytime a window would open or door would open, it would ding.
I finally decided, I was like, okay, today I'm going to commit to devising a plan. I cracked a window during the day in our laundry room.
This was going to be the only spot feasibly that I could actually get in and get out. So that night around midnight, I crept down the stairs, made it past the guard dogs,

locked myself in the laundry room,

and was like, okay, step one, complete.

The window that I was climbing out of was on top of a countertop.

So I had to climb up on the countertop,

take out the window screen.

I just put it outside and climbed on out.

My boyfriend was down the street, picked me up.

We went out to a party on the orchards.

He dropped me back off. It was like 3 a.m.
Had you gotten drunk at this party? Yeah. Yeah.
Okay, so different person returning than had left. Very competent Tom Cruise person made their escape and now Mr.
Bean's returning. Yeah.
So my boyfriend had left. Once I got back to the window, I realized I had messed up.
The window, I had to climb up on a countertop. So it's six feet off the ground and I'm five, two on a good day.
All I'm thinking of is just get my body back inside. We're not thinking about anything else.
Can't get caught. So I finally hoist myself up, climb back in.
And then I look outside and realize the stupid window screen is still outside. I didn't think to keep it inside.
Can't jump back out, not doing that again. And I tried to like dingle down to grab it.
The dingle didn't work. No, I was like, you know what? It's in this garden area.
There's a lot of plants. I'm just going to wake up early in the morning.
I'll get it, put it back. So make it back upstairs.
I remember just like laying down in my bed going like I did it. I got away with it and was so happy the next morning.
My sister's waking me up and she's on the phone with my dad. And she tells me someone broke into the house.
Oh, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, right. It could have been a squirrel.
That removed a screen from the window? They're very. They're very.
Yeah. Okay.
See, I needed you, Monica. Coming up with some ideas.
That would have been a big red flag. I think it was definitely a squirrel.
Yeah, when your kids suggest like, I bet it was a squirrel. You're like, okay, so you did it.
That's fine. Let's talk about that.
I remember sitting up and for a split second, I was like, well, maybe did somebody break in after me? But that just definitely wasn't the case. My dad is telling us that when he was leaving for work, he went to water the plants.
I didn't realize that he did this every morning. And guess what was propped right up against the watering hose was the stupid window screen.
My dad concluded it was a break-in. He was running late to work.
So he's like, just check all the windows, check all the doors, make sure nothing has been stolen. And so we had to check.
And he's trying to work through it. He's like, but you have to take the window screen off inside.
And the way our windows are, they kind of locks. And I'm just so panicked in this moment.
We're not going to get creative. I'm not getting caught this far in.
And I was like, oh my God, the burglars broke in yesterday. We're hanging out in our house the entire day.
And then at night, they snuck out of the laundry room. Oh, squirrel adjacent theory.
A little squirrely, but kind of like that movie Parasite where they live in the basement. It's like the burglars lived in the basement for the day and then snuck back out.
Something like that. I was like, this story makes zero sense.
Closed the window behind themselves, but then didn't replace the screen. Yeah, but somehow that story stuck.
Oh, I love this. My dad bought that story.
He was like, you know what? I guess that probably is what happened. Oh, I wonder if he...
He knew. That night, my family, we were talking about it at dinner.
I'm still going hard on this story, trying to get into the mind of these burglars. Wow, what a crazy thing that they did.
They must have just been hiding in one of our closets. Oh, you're making it so scary.
And my parents are like, I think we need to call the cops.

This is bad.

And I'm like, they didn't take anything, though.

Maybe, like, let's not get the cops involved.

They're just baffled nothing was stolen.

This summer, I was getting in trouble a lot.

My parents were always trying to sniff out a lie or, like, a cover-up.

And so I just figured they knew it was really me.

They didn't want to have this conversation in front of my sister.

I'm leaning towards that. But why wouldn't they just say, hey, we know it was you.

Well, maybe they just don't want to talk about it at all. It's kind of like if you think your

wife fucked somebody and you're like, I actually don't ever want to talk about it. I'm just not

going to bring it up. And I might have been suspicious for months, but then once I think

it happened, I actually don't ever want to talk about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, there's that.

