Armchair Anonymous: Sleepwalking II

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Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous.

I'm Dak Shepard, joined by Monica Padman.

Hi.

Hi.

Today is sleepwalking part two.

People are out and about in their sleep.

In their slumber.

They get busy nocturnally.

And it brought up a really interesting thought experiment like can you be arrested for doing something bad while you sleep are you liable when you're unconscious yep oh let's find out please enjoy sleepwalking

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Okay, did I do it?

Oh, yes, now you sound glorious.

Fantastic.

Natalie, what a head of hair you have.

Oh, yeah.

I've learned to love it over the years.

You could have been in Monnie's mermaid commercial with me.

Yeah, it's very nice.

Thank you.

I actually just got done watching Lion King on Broadway, so I'm channeling in the main.

The main's powerful.

Very.

Dax, I have to tell you something.

Yes.

I quote two things from you frequently in my daily life.

One of them is my girl rocks.

My girl does not rock.

from baby mama carl loomis which by the way if you ever need to exit a playful argument just always leave the room with i'm gonna bang all your friends consider them all banged.

Great.

Which one's that from?

Also, Carl Loomis.

Oh, yeah.

I get mad at Babers.

That's funny.

My girl Rocks was not my line.

That was in the script.

But I'm going to bang all your friends.

It sounds like you.

Yeah.

You feel the DNA, I bet.

It was a good one.

And then I always have on my Instagram bio.

I change it quite frequently.

But right now, and it has been, this is an 81 Honda.

How dare you?

That's also him.

Right?

That's me.

That's employee.

No, I mean, that's also Carl Loomis.

Oh, wow.

That's Vince.

Vince Downey, maybe was his name.

Checkstand one.

Vince Downey, fastest hands in the West.

Do you ever say, here's the hat your worship ordered?

That's Monica's one line in her early play.

Yeah, that's my fifth-grade play line.

I'll use it now.

Thank you.

You'll find us time to use it.

That's going to be hard.

Oh, I bet it'll come up more than you think.

Okay, so you have a sleepwalking story.

I do.

I'll set the scene for you a little bit.

I'm based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

This is in my hometown, Caysville.

It was 2006, 2007.

I was 16 going on 17, so junior in high school.

And I had made the high school drill team, which in Utah is, I would argue, the equivalent to like making the football team in a southern state.

It's a big deal out here.

What happens on drill?

So we are a dance team.

We perform at the halftimes and do all that fun stuff, but we are super competitive.

So we go to regionals, national, state.

We all grow up dancing at studios together.

And then you move into high school together.

And so you've really danced with each other since you were in kindergarten.

When you make the drill team in high school, that alone is a huge celebration and it comes with a lot of responsibility.

It is no pun intended drilled into your head that you are now a role model to the younger crowd in your community.

Big burden.

Yes.

You kind of feel like your local celebrity status a little bit.

And then Just because you made the team doesn't mean you get to dance.

You continually audition to be in individual routines.

You have the risk of being removed from those throughout the the school year if your reputation falls apart, if you're not treating people well, if you don't make grades, if you're tardy more than a couple of times, you're out.

So there was a lot of stress that came with such a joyous adventure.

Would PDA in the hallway be penalized?

Oh, yeah, big no-no.

Yeah, I had a hunch.

Any sort of rumor that you were doing any sort of extracurriculars with your partner was not okay.

I was not raised in the Mormon faith.

I'm kind of the outcast.

A lot of pressure to be on your best behavior.

And in general, I was a good kid.

I followed a lot of rules.

I broke some, but to give you an example of the kind of people-pleasing mentality I had, I woke my mom up one night and was like, can I sneak out?

Oh my God.

Can I sneak out?

That's really great.

That's so cute.

Did she say yes?

Yeah, she did.

Yeah, good.

You gotta honor that.

You do.

You're obligated to.

Janet was pretty fun.

She let me get away with some stuff.

So when I made the team, you know, there's all this stress on you.

And then we we always had practice every other day before school at 6 a.m.

So you had to be there at 545 a.m.

If you were there at six, you were late because they wanted you to start feet on the floor at six.

So one morning, I wake up to a call from the captain of the team.

And she's like, hey, Matt, where are you?

I was like,

oh my God, I slept through my alarm.

The amount of adrenaline I left my house in under five minutes.

My school was five minutes from my house and you have to take just Main Street to get there.

There's no speeding.

There's no getting around things.

There's five stoplights.

You can't speed things up.

But to my house, from high school, five minutes.

So I got there 10 minutes left.

And that kind of started this trajectory of me having a lot of sleep issues.

Oh, no.

I was so terrified of it happening again because that's one demerit against me.

I could be taken out of a routine.

I could not be able to dance at the game on Friday.

Your life's work.

Yes, you get it.

Cheerleader.

So I remember checking my clock more obsessively than I used to, even though I was up.

Just make sure I'm on time.

Make sure I'm on time.

The stress we put on kids.

I know.

I know.

I look back now and I'm like, really?

But the routine I always had every morning, which is important for the next portion of the story, is I would wake up.

