Armchair Anonymous: 4th of July

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Speaker 1 Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard.
Happy 4th of July, America. Happy 4th.

Speaker 2 I love 4th of July.

Speaker 1 Me too.

Speaker 2 I love living here. Me too.
Despite a lot of stuff.

Speaker 3 I love it.

Speaker 2 I love it. And I'm grateful for my families who moved here and let me be an American citizen.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I was just revisiting. This is how boring and old I've become.
I watched the Ben Franklin, Ken Burns. Oh, yeah.
It's like a 27-part deal on PBS. I bought it years ago and watched it.

Speaker 1 The other night I was like, I'm going to revisit this. I forgot some of my facts on Ben.

Speaker 1 And yeah, just watching what they went through. And, you know, his son, his son was the governor of New Jersey

Speaker 1 and he was a loyalist.

Speaker 1 And they had many, many fights as they were, as the Continental Congress was getting together. He was urging his son, you got to come with us.
You got to be a part of this. And he won it.

Speaker 1 And he never did. He stayed loyal to the king.
Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's kind of like your dad and you with jumping off the deck.

Speaker 1 The deck. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's a power struggle.

Speaker 1 The immovable object met the unstoppable force or something. At any rate, in honor of our country's birth and celebration, we have 4th of July disasters.
Leave it to us.

Speaker 1 And again, this is what makes us so great. We like to blow ourselves up to celebrate.
Oh, God. Get those fireworks out, just start blowing things to bits.
Oh, God.

Speaker 1 Bodies.

Speaker 1 This is lovely. Everyone, enjoy the 4th of July.
Here are some crazy stories about the 4th of July.

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Speaker 2 Oh, I know, especially when you're doing something important like editing this show.

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Speaker 1 Hard times

Speaker 1 come and go.

Speaker 1 Good times, take them slow.

Speaker 1 My life,

Speaker 1 I had them both.

Speaker 1 Remember one thing,

Speaker 1 you gotta know.

Speaker 1 Hello, is this Katie?

Speaker 1 Uh-oh, it sounds echoey.

Speaker 1 Oh, and now you're gone.

Speaker 2 That's the right move.

Speaker 1 Move, you gotta. So then you gotta start over.

Speaker 4 Is it okay without my headphones?

Speaker 1 We kind of need headphones because the audio will be messed up when we talk.

Speaker 4 Okay, one minute.

Speaker 1 Let me try to get another pair. Thank you.

Speaker 4 Hi, guys. How about now?

Speaker 1 You sound incredible. Katie, where are you?

Speaker 4 I live in Washington, D.C., but I'm actually on my bachelorette party right now.

Speaker 1 Yours or someone else's? Mine.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 4 So I just ran out there to 10 girls.

Speaker 1 The headphones aren't working.

Speaker 1 And have we caught you on what will be your only sober moment of the day? Hopefully. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I love this. Where is the party? Oh, let me guess.

Speaker 1 Nashville. No.
Damn it. Okay.

Speaker 4 Charlottesville, Virginia. There's like lots of wineries here.

Speaker 2 Oh, I'm jealous. How exciting.

Speaker 1 That wasn't random. You know, Nashville is like the capital.
I've been to one. You have? Did you ride a bike down the street drinking out of the thing?

Speaker 2 We saw it, we didn't do it.

Speaker 1 That's the good move. Yeah, are you guys doing anything insane?

Speaker 4 Nothing insane. We had a pool day today, so it was perfect timing.
When I got the note from Emma yesterday, I was like, we'll make it work.

Speaker 1 Yay!

Speaker 2 Congratulations.

Speaker 1 Yes. When are your nuptials?

Speaker 4 August 30th. So, Labor Day weekend.
It was the only date available on a Saturday, so we were like, lock it down.

Speaker 1 Okay, perfect. Okay, so you have a Fourth of July story.