Or a squirrel. Or they're just like, it'll be more of a punishment for her that she has to continue this preposterous lie.
Maybe they're amused by you. That depends on how fun your parents are.
They're definitely a fun time, but during this period, I was being grounded a lot. They were really enjoying that and taking away all my things.
Okay, this is confusing. I think they believed it.
A week later, my dad's friends are over and one of them is a dean of a high school. He's always sniffing out suspicious shit that kids are up to.
And my dad tells the story. So I'm like, okay, he actually does buy this crock of shit.
Yeah. He's telling his friends this happened.
And I'm just standing there like, oh my God, I have to continue to sell this stupid story. And his friend is like, wow, what a weird thing to happen and just keeps moving on.
And I was like, okay. And my dad would keep bringing it up every now and then.
And I just haven't said anything. Cause I'm like, he wanted to think the best of me.
Might as well keep that going. How did they get in originally? Just the front door was unlocked during the day while you guys were home? I guess that's the theory.
Yeah. We used to leave like our garage open and someone could have, I got away with it.
It's been almost 15 years. Oh, this is great.
Yeah. Like I could see my, I wouldn't buy that story for a hot minute, but I might also not even deal with it.
Would you believe a squirrel? Nope. Well, Brie, I'm excited to hear what the reaction is.
If it does get to them now, your dad's been peddling this story. What if his only resentment is like, damn, that's one of my best stories.
I just told it last week at the bar. God, I hope not.
He saw Parasite and he's like, I lived this. Yes.
This is my life. He has a lawsuit against him.
Oh, well, thanks for sharing. I hope you feel relieved.
It's off your chest now. It seems like you're not a troublemaker anymore.
You seem like you're really sordid. Once I moved out of Bakersfield, left all that mischief behind.
Where I'm from, Milford's a little bit Bakersfield-y. I know about just having to get into some shit because there's nothing else to do.
Exactly. That's what good old suburbs are for.
All right. Well, lovely meeting you, Bree.
Lovely meeting you too. Now I'll wave if I see you in the neighborhood.
Absolutely. Definitely.
Well, have a great day. And Monica, your race to 35 changed my outlook on life.
So I just want to say thank you for that. And thank you for all the work you guys do.
Thanks. All right.
Take care. Remember when you said Mr.
Bean's Bean? Mr. Bean.
Such an old reference. It was.
Yeah, I like it. But picture him coming in the house.
It's the right visual. Isn't he in a suit? He wears a suit a lot.
Yeah. You want to hear something even more random? Mm-hmm.
So Rowan Atkinson plays Mr. Bean.
Two funny things. He does a perfect Martin Brundle impersonation.
And when he was interviewed on the Formula One grid by Martin Brundle, he's doing Martin Brundle to him. And Martin doesn't realize it.
But it is identical. So it's just two Martin Brundles speaking.
Wait, who is? He's the big commentator on F1. He has such a distinct delivery.
And Rowan is just doing him to him. And he doesn't realize it.
It's one of the funniest clips I've ever seen. Oh, that's funny.
Secondly, he bought a McLaren F1 for $750,000, the road car. He crashed it two or three times, and he sold it for $12 million.
No. It appreciated with crashes.
Yes, even with the crashes.

Andy's in a rat race with Ike Barinholtz.

Rowan?

Yeah, Rowan's in a rat race.

With Vince V. Loof?

Yeah.

Location The Lab.

Quentin only has 24 hours to sell his car.

Is that even possible?

He goes to Carvana.com.

What is this? A movie trailer?

He ignores the doubters, enters his license plate.

Wow, that's a great offer.

The car is sold, but will Carvana pick it up in time for...

They'll literally pick it up tomorrow morning.

Done with the dramatics?

Car selling in record time.

Save your time.

Go to Carvana.com and sell your car today.