You had to have a slick back bun with a right part, full black outfit.

Then you have my dance shoes bag packed because right after practice, we'd go to school.

So we had to get ready in the locker room.

I kind of had this routine of getting everything ready, eating my cereal, and watching Save by the Bell, and then I would get in my car and go to school.

And one morning, I remember obsessively checking my clock to make sure I was on time.

I vividly remember three or four times just staring at my alarm clock, like, okay, I'm good.

The next thing I remember, I woke up in my car in the high school parking lot, hair slicked back,

in my full gear,

bag was on my passenger seat, car was running.

i have no memory of how i got there i'm scared this is like a ghost story

it was 12 30 in the morning oh 12 30 a.m oh my god a.m

okay that helps because i'm like wait you woke up you saw it was five but then you went back to sleep while you were getting ready but no no no no no no no okay so 12 30 a.m you got yourself all the way to school ready with the part

but you were sleeping and it was blackout had no memory of getting there.

So I'm sitting there.

This is madness.

This kind of feels like a seizure.

I was convinced my friends had plucked me out of my bed, planted me in my car as a prank.

I was like, how does this happen?

And this is all like processing in a matter of seconds.

I'm like surveying my situation.

So I call my mom and I'm at this point crying.

I'm like, I'm in my car at school.

I don't know how I got here.

And she's like, what?

Well, you got to worry.

Now my kid has a real issue.

It's very abnormal behavior.

Yeah, it scared her quite a bit when I talked to her about it to like remember everything.

She was like, Yeah, this is not fun for me as a parent.

Yeah.

She's a light sleeper.

She has four daughters.

It's not like I was her first rodeo, anyways.

No one in the house heard you.

No one heard me.

Well, that's late.

You've just gone to sleep.

Like, if ever there was a time, I feel like that would be the time everyone's like deep fucking asleep.

They're rolling around.

Yeah.

I've thought about that too because my dad was an early riser.

He worked construction and he was up at like five usually on his own.

So had it been even in 4 a.m.

Mark, I think he would have heard me.

What time were you going to bed back then?

How long do you think you had been asleep?

I usually went between like 10, 10:30.

So, you got an hour or two of sleep, and then got on the road, did your hair, parted it, topped bomb.

That's why I'm surprised no one heard.

You were getting ready.

Like, that is loud, kind of.

You probably ate your cereal.

What if the one thing she left out is she goes, We did have a 13,000 square foot house.

I had my own wing.

It was massive.

I lived in a mansion in the mountains.

Very low-key area, but it was terrifying.

And the thing that was the worst part that kind of validated it all was, as I'm on the phone with my mom, she's now walking through the house because she's like, what happened?

And she goes, Natalie, your cereal bowl's out.

See?

Wow.

You ate.

The TV is on.

And you've turned out all the lights.

You've gone through your full routine.

Wow.

But Saved by the Bell wasn't on.

So I'm very curious what you were watching.

Yeah, I don't know what I was watching.

No, Zach Morris.

And did it lead to there's one version might be like, that's a bottom and it fixed itself, or now everything's even worse.

It got worse for a minute.

She caught me a couple more times at like 2 a.m.

to 3 a.m.s trying to get ready.

And she was like, go to bed.

This is scary.

Yeah, this is maniacal.

Did you tell your coach?

Look what you've done to me.

No.

Complaining's a demerit.

See, remember when you said complaining's bad?

Sometimes it's good because, like, this needs to be called out.

You're permitted to self-defend.

That's what people got mixed up on the revenge episode.

Revenge addiction.

Some people are going off in the comments.

They're like, well, what about, you know, and if I'm a victim, and it's like, you're allowed to defend yourself.

Oh, yeah.

This is a different thing.

Did you guys at least win state or anything?

We won regionals.

We were 6H that year.

Okay.

It was worth it.

It was worth it.

But yeah, there was no other times like in my adult life, I haven't.

I've only had one weird experience, but I had set up a contraption around my front door when I lived alone.

One time I found my deadbolt unlocked and I had, again, like a full ritual.

So I know, and it was undone.

And I was like, I fucking bet you I tried to get out of my apartment.

Wow.

Ooh.

It's kind of exciting, too.

It's like you go to sleep and you're like, hmm, I wonder where I'll wake up.

You definitely shouldn't be driving while sleeping.

Well, she did a good job.

She got to the parking lot.

This is a bad tip, but if you were drinking and driving and you got pulled over,

you could be like, oh,

for the listener, Monica just acted startled.

I'm going to be the cop.

Okay.

Ma'am, do you know why I pulled you over?

Where am I?

Well, it smells like you're in a bar, but you're not.

You're behind the wheel of your car.

You reek like alcohol.

Oh my God.

Officer, I did drink and I ubered home, and I don't know how I got here.

I must have slept.

But unfortunately, you still drove your car while intoxicated.

I didn't think I was sleeping.

We don't really have any loopholes, unfortunately.

Officer, please.

I have wondered, what would a cop have done?

Yeah.