Speaker 4 I do. So this happened last Fourth of July, so July 2024 in Washington, DC, where I live.
My boyfriend now fiancé is a big 4th of July guy. So we always host a party.
We always host a barbecue.

Speaker 4 We had maybe 20, 30 people over and it was going well, just like a normal party. Around eight, it started to die down.
I think 4th of July was on a Thursday last year.

Speaker 4 So some people had to go to work or... A lot of people like to see the fireworks at the Capitol where they do a big show.

Speaker 4 And that's normally what we would have done, but we had just gotten a dog a couple months before and we didn't know how he was going to react. So my neighbors are like, let's go upstairs.

Speaker 4 We have like a rooftop. Let's see if we can see the Capitol fireworks from there.

Speaker 1 How close are you to the city city?

Speaker 4 I'm in the city. I live in Capitol Hill.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow. That's awesome.
That's exciting.

Speaker 4 So we're up there. We're just chilling.
We can't see the Capitol fireworks, but it's a city. People are setting off fireworks literally everywhere.

Speaker 4 And then all of a sudden, I feel this giant smack on my arm and a huge pain in my arm. I'm kind of in shock at first.
I'm like, what just happened? So is everyone.

Speaker 4 Everyone's looking at me like, are you okay? And I look down on my arm and I have a small but deep kind of wound. And it felt like I got hit by something really big.

Speaker 4 So I'm like looking around, trying to see what hit me. Is there debris? And I'm not seeing anything, but I'm like, guys, I must have been hit by a piece of firework darling.

Speaker 1 Oh, God.

Speaker 4 We go inside, take a look at it, wash it off. And when I lift my other side of my arm, I can tell that I have a giant bruise and that whatever is in me is still inside of me

Speaker 4 and kind of bulging out.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 2 like a bullet.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm afraid.

Speaker 4 So we go to the hospital. We have to Uber because we've been drinking.
Takes forever to get to the hospital. And so I get an x-ray.
They're like, yeah, it's probably a firework. We go back.

Speaker 4 And at this point, I'm feeling calm. I had been sobbing in the Uber.
It was just mentally freaky to like have something.

Speaker 1 Yeah, what was the pain level out of 10?

Speaker 4 I said a seven out of 10. More like mental pain, I feel like, than physical.

Speaker 4 Finally, the doctor and nurse come in and they have a very serious look on their face and they said, we've just called the police. You have a full bullet inside of your arm.

Speaker 1 God.

Speaker 4 Apparently on New Year's and 4th of July, people just

Speaker 1 like they think it disappears when it hits the air or it's not going to come down.

Speaker 4 They said it can travel up to two miles away if someone shoots a bullet in the air because there was no one around us.

Speaker 1 there was no one doing anything crazy and do they think it was on its ascent or its descent the descent they think oh my god yes let's be honest guys

Speaker 1 the bullet comes down it's aerodynamic it's gonna travel at extreme speeds you're so lucky it hit your arm yes and then this is the craziest part at least to me They clean it out.

Speaker 4 They give me some IV antibiotics and they're like, yeah, so we don't have a trauma surgeon on staff and you're stable. So we're going to send you home.

Speaker 1 Have a good night.

Speaker 2 With it in you?

Speaker 4 With it in me still.

Speaker 4 They're like, here's some surgeons you can call. As a heads up, it's now like Friday at 1 a.m.
No one's going to see you till after the weekend.

Speaker 4 And so I lived with a bullet inside of me for four and a half days or something like that.

Speaker 4 I think I sent some photos in.

Speaker 1 Oh, let us look. Okay.

Speaker 1 Number one.

Speaker 1 Oh, my lord, here's the round. Well, you're really lucky.
I'm sure it was explained to you what happens.

Speaker 1 Had it hit you on the ascent with its full velocity, it would have flattened out once it hit you and then really tore things up. But that thing is in perfect shape.
It's not augmented at all.

Speaker 4 I didn't know anything about guns before this, but it was a hollow point bullet, which are designed to like maximally shred into your body.