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Pick it up today at your local store. Hi.
This is a setup. Also, you look like you are a star of Dallas.
You've never seen that show because you're too young. Well, I'm from Dallas.
Oh, you are. Maybe that's why.
It's the hair. Were you a cowboy cheer a cheerleader no my roommate from college was though did you watch the netflix show about it not the most recent one do you remember the one that was on the country channel yep years and years ago that was her season making the team how exciting the newer netflix one they do show that other show quite often yes that's how i know about it.
Yes, and Melissa Rycroft was on that. She was from The Bachelor, so I really enjoyed that.
Double dipped on these reality shows. And who loves Bavarian Motorworks in your household? I worked for BMW.
There we go. My husband did as well, just kind of kept it in the family.
In what capacity? We worked for just about every dealer you can think of. We've bought and sold several dealerships over the years, anywhere from a Hyundai to Ford to BMW, Subaru, Mazda, all of them.
When we moved to Colorado, we're buying into this BMW to a mini store. And my husband was very good at fixing dealerships, taking them from being very low profit to being super high profit very quickly.
And so when he got sick and passed away, it kind of shoved me into his role because I knew how his brain worked and what his plans were. First of all, so sorry to hear that.
You look very young to have lost a husband. Definitely.
Secondly, is it get the service situation working correctly? Is that the first step? Always. That's your repeat customer.
Okay. Ashley, you have a story.
Does it take place in Dallas? So this takes place in Albuquerque. Actually, I think y'all were filming Employee of the Month when this took place.
Oh my gosh, I was staying at the embassy suites. I was in high school.
And mind you, I lost sleep last night. I have not told but one person the story in 23 years since it happened.
Oh my God. I'm about 16.
I'd wrecked a motorcycle. Had to have surgery.
Along with surgery comes pain medication. Happened to wake up the day after surgery.
I'd also come down with mono. Street bike or dirt bike? Street bike.
I raced them all through high school and partway through college. Oh my God.
Not drinking enough water. My throat hurts.
I'm trying to get food down, taking Tylenol on top of it for a fever. It's just this whole perfect storm of things.
About nine, 10 days in, I haven't pooped. Sure.
You're on opiates. Yeah.
I'm like super duper impacted. My doctor's like, you need to put her on some stool softeners that should help.
And if that doesn't work, try laxative. So we do that over the course of a couple of days.
Finally, I'm like, I got to go. Of course, it's the day that my parents have 15 people over for Bible study.

My bathroom is the guest bathroom.

Oh, fuck.

I managed to go in there, give birth.

It's essentially labor because it's hard.

Two weeks worth.

Oh my God.

My best friend was like, you should make a Play-Doh model so they can see.

So I get this thing out. I look in the toilet and I'm like, this isn't going anywhere.
Try to flush it. It's not budget.
It's in there. Solid.
Now I'm like, okay, I can't go out there and ask for a plunger. I can't leave it here.
People are going to want to use this bathroom. I'm looking through the cabinets going, maybe I can break it up and get it down.
I find this solo cup. It's under the cabinet that I had left under there from one of my secret parties.
Decide I'm going to fish the thing out. It's bad enough if my parents have to see it, but if all my friends' parents from church had to see it.
So I fish this thing out and I'm like, all right, well, I'm going to open the window and toss it, I guess. Okay.
Okay. Great.
Now it fit in a solo cup. Gerst-wise.
Oh, okay. Wow.
Okay, great. Yeah, yeah.
Can you believe that was in your body? I don't know how I didn't have some kind of rectal prolapse. Giving birth was not even as bad.
We'll say that. So I take the screen off the window, toss it out.
On our side yard were all these juniper bushes. And so no one ever went over there, tossed it in there and thought, it'll rain, it'll snow, it'll go away.
The problem is gone. Go about my life, go back to school.
Everything's perfect. Seven months down the road, my parents decided they're going to clear out that side yard.
My mom was rescuing turtles or something at the time. And so she wanted this space for these tortoises.
I pull out these bushes. Lo and behold, this thing has petrified.
So it's just laying there. So I hear my mom come inside and she's like, I don't know who would poop in our side yard.
That's just crazy. And my dad is going, I don't know.
It must've been a contractor. He's of course thinking this had to come out of a man.
I'm like, what do I do? So I go out and I'm like, what happened? What are you guys doing? It's a big to-do. Why didn't it get washed away? It's the desert.
They don't get enough rain. It snowed and just like froze it.
And then it was there. It turned into an icicle.
I agreed. I was like, it must have been one of these workers, one of the roofers, maybe.
Sure, one of these jerks. To this day, I am now 38 years old, about to be 39.
I've never spoken a word of this, but to one person. We feel so lucky.
Me too. I'm so proud of you.
Way to handle your business. If I'm your father, I go, good for you.
When the dirty work needs doing, you roll up your sleeves and you get it done. Literal dirty work.
Got to get the dirty done. I want to see it so bad, don't you, Monica? Yeah, I do think the Play-Doh would have been a good idea.
Here's the disgusting part about me. If I did that same thing, I would want to see it again maybe a couple weeks later.
I would be like, I'm going to go look. Because you might build it up in your head like a fish you caught.
No. It wasn't really as big as I'm remembering it.

I think most people think, I want to forget this ever happened.

I got you.

I think that's the female take.

I can promise you my husband would have been like, cover it in epoxy.