What if you killed someone?

Like, really?

Oh, terrifying.

Could they arrest you?

Because you were sleeping.

Yeah, I don't think you could use that as a defense.

There has been these cases.

I was watching another one of these lines and a guy who had well-documented night terrors killed his neighbor.

See?

So people have done wild shit.

Because if you're having a nightmare that your neighbor's trying to kill you and you think it's self-defense.

That's crazy.

Natalie, thank you for that.

What a bizarre.

Yeah.

I have a quick question for you.

I have two sisters that have turned me on to armchair, and they are the whole reason that I have entered prompts.

Could they say hello?

Yes, let us thank them.

Let me grab them.

Two seconds.

We also deprived my niece of sleep because we wanted her to see you.

Oh,

wonderful.

Okay, but you shouldn't deprive her of sleep because that's the story.

My mom was like, do you think she really cares?

I was like, no, but I do.

She has to stay awake.

We need a birdie.

Oh, birdie.

We love that.

Yeah.

But I wanted to say we love you guys.

Your open-minded approach to everyone has softened my approach to the world.

Oh, thank you.

Good.

Well, we should all thank Laura LeBeau for that.

Yeah.

I'm just carrying on her approach.

No, I'm not.

But I infected you.

All right.

Well, nice meeting you guys.

Thank you.

Bye.

Abby.

Yeah.

Hi.

You're one of our younger listeners.

How old are you, Abby?

I was worried you guys wouldn't be able to tell that right away.

I'm 22.

Oh, okay.

But if you were here in L.A.

as an actor, we could put you on a high school drama for sure.

You could pull off, I'd say 10th grade and above.

I'll take that.

But also, I'm 50,000 years old.

So do your peers think you look young?

I don't know.

So I just graduated college and I'm in like my first corporate job.

So I'm the youngest in the office.

I'm kind of bottom of the totem pole right now.

Yeah, you're not quite at the point where what we're saying is a compliment, even though it is.

Right.

But I remember this and I'd be like, Thanks.

Did people tell you you looked young?

Yes, people still say it.

Oh,

what?

I don't know this about you.

So young.

You don't know that?

That when you were 17, people didn't think you were 17.

No, I don't know that part.

Oh, yeah.

I would get carded when I was like 28.

That might be because you're short.

I think it's because I look young.

Thank you.

See, I get older sometimes because I'm kind of taller.

So maybe that's it.

But we can't tell because you're seated

and where are you at i am in my closet but i'm currently in columbus ohio i'm from sandusky ohio i wanted to tell you that dax cedar point baby do you have a season pass you go all the time we did when i was younger but not so much anymore we're all moved out of house okay so you have a sleepwalking story I do.

So before we lived in Sandusky, we lived in another suburb of Cleveland.

So that's where the story takes place.

It happens when I was in the fourth grade.

So about 2010, 2011.

I joined my cross-country team for the school.

I didn't think I was that into it until this night happened.

My family has kind of a history of sleep shenanigans, like the sleepwalking, sleep talking, tears, stuff like that, especially me and my younger brother.

Really quick, I love that you call it sleep shenanigans, and I regret that that wasn't our prompt.

Tell us about some sleep shenanigans.

A lot goes on.

So you kind of have to understand the shape of the house for this story.

It's like an L.

So my bedroom was down at the bottom of the L and then the kitchen was up at the top with a big old island that my parents had installed.

And so my parents had put us all to bed.

I have three other siblings.

So they're relaxing.

The night's over.

They're watching TV and the living room is kind of connected to this hallway.

Your back is to the hallway as you're sitting in the living room.

And all of a sudden, they're sitting there.

It's like 11 midnight.

And they're hearing this sudden boom, boom, boom, boom, boom down the hallway.

They're like, what's going on?

That must be the dog.

They start to look around.

No, the dog's sitting at the bottom of the couch with them.

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And there I am, 10-year-old me, hauling ass

down the hallway in my sleep, eyes wide open, just going.

I'm whipped down the hallway like a racetrack and start doing laps around the kitchen island.

Training.

Apparently, which I'm like, I must have missed my calling.

Yeah.

This is nuts.

They don't know what to do.

I've sleepwalked before, like a whole bunch.

So this was kind of routine, but also not.

The athletics, you didn't generally.

This was something new.

So when I had sleepwalked, they would shake me, yell at me, like, Abby, wake up, time to go to bed.

But I think they were so bamboozled, they didn't know what to do.

And then at one point, I ran into my older sister's room and flicked on the light switch, stood there for a second, and then just left, leaving them in the dark.

Well, in the light, panicking, like, what's happening?

And run back down the L the other way.

My parents are kind of like, they don't put this in the.

parenting handbook.

Nobody tells you what to do.

So they're trying to come up with a game plan.

And all of a sudden, they hear this loud swack from the other end of the hallway, which they can't see because of the bend.

And my dad seems to think that I hit my head on one of the door handles or something.

Cause this was a couple minutes now of me just going back and forth, back and down the hallway, doing laps.

I must have been getting like my mile pace or something.