Speaker 2 They like explode once they're in there.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they come in at the size they are. And as that impact, it flattens it out.
And then the exit hole is usually like 5x the size.

Speaker 1 Jesus Christ. But you know what's crazy? So now I'm looking at your arm.
First, there's a great x-ray with the bullet. Also, it didn't crack a bone.

Speaker 2 I'm happy to see you had an Indian doctor.

Speaker 1 Well, it could be Pakistani.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. But

Speaker 1 I don't even know that. Either way, I'm happy to see that.
There's a bruise, but it does look like you fell off a bike, not that you were shot in the arm. Yeah.

Speaker 4 And if you see that little pink center, that's the bullet pushing. And I was so freaked out because I've heard if you have a foreign object in your body, your body will expel it.

Speaker 4 And it was like right under the skin. I was like, if this bursts open on its own,

Speaker 4 I will freak out.

Speaker 1 But you didn't want that. No.

Speaker 4 No, I wanted a doctor to take it out the right way.

Speaker 1 I would have wanted to plug your ears if you're queasy. I would have wanted to pop it.
Think of it. That's like the ultimate pimple to get up.

Speaker 1 Like when you get a pimple and you get the core, like this would be the ultimate core. The relief you'd feel as it exited would be euphoric.

Speaker 2 Dax, I do think you underplayed this bruise.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 1 It's enormous. It's enormous.
But it's not black and gangress.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's pretty black.

Speaker 1 Or on the perimeter, you can see some purple.

Speaker 4 By the end, it was definitely like hot. The doctor was like, I think it's infected.
We got to get this out of you right away.

Speaker 1 Was it super simple for them to get it out?

Speaker 4 Yeah, I thought they might not have to put me under, but they did put me under.

Speaker 1 And then...

Speaker 3 Just quick surgery.

Speaker 1 And did they ever tell you what caliber that was?

Speaker 4 Yes, they did. It was a nine millimeter hollow point bullet.

Speaker 2 Did they find the person who did it?

Speaker 4 No, they kind of told me like, unless we find the gun, like, we're not going to find it. And I hadn't heard anything, seen anything.
Could have been two miles away. So could have been anyone.

Speaker 4 But yeah, words of the wise, don't shoot guns in the air.

Speaker 1 Seriously. You dinguses.

Speaker 2 Oh my God, you're unlucky and you're so lucky.

Speaker 1 A mix of bad and good luck. Yeah, because that's probably where you would pick if you had to pick where you were going to get hit.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Right here it went in.

Speaker 2 Oh. Oh my gosh.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Got a lovely scar still.

Speaker 2 It's kind of cool.

Speaker 1 It's very cool because people inevitably will ask, oh, and say a scar from. Oh, nothing.

Speaker 1 I got shot. And then I just hung out for four days.
Gunshot wound.

Speaker 1 Nine mil. PowerPoint.

Speaker 4 All my friends were expecting me to get engaged somewhat soon. So I was like FaceTiming them the next day.
They were like, yay.

Speaker 1 And I was like, no, I actually got shot. Even better.
I got shot.

Speaker 1 It was a good story.

Speaker 1 That is a good story. That's incredible, Katie.
Wowzers. Well, have a fucking riot on this bachelorette party.
Yes.

Speaker 4 Do you mind if the girls come in?

Speaker 1 Get them all in here. Oh, Sonnies.
Okay, Sonnies.

Speaker 2 So fun.

Speaker 1 I'm so

Speaker 1 big blow-up dick.

Speaker 2 I want to go.

Speaker 4 Join us, Monica.

Speaker 1 I would love to open invite to the bachelorette party.

Speaker 2 So much fun.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Thank you so much. It was so great to meet you guys.

Speaker 1 You too. All right.
Take care. Bye, girls.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I want someone to propose just so I can have a bachelorette party.

Speaker 1 You want one?

Speaker 2 I love girls' trips. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I got married. I did not have a bachelor party.