Let's save it.

Let's just put it in a case.

That's record.

It's a trophy.

It does seem like something we'd have up here.

Well, we're proud of you.

Yeah. For taking care of biz and also sharing.

Figured if I'm going to share it at all, I should share it with the entire world. Yeah, that's a good start.
Did the hydrocodone thing ever pop up again? No. One, it kind of made me never want to take it again.
But even later on with future injuries, I realized it makes me so sick. I can't take opiates at all.
You've done a lot of things right. Ever get back on the motorcycle? Not since having my kids.
Don't shame me.

I feel that subtweet there.

I think you're making the right decision.

There are moments, especially after losing my husband, where that adrenaline rush and that ability to just turn off everything around you seems so tempting.

But when you're in that level of grief, the last thing you need is the temptation to just do 180 just because it feels good yeah well actually this has been a blast yeah yeah thanks for chatting thanks you guys i know everyone does this i have not been an armatory from day one we like new listeners yeah we do when steve got sick we were going through chemo and that takes forever our first chemo deal was eight hours of a day we didn't know what to do we were bored were bored. And I was looking for a podcast and I came across you guys.
And so we were sharing our little AirPods and it's what we did during his two or three chemo appointments that he had before he passed. It was nice.
It got us through and got us some laughs. Oh man, that's really lovely.
Well, lovely meeting you. Thanks for sharing all that with us.
All right. Have a good one.
Bye. Take care.
Hi, Noah. How are you? Hi, how are you guys doing? Good.
I'm so intrigued by all the different posters on your wall. Wilco.
We got Twin Peaks. We got The Day the Earth Stood Still.
We are movie nerds in our household. How fun.
Where are you? What part of the world? I'm far away from you guys in Los Feliz. That's twice today.

We had a Franklin village person.

Do you guys think we over-index in Los Feliz for secrets we haven't told parents?

Well, we like run away from our homes because we're so ashamed from our past selves.

We're trying to escape.

I agree.

I think there's something there.

They go to UCB to be funny and get over it.

You have to laugh their way through the shame.

Okay, so what did you do that you haven't told your parents about?

This is... I agree.
I think there's something there. They go to UCB to be funny and get over it.
You have to laugh their way through the shame. Okay, so what did you do that you haven't told your parents about? This was my freshman year of high school.
I was in an English language honors class. My mom was really strict on maintaining A's and B's.
We read a book every quarter, maybe two books a quarter, and she would do weekly reading checks. Our teacher, let's call her Mrs.
Puff. Okay, great.
He did assigned reading growing up. It was really difficult.
I would push it off to the last second. So that class, which required a lot of assigned reading, I was falling behind.
I was ketering. 85 is a B, 84 is a C.
Well, that's bullshit. 79 is a C.
In South Carolina, where I grew up, it was 85 to 92 was a B. Oh yeah.
That's bullshit. It was tough.
I had to maintain that my household. So we're reading this book.
We have a reading check. I'm at the point if I do bad on another reading check, it's going to bring my grade down to a seat and I'm really dreading it.
So we have this test on a Tuesday. Monday night comes.
I I didn read. And this is 2010, 2011.
So there's not iPhones. When you get to school, you can like cram, you can do the spark notes.
So I get to school, the class before my English class is PE. We're doing basketball.
It's one of my loves. We're in a really intense pickup game.
I'm playing point guard. At one point I get elbowed really hard in the chest.
I'm okay. You know, it took me a second to catch my breath, but I kind of had this like light bulb moment.
Maybe I just exaggerate this a bit. So when I get to this class, I can go to the nurse and take the test a little later.
I finished the class. I didn't go to the nurse right away.
I went to the locker room. I'm trying to sell it a little bit.
I'm not telling anyone of my ideas. So I'm like sitting in the locker room, like I'm really not feeling that great.
And they're like, oh man, you're good. I'm like, yeah, I really got elbowed really hard and I'm just not really doing too hot.
And they're like, oh man, you good? I'm like, yeah, I'll be good. I'll be good.
I'm walking to class. I'm really trying to sell it as I'm walking.
I'm dragging ass a little bit. I'm walking up the stairs, maybe stopping every few steps.
You can go over the top, but you have to plant these seeds. Right.
I saw him on the stairs and he was struggling. He rested midway up the stairs, I think.
Getting the full character. I make it to class.
It's second period. I'm sitting next to a couple of guys.
The guy sitting next to me is this guy, Caleb. So I'm like, yeah, I'm really not feeling good.
Even Caleb looks at me. He's like, man, do you think you should go to the nurse? I'm like, I think I'm good.
Really quick. What could feel worse than getting sympathy that you don't deserve? It really puts you into the headspace of these people with moon childism because I feel so guilty.
I know. I don't take sympathy very well.
Like if someone feels bad for me and try to pat me on the back, I'm like, oh no, I'm fine. That's my initial reaction.
And I try to play into that here. So I'm kind of thinking we're going to maybe do a couple things before the test starts.
We have morning announcements. And then immediately my teacher, Mrs.
Puff is like, all right, guys, we're going to get to go on the test. And I'm like, OK, it's showtime.
Oh, raise my hand. I'm like, Mrs.
Puff. And she's like, Noah, don't interrupt me while I'm talking.
That's rude. In that moment, I got really heated.
I think my defense mechanism really went like I'm dying and you're telling me to stop. You believe your own story.
Immediately, this fire goes off in my head, and I raise my hand, and I scream at the top of my lungs, Miss Puff, I'm having a heart attack. Oh.
And I put my head on my desk. I just made myself hyperventilate, because what do you do when you're having a heart attack? This is wild.
She sprints out of the room and yells, call 911. Oh, my God, call 911 Oh boy, this is like the girl who staged a slip and fall at Kmart.
What I'm doing right now, I don't realize until much, much later on that it is really illegal. Sure, sure, sure.
Let's not get hung up on that. I don't think I can get in trouble now.
So she runs out of the room. She's like, someone call 911.
I'm in this.