I mean, you're maybe chased by a wolf or something in your

sleep.

Yeah.

So I called them to kind of get the details on this to figure out the rest of the story because I don't remember all of it.

And they always said, whenever I would sleepwalk or this, I would have like just a look of terror on my face.

Yeah, this is one of our daughters who does it.

She's not in a good space.

The next day, I wake up in like the recliner of the living room, blanket over me.

My dad's like interrogating me.

Do you know what you were doing last night at breakfast?

Like, are you okay?

Looking back, I'm like, man, I wish I still did that.

Like getting my cardio in in the night, I don't even remember it.

That would be the dream hack is, yeah, in your sleep, you go and you lift weights for like 60 minutes,

wake up, swallow.

Yeah, that'd be nice.

What did you hit?

Do you know?

We're all still thinking the door handle because they had these double doors that led into a closet and the handles were kind of like long and sticking out and stuff.

And they think I hit my head, which I mean, that would kind of explain a lot now.

But I'm surprised hitting didn't wake you up.

Me too.

I must have been in it.

Our daughter who does it, you cannot wake her up.

I mean, she doesn't even do it anymore, but when it was happening, you couldn't wake her up.

Yeah, I don't remember a lot of them waking me up.

I think them like yelling my name and being like, Abby, Abby, would often just pull me out enough for them to like put me back to bed.

I'm concerned for my future kids because if I was in my parents' position, I would be like, they're getting clocked.

I'm not asking questions.

That's freaky.

You'd have to consider putting the lock on the outside of the door.

But fire, that's so scary.

They'll leave the window unlocked.

Well, then.

They'll run in the yard.

Yeah, that's intense.

That is not something I would want to be dealing with as a parent because if they're not waking up, also, what if they like grab a knife or something?

What if you throw a huge bucket of water in her face as she runs by?

She's trying.

And Abby, did that pass?

The sleepwalking has passed.

Two weeks ago, my fiancé and I, we were sleeping, and he told me in the middle of the night, I sat up, asked if he had farted, and then just laid back down.

Had he?

He probably had.

He probably had.

He was trying to blame it on you, like you did something weird, but really.

No, you woke yourself up with your own fart, Abby.

Now go back to sleep.

Exactly.

And then a little bit ago as well, he said, I started spitting on him like a llama.

Oh,

that's strange.

Sure.

So the sleep shenanigans haven't exactly stopped, but I haven't sleep ran again.

Okay.

Knocking on wood.

That's good.

Knocking on wood.

We claim progress, not perfection.

Well, in this case, we want perfection.

Yeah, but we're going to try to have to be happy with progress, I guess.

Well, Abby, it's delightful to meet you.

You guys too.

Take care.

Have a great summer.

You too.

All right.

Bye.

I have sleep shenanigans.

Oh, tell me.

As you know.

Other than your sleep.

Sleep seizures.

Nocturnal seizures.

Also, remember when I called that person a dumb bitch?

Oh, when you were with Callie?

Yeah, in my sleep.

Who knows what I'm doing at night?

Because I'm alone.

We got to get a camera in in there.

Motion activated camera so you can review what you do in the night.

They apparently have a device my friend was just telling us about that records you in the middle of the night when you start talking because him and his wife have been yelling at each other in their sleep.

Oh, interesting.

That's a bad idea though, because you'd have to hear this argument you were in and it might actually make you angry even though you weren't.

You know, I had a ton of sleep shenanigans.

You've already heard about that.

I woke up one night in the middle of the night with Carrie screaming.

Oh, right.

Put me down, put me down.

I was just holding her up in the air.

Another time, I didn't wake up for this, but I just woke up and I rotated her 180 degrees.

So she was laying the opposite way.

And then I woke up another time as a kid and my entire family was in my bedroom and I was standing in my bed banging on the walls as hard as I could.

I go to my brother's room a lot.

I peeped in a trash can in my mom's room one night.

Yeah, I was busy.

Shenanigans.

Shenanigans.

I also swam once in my dream.

I did.

This is just about like dreams now.

No, I was moving.

I was in bed with my mom.

And then in the morning, she was like, you were moving from one side of the bed to the other and back and forth.

And I was like, I was having a dream about swimming.

And that was before you were afraid of swimming?

Or maybe you were working out that fear?

That's when I knew how to swim.

I've since lost the ability.

Hello?

Is this Allie?

This is.

And where in the country are you?

I'm in Salt Lake City.

I'm in Utah.

Back-to-back Salt Lake.

We've had a few double-ups today.

It's really weird.

These patterns just emerge.

Like 4th of July had two michiganders from the same place and it's like that's right we up fourth of july a lot michiganders and then we're learning salt lake city's sleepwalk or it's just sim wait till you hear an upcoming episode about the sim you'll be convinced i can't wait i was telling steph it's the sim now because it was just my birthday and she just gave me the cookie boy shirt for my birthday

And then she told me as soon as the sleepwalking prompt came out, she was like, it's out.

You got to submit.

And I was like, like, This is sim.