Speaker 2 I know, but you've lived a lot.

Speaker 1 Well, I've lived a bachelor's party.

Speaker 2 So have I, to be fair. But I could just plan a girls' trip, but I won't get all the attention.

Speaker 1 You want all the attention? One day. It's going to be like a birthday girls' trip.
Birthday. Yeah.
Okay. Or get shot in the arm trip.

Speaker 2 No, I definitely.

Speaker 1 I definitely don't want that. God, I love these pink pants.
Fuck. I'm miserable that these aren't red.
For the listener, our screen is fucked up on our TV.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and it's making Dax's blue pants look pink.

Speaker 1 And Monica's hair clown red.

Speaker 1 Let me evaluate that. I'm trying to think if I...
Yeah, I would dig that. No.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Turn to the... Well, you can't see yourself if you do profile.
Pull some of it out over your shoulder.

Speaker 1 It's not for me. Okay.

Speaker 1 Wait, I'm going to take a picture of you. Now smile at me.
Yeah, that's awesome. I'm going to tell everyone you dyed your hair red

Speaker 1 and put spider web on it kind of look cool it does

Speaker 1 hello hi hi

Speaker 5 is this lara it's laura uh-oh that she thought that was lara l-a-r-a okay i see what you mean can i tell you a quick funny story before my story yes my name was lara my mom named me lara and then she didn't like the way my grandma pronounced it.

Speaker 5 So she changed it three weeks later after I was born.

Speaker 1 To Laura, but didn't change the spelling. Well, Laura.
Laura. Like Car.
Laura. Now, do you remember the 60 Minutes

Speaker 1 by the way? Okay.

Speaker 1 Were you aware of the 60 Minutes anchor, Laura?

Speaker 1 Schles Schener. No, Croft, maybe? That's Tomb Raider.

Speaker 1 There was a Laura. 60 Minutes anchor.
Whatever. Laura Logan.
Lara Logan. Do you deal with this a lot?

Speaker 2 I'm sorry.

Speaker 5 I don't usually go this far into detail, but it's you guys.

Speaker 1 I feel entitled to do it because my name has gotten so much goddamn attention for my whole life.

Speaker 5 I hated it when I was a kid, but now it's great.

Speaker 1 It's such a good story. And where are you at?

Speaker 5 I am in Michigan.

Speaker 1 Where?

Speaker 5 Just south of Grand Rapids. I'm in a little town called Middleville.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Do you go up to Grand Haven and enjoy the fireworks and stuff?

Speaker 5 Sometimes. Do you know where Gun Lake is? Have you been to Gun Lake?

Speaker 1 I haven't been to Gun Lake.

Speaker 5 I'm actually going to talk about a more popular lake lake today that I hope you've heard of.

Speaker 1 Torch. Yes.
Boom. Monica, that's pretty good.
We have about, I don't know, 2,000 lakes in Michigan.

Speaker 2 That's good because I have not heard of it.

Speaker 1 Torch Lake is among the most beautiful lakes in the world. National Geographic used to rank these lakes, and it was always in the top 10.
Oh, wow. It looks like the Caribbean.
It's crazy.

Speaker 5 Yes, very clear, which will come in handy in my story later. Also, 4th of July, it's the place to be in Michigan.

Speaker 1 And it's a chain of lakes, right? There's Elk, Torch, and Higgins. Maybe they're all connected.
Maybe. That's enough geography for Veronica.
Okay, so you're on Torch Lake. What year?

Speaker 5 Okay, so it's 2015. So I'm at the tail end of a gap year between undergrad at Michigan State.
Go Green.

Speaker 1 Go Spartans.

Speaker 5 And I'm going to U of M for grad school the next month.

Speaker 1 Go Overines.

Speaker 2 Great school.

Speaker 5 Living this fun in-between life where I'm not really doing anything that has to do with my degree. Living downtown Grand Rapids with my roommates, all great things.