There's no being like, just kidding.

Yeah, you're past the point of no return.

The whole class is cleared out.

Oh.

And an EMS comes.

They're like talking to me.

I'm not answering any of their questions.

Well, you're playing non-responsive.

Oh, my God.

I'm giving them a couple words.

Oh, God.

Oh, my God.

They bring in an air tank and they give me oxygen. What if they started doing like a chest tube? Yeah, they took my pulse.
They're like, yeah, it's probably an anxiety attack that this kid's having. So they put me on a stretcher and they stretch me out of the high school.
I had a really big high school. It was like 4,000 students.
So I get taken to the hospital. I'm sitting there.
My mom shows up. Well, hold on.
She kind of deserves this. Why? When you put this much stress on your kids to get B's, look what lengths they'll go to.
That's how strong the stress is. We had a strict household.
I'm terrified of my mom. I'd rather do this than go through the argument.
So I'm sitting there. My vice principal shows up.
The principal of our freshman academy is there. The whole time I'm just acting dopey.
I'm like, I'm okay. I'm doing better.
That was really scary. I end up waiting however long it takes to get x-ray results, an hour or two.
My doctor comes in. He's like, I'm glad you're doing better.
We found some interesting things on your x-rays. It turns out you have a bruise on your sternum.
I was like, oh yeah, I got elbowed in basketball earlier. He's like, when you have trauma that suffered to the chest area, sometimes our bodies react in a way that is uncontrollable, which might've caused your body to go into panic.
This guy's helping me get out of it. I swear.
Right. He doesn't want to embarrass you that you had a panic attack.
Exactly. I got sent home.
I had the next day of school off. So because it all happened on school property, it all ended up being covered by the school, which is great because my family didn't have health insurance.
Oh my God. So my mom would have gotten really screwed.
Going to the hospital in an ambulance is incredibly. And having x-rays and oh my God.
It would put my family into so much trouble financially. The next day I go back to school, I shamelessly made my way over to Mrs.
Puff's room. She's like, Noah, she hugs me.
She's like, I'm so glad to see you. I'm like, thanks.

This is so bad.

I'm feeling so much better.

I missed that test the other day. Can I make it up after school? And she's like, don't worry about that test.
She gave me an A or B, so it didn't affect my grade. What's the lesson here? at 24 I lost my narrative, or rather it was stolen from me.
And the Monica Lewinsky that my friends and family knew was usurped by false narratives, callous jokes, and politics. I would define reclaiming as to take back what was yours.
Something you possess is lost or stolen, and ultimately you triumph in finding it again. So I think listeners can expect

me to be chatting with folks, both recognizable and unrecognizable names, about the way that

people have navigated roads to triumph. My hope is that people will finish an episode of reclaiming

and feel like they filled their tank up. They connected with the people that I'm talking to and leave with maybe some nuggets that help them feel a little more hopeful.
Follow Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Reclaiming early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple

Podcasts. What if your mind could trick your body into feeling sick? Or even worse? In Hysterical, I investigate the bizarre medical mystery that unfolds in a high school in upstate New York.
It starts with one girl developing strange, violent symptoms, and then another, and then another. Rumors begin to swirl.
Is it something in the water? Inside the school? Or is it all in their heads? Hysterical is my search for answers. And along the way, I uncover surprising connections to unexplained incidents around the world.
Events that challenge everything we think we know about our bodies and our minds. Named Podcast of the Year at the Gambies, Hysterical is a mind-bending, unforgettable ride.
Binge all episodes right now, exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Start your free trial of Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
Lamont Jones's world is shattered when his cousin dies in custody just weeks after entering prison. The official report says natural causes, but bruises and missing teeth tell a different story.
From Wondery comes Death County PA, a chilling true story of corruption and cover-ups that begins as one man's search for answers, but soon reveals a disturbing pattern. Lamont's cousin's death is just one of many, and powerful forces are working to keep the

truth buried. With never-before-heard interviews and shocking revelations, Death County PA pulls

back the curtain on one of America's darkest institutional secrets. This isn't just another

true crime story. It's happening right now.
Follow Death County PA on the Wondery app or wherever you

get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Death County PA early and ad free right now by joining wondery plus so i didn't tell anyone about it it was like two years later i told my best friend about it we were smoking weed.
And I was like, Brian, I fucking faked the heart attack. It's like, what? The heart attack.
The famous heart attack. Later on, my senior year of high school, this is like three years later, I was in a talent show.
I did a stand-up bit. And I was not really doing good at writing jokes.
So I decided to tell the heart attack story. Turns out Mrs.
Puff is one of the judges at the talent show. Did you say you faked it? Yeah.
I said it all happened in sixth grade. I changed her name to Mrs.
Applebottom Jeans Boots with the Fur because that was in the zeitgeist at the time. The bit killed and I won the talent show.
Oh, my Lord. Did she not? She never put two and two together.
Oh, my God. Mrs.
Puff. She deserves it, too.
And neither my parents were there. So that's kind of where it is.
Wow. That's a great story.
You just won, won, won. I don't feel great about it.
No, of course not. You have a big smile on your face.
I think you do feel great. He knows he's a rascal.
It's that rascal smile. I promise I've changed.
I've learned. I don't think I could do that now.
Wilco would be upset. They would be very upset.
Yeah, that's not the kind of thing they condone. David Lynch wouldn't be very proud.
He might be. He was a a rascal the things we do to survive a moment i get

it it was fight or flight 100 the heart attack i like that he had to unburden himself while stone

like rolf skolnikov like i have to get this off my chest well no that was great i'm happy that

you did all that thank you for listening our pleasure great meeting you great to meet you