It's all happening at the same time.

That's usually when it rains and pours with the sim.

I don't know if you noticed the subtle death stare that Monica gave me when she said, Listen to the sim episode.

I pushed back a little bit, and that's what the death stare was.

And he's wrong.

Sim is real.

I didn't pick up on it, but I'll keep my eye out for it for sure.

I want to print a book of Monica's looks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They could even be shirts.

I should draw a picture of your face, and it should say, cut this or wrap this up.

I'd pre-order that in a heartbeat.

Okay, so you have a sleepwalking story.

I do.

So this happened when I was about 21 and I was living at home with my parents.

So it was about 16 years ago.

And a little bit of backstory.

I was diagnosed with a chronic pain issue when I was around 13 or 14.

Endometriosis?

No, I actually have this chronic nerve condition called CRPS, complex regional pain syndrome.

Oh, it's nerve pain?

Yeah, your nerves overreact to normal sensations.

Putting on a sock is painful.

Wearing shoes is painful.

Oh,

is there any upside to that condition?

Forgive my perversion.

The fact that it brings me to you.

That's probably the upside.

I would want more upside than that for you.

Okay, so there's just no upside and there's pain.

And then how do they treat nerve pain?

So I've done a ton of different types of treatments.

I've had nerve blocks, oral pain medication.

I had this really weird thing where they use capsaicin to like burn my feet physically to hope that it resets the nerve responses.

And then I've had all sorts of devices implanted in me.

So I've had a pump with cone snail venom in it.

Oh my God.

Really crazy stuff.

I've done it all.

And does it concentrate in a certain area of your body?

Yeah.

So it's in both my feet from the ankle down.

I have genetic bunions.

So it was the result of a bunionectomy that I had both feet done at the same time when I was in ninth grade.

And when they pulled the pins out, it triggered it immediately.

Oh my God.

And my pain was always really horrible at night.

I would have to really be heavily medicated at night.

So around this time, I was taking morphine and ambiene to sleep.

Quite the combo, the two of them.

I would have a lot of like hallucinations.

They also didn't know at that time that ambiene is twice as powerful in women than it is men so all women were over prescribed their ambien exactly and i was taking a really high dose and high dose of morphine so i was living the dream i never thought i'd be jealous of nerve pain but that sounds like a nice way to go to sleep

exactly when it worked it worked yeah so i would show up sometimes like at the side of my parents bed in the middle of the night staring at them one time my sister came home from working at the bar one in the morning and i was just sitting on the toilet staring straight ahead Very creepy, zombie-like.

Yeah, and I don't really have a ton of recollection of it.

It would be a lot of them telling me about it.

And the thing that really happened around that time that I was like, oh, yeah, this is probably the biggest red flag was it was around Valentine's Day, and my parents had given me a two-pound box of chocolate.

And I went to bed one night and I woke up the next morning to like this crunchy sound around me.

And I had eaten the whole two-pound box of chocolate.

So there were just wrappers everywhere, but I didn't remember it at all.

Which I honestly, for years, have been thinking you guys need to do a prompt about what I did on Ambien because there are some wild stories out there.

We should do an Ambien prompt.

Rob, I'll edit.

Okay.

So the other thing that's kind of important for this backstory is my sister was a volleyball player growing up.

And she and I always kind of had this friendly, teasing banter about pubic hair because she was always very clean shaven, very little hair because she had to wear those fandic shorts and it always weirded me out.

I was like very natural, full bush.

Either way is good.

Both are great.

I'd take either.

I think I'm the more rare breed nowadays.

I think no hair is the trendy thing to do.

I think it's coming back.

We've talked about it.

That's on the rise.

I think it's almost an age thing.

The older you get, the more you're like, who cares?

I agree.

And my mom's actually a nurse practitioner that does OBGYN.

So she sees a lot.

She was like, yeah, it just depends on the the person and the age.

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So, one night I went to bed and I woke up the next morning to go to the bathroom, and I go to lift up my nightgown, and I look down, and I have absolutely no pubic camera.

Okay, freshly shorn.

Everything is gone.

There's not a single hair from labia to the crack.

Like, there's absolutely nothing.

Oh, wow.

You even got into the perineum.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

What?

It looked like in the middle of the night, I had gone to a waxing studio and just had everything removed.

It was a really good job.

In the night, you put a razor to your vagina.

Well, that's the thing is, I don't know.

So then I'm sitting on the toilet and I immediately call for my sister, whose room is right there.

And I was like, cam.

And she comes running out and I lift up my nightgown and she just falls to the floor laughing.

She thinks it's the funniest thing she's ever seen.

My parents come down because they hear the commotion and they're like, what's going on?

So we explain/slash show what happened to them and then start the hunt for where the pubic hair went.

Yeah.

Sure, sure.

And we looked in like the bathtub, we looked at the razor, we looked in the sink, we looked in the garbage, we looked everywhere.

We even have this little deck attached to our bedrooms.

So we went outside and checked for that and there was absolutely no sign of it.

There's no pubic hair to be found anywhere.

So it's just been the missing pubic hair mystery where we have no idea.

You never found it.

No.

You had to have done it on the toilet and flushed the toilet.

But it would have got, I mean, that is not an easy, that's not just like

and then it's done.

Hair gets places.

Yeah, and we have a natural bush.

It's like, there's a lot.

Right.

And the surprise you didn't find the razor.

It was so strange.

and the thing that's so funny now is it's like a cautionary tale for my mom's patients anyone that comes in and takes ambient gets to hear the story about how i misplaced all my pubic hair in the middle of the night maybe you did wax no that would be even easier to find i hope you did it in the driveway

Just in front of all the neighbors.

Like you're coming home late at night.

And you're an adult.

Let's be clear.

She's 22.

You turn the corner and your lights illuminate a woman squatting in her driveway.

Did your mom or dad like ask the neighbors, hey, just wondering if you saw anything weird happening?

Allie's missing her pubic hair.

You're like, oh my God, is that what all this hair is in our house?

Like, what if you broke in somewhere and then did it there?

What if they put signs up on telephone poles all over the neighborhood missing pubic hair and then had either a picture or a drawing of the pubic hair?

Where were you guys when this happened?

I should have done all the above.

Oh, my God.

So many good ideas.

I mean, it is so hard to shave your vagina and get all the hair and have no blood.

I'm shocked.

I have no recollection of what happened.

So like I felt a little violated.

Yes.

You violated yourself.

The biggest betrayals are what we do to ourselves.

That's what they say.

Exactly.

So yeah, that's the unsolved mystery of our time.

If we figure it out, will you please let us know?

Absolutely.

Or if I happen to go back on ambient and morphine and repeating behavior, I'll reach out and let you know.

This is is terribly personal, Donald, but how does one not get addicted to the morphine?

We talked about this a lot with my doctor.

If it's a genetic thing, I just never had the gene for the addiction.

I hated taking it.

Even still to this day, I hate taking it.

But now they have so much different kind of medication.

Like ketamine has been.

the game changer for me really

in high school i had pick lines of continuous ketamine infusions i would unhook the line and go perform in the musical and then go backstage and my mom would flush the line.

Then I'd be really fucked up.

Well, we share that in common, a pick line.

Not everyone's had a pick line.

Yeah, they're not my favorite thing, but you know, they do work.

Yeah, if you have kids, they like flushing it and getting involved and playing nurse, I found.

So that was the one upside.

I did have a horrible incident where the tubing got caught on a doorknob

and I was home alone and that was really special.

Monica went swimming with me in the ocean with the pick line.

Did you saran wrap it?

Yeah, I just kept my arm out of the water the whole time.

It wasn't a good idea.

It wasn't, but I'm not flying all the way to Hawaii and not getting in the ocean.

I think you did wrap it.

I probably did some stuff.

Yeah, but it wasn't enough.

Yeah.

I died.

He passed.

I passed.

Yeah, you got to do what you got to do.

You got to keep living.

Thankfully, we're in the sim, and I woke up the next day after dying.

Wow.

What a story.

Yeah, Allie, that's great.

It's a comedic twist to it.

I love a mystery.

Very Nancy Drew.

It's a humdanger.

I think it got flushed on the toilet.

I'm going to stand by that.

It's not.

You don't know what it is.

Where the hell else is it?

It disappeared.

Unless there was like a bird's nest somewhere.

Beautiful little hummingbird.

You're a cashmere sweater, you know.

You could have contributed.

I would feel a little weird about that.

Maybe we start a different cashmere.

Is that where you draw the line?

I do.

I don't want to intermix Delta's leg hair in an adult's veg.

Okay.

Well, Allie, thank you for that.

That was delightful.

It really is such a pleasure to get to meet you guys.

Take care.

Captain speaking.

Who are you being?

I was being a captain of an airplane.

Zach, can you hear us?

I can.

Can you guys hear me?

Yeah, do you want to hear me be a captain of an airplane?

Sure.

Okay, ready?

We are currently at our cruising altitude of 30,000 feet.

If you look out the starboard side of the aircraft, you can get a little peek of the Grand Canyon, just the southern border.

I'll be back in about five minutes to disrupt your movie.

It was pretty good.

It's on the the fly.

Usually I can't hear the pilots quite as good as that.

It's one of my many stupid grievances.

I'm almost embarrassed to have.

I have many grievances where I know I'm a piece of shit for having them, but I don't ever need the pilot to talk to me.

Like I'm never wondering what altitude we're at or what's out the window.

I want to watch my thing and that's it.

I'm actually about to get on a plane in about three hours.

Oh, okay.

Well, maybe you'll get a chatty one and you'll go, he was right.

You have a decadent mustache.

Yeah, very nice.

Yeah, it's so full and dark.

How long have you been wearing a stash?

Probably about two years.

I've transitioned from the full beard to the mustache.

And what's been the effect of it?

Are you attracting a different type of customer?

Being a gay man, it's almost part of our uniform these days.

Yeah.

Is it?

This is so interesting.