also before i let you go my girlfriend's the one that signed this up. Can I get her to say hi? She's a huge fan.
Of course. She's about to do a job interview, so this is going to make her day.
This is Elise. Hi, guys.
Hi, Elise. Wow, this is very exciting.
I listen to you guys every week. Nice to meet you.
Where are you from? I'm from New Jersey originally. Okay.
A garden state and a South Carolinian. We met five years ago.
And on our first date, he told me this story. He's like, he's a winner.
It was a red flag at first, but he won me over. Like he's a liar, but he's a charming liar.
That's right. Exactly.
Thank you guys so much for all of the stuff you do. I saw the prompt and I was like, all right, babe, you got to do it.
You're up. Well, nice meeting you guys.
Yes. All right.
Take care. Good luck on your interview.
Thank you so much. Bye.
Wow. The heart attack.
That could happen to me. No, really? I could see myself going for it.
You acted right. You hated the idea of getting sympathy, but you don't.
No, I do. I wouldn't want any of that.
I'd want to get out of the thing I had to get out of. And then that would be the consequence of it, is that I'd have to receive all this sympathy for something I didn't deserve.
You like sympathy because you left blood out for people to see. My goal there is for them to go like, he's so stoic.
Look how much he bled. I want admiration.
Try to be very honest. This story is that Kristen walked in and saw on the trash can there was all this bloody.
And that's my whole move is I don't tell her I was bleeding. Right.
You like pulled it up and put it on top. Yes.
I wanted it to be seen. And then I wanted to hear that they admired my stoicism in the face of being injured.
I don't want sympathy, but you can understand that, right? Like her arm broke in half and she didn't even flinch. She just calmly went to the hospital.
I don't have that. Although in cheerleading, I guess there was an element of you did need to suck it up and move on.
And that was a compliment. Yeah.
Hi. We find you amid many pillows.
It is my best attempt at a pillow fort. It's good.
I like it. I'm not at home, so I don't have a closet with clothes in it.
Are you at an Airbnb? I am. So I'm originally from Vancouver, Canada, but I live in Phoenix and I'm on tour right now in Miami.
How do you like Phoenix coming from Vancouver? That couldn't be a more opposite environment. I actually had seasonal depression my first three years there with too much sun.
Oh, I know. My wife told me it wasn't a thing.
Yeah. Monica, your dad's sim is in full effect today.
The episode came out with Seth Rogen. So I'm a cannabis chef and I travel around the world doing very high end fine dining cannabis dinners.
I actually developed the curriculum for the American Culinary Federation to start training chefs how to use it. And today, Seth was talking about how bad the edible experiences can be.
I was literally yelling like, no, don't say this. You're scaring people.
I guarantee he'd be first in line to have your cuisine. So you're making different dishes and a lot of them have weed in it.
As the meal progresses, you're getting a little stoned and then more hungry. So by the time dessert hits, you're like, fucking bring this shit.
Yeah, we do like a five-course menu. Every course has one infused component.
And then we dose each guest on their own tolerance level. I've served over 25,000 people now with about 1,000 first-time cannabis users, people who've never touched the plant before.
So trying to change the perception that edibles mean cookies, brownies, gummies, and that it can be a very enjoyable, fun experience if done properly. Wow.
What a neat niche you've found yourself in. Unintended.
It just kind of happened. What's your signature dish? What's the one you're most proud of that people rave about? Probably a progi poutine dish that I do, where we do a potato-infused progi, short rib ragu, and then a maple apple boursin cheese.
Oh, Mike. Right now, with my menus, it's very Canadian-forward.
We're all very patriotic at the moment in any way that we can show our pride. Sure.
I get it. You got no beef with the citizens, I hope everyone knows.
No, I love America. I love Americans.
We love Canada. I also love poutine.
You have a huge percentage of people on Ontario Anonymous that are Canadian. I don't know if you guys recognize, but there's always Canadians phoning in with good stories.
You're dead right. It does over-index, given the fact that there's less in Canada than California.
It's pretty wild. Absolutely.
Okay. So you've got a story to confess.
I do. I got to start off.
I have the most amazing parents and I don't know how they didn't give up on me, get rid of me or trade me in because I got in a lot of trouble as a kid. This story has to do specifically with Halloween.
Where I'm from in Canada, our high schools were grade 8 to 12. So we didn't really have a middle school.
You went from elementary school into high school. And I got grounded every single Halloween from grade 8 to 11.
I would do something in September, get grounded. And that was the thing they would take away from me.
They took away trick-or-treating. That's harsh.
That is. I probably would have been up to no good.
So maybe it was a good thing, except I still got up to no good. Okay.
Okay. Grade nine suspended at home, not allowed to go out for Halloween, but my dad still wanted me to have some fun.
So the fireworks in Canada are pretty tame. So we used to actually drive across the border down to Blaine, Washington.
We would buy the fun fireworks and then we'd bring them back up to Canada. So my dad's like, listen, you got to stay home, but let's go down and get you some fireworks.
So he's kind of to blame here a little bit, I would think. Halloween's going on.
I'm in the backyard lighting off our fireworks, having fun. My little brother comes home from trick-or-treating.
His friend is there with him. It's getting later in the night.
My parents decide to go down the street to a friend's house to see them for a little bit. Little brother and his friend are in bed and I'm wide awake.
I've got a basket full of fireworks. And don't know if you remember the movie Problem Child.
It was a movie early in the 90s about a family that adopted a boy who looked beautiful, but was very mischievous god there's a scene in the movie when he lights an m8y at school flushes it down the toilet and the m8y goes all the way over to the other washroom where the principal is and it blows all the water out of the toilet oh what a great plan yeah right let's give it a try oh i I've only got a little bottle rocket. I light it.
I drop it in the toilet. And it starts to spiral around and around and around.
It's not going down. It blows.
And it cracks the entire toilet base. Water starts gushing out.
It's pouring everywhere. Now, I'm 13.
I don't know there's a water valve right behind. I'm grabbing towels.
I'm trying to put it around. I give it about three minutes and pretty much I'm going to bed.
Oh my God. Oh my God.
Yes. God bless your parents.
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. There's so much here already.
Three minutes. The notion that it was a good idea for you to put a firework in the toilet inside your house.
This is like if you got a 13-year-old boy at home, anything's on the table. I know.
Like I can see that making sense to me, but why would that make – and then another thing, shame on your – you should have known where the fucking shutoff valve was. You got to teach your kids to shut off the door.
I still don't know that. There's a fucking nozzle behind the toilet and you crank it to the right.