Jess has a mustache now, but I didn't realize it was like a thing.

I thought he was just going through a midlife crisis.

Oh.

His is very specific and it's red.

I also think midlife crisis is cool.

Why not?

Like do whatever you want.

This is good information for me.

It attracts the gaze.

So it's quite popular.

I bet a lot are coming your way.

Well, I'm happily married.

Maybe you'll meet him at the end of this, but I've attracted a good one.

Okay.

That's a fun prize coming at the end of this.

Where are you at, Zach?

I'm in Quebec, Canada, in Montreal right now.

I'm at my sister's house en route to the airport.

I'm embarrassed I haven't been to Montreal because I hear nothing but glowing, wonderful reviews.

Everyone says it's a very sexy city and it's very European.

There's a lot of history, but also a lot of culture.

I mean, the Quebec culture is a bit unique even within Canada and some amazing food.

I would say it's probably the culinary capital of Canada.

So if you like food, it's the place to come.

Yeah, I got to go up there for the F1 race and eat my way through the city.

Okay, so you have a sleepwalking story.

I do.

So my story takes place early 90s, probably around 1993.

I don't remember exactly what year because I was relatively young.

My parents were heading out for an early Christmas party at my aunt's house, probably about 20 minutes away from our house.

And they left my 13 year old sister and her best friend in charge, babysitting.

My middle sister, who was 11 and myself, probably about nine at the time.

She was in charge.

And as soon as my parents left, she ordered us some pizza and she put on some.

terrible rom-com movie that I wasn't super interested in at that age, but there were some vanilla sex scenes that piqued my interest as a nine-year-old boy, but I eventually passed out on the couch.

When the movie was over and it was time to go to bed, my sister woke me up and dragged me upstairs to bed and i went easily to sleep and then probably about two hours later i would say around midnight my sister and her best friend they were downstairs in the basement in her room chit-chatting in bed and i just showed up in her doorway i was white as a ghost, drenched in sweat and hysterically crying.

Oh God.

And saying that there was a man in my middle sister's bedroom upstairs.

Oh my God.

At first they were like, he's playing some sort of a childish prank, but given how hysterical I was and my physical state, they immediately moved themselves into panic mode and started crying.

Yeah, that's a lot for a 13-year-old babysitter.

Yeah, exactly.

Not what she signed up for.

So she picked up her 1990s portable phone that she had in her room and called my aunt's house and tried to get out that there was some sort of an intruder in the house.

And in my sister's room, she was hyperventilating and having trouble to speak, but eventually came out.

My mom, who was on the other line, tried to stay calm and reassure her that everything's going to be okay.

But she asked us, can you go to the stairs that led up from the basement to see if you can hear anything upstairs?

So we crept up the stairs to our kitchen.

We couldn't hear anything.

We were too scared to go try and actually save my middle sister at the time.

Probably the smart thing.

Yeah, we don't need four kids.

I know, but this is very force majeure.

It is.

My eldest sister sent me to grab a butcher knife out of the block that was sitting on the kitchen counter because, you know, we have to have some sort of a weapon to defend ourselves.

At the same time, my dad and uncle, who were at this party immediately jumped in the car and started making their way over probably not really in any sort of state to drive the police weren't called at this point there was not multiple there were no cell phones or anything so my mom was on the line with us and they figured they could probably get there quicker than cops could because it was not even 15 minutes away this is a pretty small town i would say maybe 35 000 people so they take off down the main drag of our town and blow through every red light and eventually unfortunately attract the attention of police and get pulled over oh boy they didn't want to start some sort of police chase at that point so they pull over and tell the police what's happening and they take it very seriously so they turn the sirens on take up the address and make their way to our house my dad didn't know but they obviously called for reinforcement en route we're still sitting in the kitchen and all of a sudden we hear footsteps coming down the hallway towards our kitchen and we have no idea if this is the man that is coming and my middle sister turns the corner and sees us in complete hysterics so she assumes something has gone wrong and you're holding a butcher knife.

Exactly.

So she just breaks out in tears, throws herself into my sister's arms.

We assume she's crying because she's been attacked.

Eventually, my eldest sister, the one in charge, finally asked my sister, are you okay?

Where is the man?

And that's when my middle sister's face turns from panic to confusion because she's like, what man?

And what are you talking about?

I'm fine.

What is happening?

And it's at that point that we realize there was never a man in the house.

Oh, no.

I had obviously imagined the whole situation.

But at that same time, the police and my dad show up at the house.

And we're not talking just one police cruiser.

So they probably sent every police resource of our little town to the house, including police with pretty heavy duty equipment ready for some sort of a standoff.

I mean, they were told that there was a man assaulting a young child in a bedroom.

So they come in.

We're still pretty upset at this point because it's all very much happening as they enter the house.

So they move us into the living room and do a full sweep of the house.

So they want to make sure there's no actual intruder.

So they proceed to ask us some questions.

It's become very clear at this point that I had had a bad dream.

I had sleptwalked down to my sister's bedroom, obviously started some sort of complete emergency, convinced everyone that there was an intruder in the house and basically had the SWAT team arrive at the house.

Once it was clear that the intruder was not ever there, the police were not very happy with the situation.

They never told that to me at the time because I was pretty mortified as a child that all of this had happened.

This would scar me for life.

If I fucked up like this, I would punish myself like you can't imagine.

I'd be like, I mean, I can't say for sure there wasn't.

Oh, I'd be like, I'm an idiot.

All these people came.

By the time I came out of my sleep-induced state, my sister and her friend were already in full panic mode.

So I was fully convinced that there was a man.

That bridge between my sleep-induced state state and reality was a very fine line.

We were all convinced that it was happening.

So it was indeed a very chaotic situation.

But by the time the police left, they did slap my uncle with a very hefty ticket for having blown all of the red lights.

They weren't very sympathetic about that.

They shouldn't have done that.

They didn't need to get retribution.

It's not very Canadian.

You fucked up his party.

They already paid a price.

They were having a good time.

And then they were panicked and had a race through town.

They didn't come out as winners in this either.

I'm surprised my uncle didn't make my dad pay for the ticket or take it out of my allowance.

Needless to say, I wasn't allowed to watch any movies that had any kind of adult content for a few years after that, given that perhaps that is what had set off the bad dream that led to this whole situation.

But years later, obviously, we laughed about the situation.

Have you been plagued with crazy night terror stuff since, or that was a one-off?

As a young child, like I would say probably all the way up to puberty, like I sleptwalk quite frequently.

And then once I became a teenager, it all stopped.

Yeah.

So interesting.

It's very weird.

I can't imagine we understand a ton about this.

It'd be kind of a hard thing to study.

You have to catch them in the middle of one.

They already have to be hooked up.

And if they're hooked up, it's hard to walk.

Yeah, and then it's a little guy sleeping in a lab, presumably.

Exactly, yeah.

Praying that he has one.

God, that is so funny.

I can also imagine you were sleepwalking and then you came to, it's like chaos.

I completely bought into it.

Same for my middle sister.

When she turned the corner into the kitchen, she assumed that there was an actual situation happening within the house.

So stupid.

It is.

It is so stupid.

Poor little kids panicking.

I am the friend.

I'm force majoring.

I'm bolting out of that house and getting out.

Well, even Sam Harris, he's had security experts on, and you are supposed to leave, even if it's your kids or everything, because you've now changed the dynamic in a way that the intruder did not expect.

And now, presumably, you're going to get help.

So now there's a time clock.

So, it's counterintuitive, but you are supposed to leave.

I would never, but you're supposed to.

I know.

Let's meet this fucking hunk.

What's his name?

His name's Sean.

And I also have my two best friends who were traveling to Italy together.

And they're actually the ones that introduced me to Armchair Expert a couple of years ago.

They're obsessed.

Oh, wonderful.

Where are you going in Italy?

We're going to Tuscany.

We rented a villa and we're just going to hang out there and do some day trips and enjoy some food and wine.

Oh,

jealous.

Okay, let's see this rowdy group.

Wow.

My husband, Sean, and my best friend Chad and my best friend Meno, who introduced me to you guys.

Hi, everyone.

We're so jealous you're going to Tuscany.

I went three summers ago and it was just, you feel like you're in a fucking movie.

Oh, it's impossibly beautiful.

It's so nice to meet you.

Thank you so much for this opportunity.

We're so excited.

We've been waiting by the door.

You should have run in and said there was an intruder.

Well, you guys have the greatest trip to Italy.

So jealous.

Thank you so much.

Have a great day.

Yeah, nice meeting all of you.

Have fun.

When's the last time you were in Italy?

A long time.

I think I read an article that said, like, Italians are done with tourism.

They're like sick of it.

They wish.

I'm going.

Okay.

Well, maybe you could

talk like this.

Well, I'm going to wear a big American flag.

Oh, that's not going to go well.

I'm going to own it.

All right.

All right.

love you.

Love you.

Do you want to sing a tune or something?

We want to do a theme song.

Oh,

okay, great.

We don't have a

song for this new show, so here I go, go, go.

We're gonna ask some random questions, and with the help of our cherries, we'll get some suggestions

on the flyer rhyme dish

on the flyer rhyme dish.

Enjoy.

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Hi, I'm Monica Lewinsky.

Welcome to Reclaiming.

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.

Miley Cyrus, welcome to Reclaiming.

My 2013 is your 1998.

I lost everything during that time in my personal life because of the choices I was making professionally.

Chelsea Handler, welcome to Reclaiming.

I did have a teacher who instilled in me that I was going to do something special.

And she was like, you're going to have an impact.

Sophia Bush.

Welcome to Reclaiming.

You went all the way.

You committed.

And if it wasn't for you, you had the courage to tell the truth and get out.

And I had to say that to women in my life, and I had to learn how to say it in a mirror to myself.

This last decade for me has really been what I consider my own reclaiming.

My own journey, my own reclaiming story is in the bones of this show.

Please listen to Reclaiming on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.