I think not everyone knows that.

Well, they should though because you get in these situations where flooding can occur.

Then the real damage starts.

So my great idea is to dip in the bed and pretend it wasn't me.

Oh, boy.

Literally lying in bed waiting to hear the front door open and them coming home.

And also thinking, please hurry up and come home because the basement is flooding.

Did you take the rocket out?

No, it's still in there. Okay.
You just threw your hands in the air. Exactly.
I hear the front door open. I hear my parents come in.
And then my dad was 6'6", 260 pounds, very big man, very intimidating. All of a sudden you hear, what the fuck? Mama pulls me, my brother, and my brother's friend out, lines us us up now they've shut the water off because they know where the valve is and they're like who did this and i'm keeping my mouth shut my dad lost his temper a little bit you remember the old big computer monitors yes yeah yeah so there was one of those in the room you're standing he may have broke it in anger.
Yeah, sure. When the monitor broke,

I knew right then

I was never going to admit

to doing this.

Yep.

Right, yeah, yeah.

I was sleeping.

Must have been my brother

and his friend.

Oh.

My brother was a good kid.

He didn't do anything.

Sounds like he's got a buddy

sleeping over.

He was allowed to trick or treat. By the way, I can't even believe they're asking it's so obviously you clearly they end up sending my brother's friend home me and my brother are grounded for another two months i'm grounded for another he gets a grounding he didn't deserve ironically it's his birthday today happy birthday blair and i'm very sorry it's a confession as well.
Oh, poor Blair. That is the time that I blew up our toilet on Halloween.
Oh, and you never confess. You just stood strong.
I got in trouble so much that I saw how mad he was. Now let me ask you this.
If he hadn't broke the computer monitor, do you think you would have confessed? I don't think in that moment. I was already in a grounding.
I handled every part of it wrong. Did your brother try to rat you out? I actually convinced my brother it was his friend.
The sad part is it cost him that friendship. They never hung out again because he was like, you need to admit to doing this.
And he was like, I didn't do it. And I was like, like you said, who would blow up their own toilet, right? Clearly it had to have been the friend who was over who had this idea oh yes this is really for blair happy birthday blair and so sorry that travis perpetrated all this on you i love you blair he made it i made it my wife and i are trying to have a family right now and my mom and dad keep saying to me you're going to get a travis yeah i will have a travesty of my own and I will know what it's like to walk in their shoes.
When I look back at what happened throughout my teen years, amazing parents. Well, Travis, thank you for that.
That was great. I just wanted to say one thing, Dax.
The very first episode I listened to was Gwyneth Paltrow, the very first time you had her own. You something that impacted my entire career.
And I don't remember word for word what it was, but it's always stuck with me. When you're working on a project, you're always kind of focused on finishing and what the reward is.
And the real reward is the journey. I've got to go everywhere.
I've got to cook with amazing chefs, but I've always kept that in mind of I'm here right now. And in 20 years, I'm going to remember this moment, not the reward.
It to me has been just such a great motto to really recognize how special everything is. I just really appreciate the shows you guys do.
Travis, thank you. I'm so delighted.
We hope you have a great rest of your day. Yeah.
Take care, brother. Nice meeting you.
Bye. Thanks, guys.
Well, that was fun. I wonder if this will instigate a slew of people confessing stuff to their parents.
The only one of these that I would think the parent actually didn't know would be Noah. You think? Oh, the shit.
I guess they don't think it's her. I don't think they do.
You're right. But they won't care.
If they find out now, you mean? Yeah. But the heart attack, the mom's still going to go, that could have bankrupted us.
Exactly. Noah? All right.
Well, love you. Love you.
Do you want to sing a tune or something? We don't have a theme song. Oh.
Okay, great. We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go.
We're going to ask some random questions. And with the help of Armchairies, we'll get some suggestions.
On the flyer, Rindish. On the flyer, Rindish.
Enjoy. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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