Speaker 5 And I'm 22 years old, so I'm in my binge drinking era.

Speaker 1 Fuck yes, you are. And you're a Michigander.
We're all mildly alcoholics.

Speaker 5 Yes, a little bit.

Speaker 5 Maybe it's like our ancestors. They all came here, had to get through that winter, you know?

Speaker 2 American youth. We do that.

Speaker 1 Well, I do think there's something that we mirror a little bit Scandinavia. Like if you arrived in Michigan in the 1700s and you were like, absolutely, let's go.
Seven months of gray and freezing.

Speaker 1 This is for me. That's a type.

Speaker 5 And it's top 10, one of the cloudiest places in the world country. I don't know.
I'm a little bit of an armchair expert myself.

Speaker 2 Wait, Michigan is?

Speaker 1 Oh, it's so cloudy. Ew.

Speaker 1 Ew.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 5 So we love the sun when we get it.

Speaker 1 Oh, I should know that. All right.
Have you been?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I have. And I thought it was quite sunny.

Speaker 1 She's been to Stevensonville, Grand Haven, all the Lake Michigan. We rented a house.
She performed at Fox Theater in Detroit. She's been to Woodward Cruise.

Speaker 2 She's done it all. It was sunny, though.
I must have brought the sun.

Speaker 5 Absolutely.

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Speaker 5 Okay, so. For 4th of July, we're going to go camping up at Torch Lake.
But again, we're just a group of 22-year-old kids, so we didn't rent a house. There's no forethought, no no money.

Speaker 5 Back then, I don't know if this is still a thing, but you could find state land and just camp there.

Speaker 5 You had to like pull a permit and post it on the land. And then that was legal.
So that's what we did. One of my roommates' boyfriends looked up some state land that was nearby.

Speaker 5 It was eight minutes away from the lake. So we went, we brought our permit, we brought our five-gallon bucket to poop in, you know, all the things that you need for camping.

Speaker 5 The night that we got there, after a few drinks, I had this clear moment where I was like, I need to pin my location and send it to my mom just in case anything happens. So I did that.

Speaker 5 I also met my college roommate's hot brother that night. He had just gotten back from the Marines.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 5 Have you guys ever played Thunderstruck?

Speaker 1 It's a drinking game. No.

Speaker 1 Maybe. Do you play it with ACDC? Yeah.

Speaker 5 Every time they say thunder, you get in a group, like a circle. You've played it, mom and half?

Speaker 2 I have, yes. Is it a waterfall situation? I can't remember.
Kind of.

Speaker 5 So you drink, and then once it says thunder again, the the person next to you starts drinking and you stop drinking. So somebody gets thunderfucked

Speaker 5 when there's a really long break between the thunders.

Speaker 1 This is falling.

Speaker 1 I missed that. I know.
It's like a throwback.

Speaker 5 So I got thunderfucked. I'm chugging my beer and my roommate's hot brother offered me another one so I could keep going.

Speaker 1 Oh, what a mess. What a gentleman.

Speaker 5 Of course, I was smitten. I was like, thank you.

Speaker 1 So considerate.

Speaker 5 We ended up sitting by the fire and talking all night. The next day was the 4th of July.
So we drove to the sandbar and we waded out to the sandbar for a full day of drinking.

Speaker 5 You're on the water, so we don't really have things with us. So we just left all our phones and stuff in the car and walked about a mile to get to the lake.

Speaker 5 After many drinks, I wandered away from my group to go look for hot brother.

Speaker 1 I'm going to make a potentially inflammatory statement, and it's gendered. Girls love to get separated from the group.

Speaker 1 I've spent a lot of my 20s looking for people and it was always a girl who got separated from me.

Speaker 1 That is so interesting.

Speaker 2 I feel completely the opposite. Oh, really?

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 2 Oh, interesting. I've had multiple experiences where a guy is just gone.

Speaker 1 Okay, so maybe it's not gendered.

Speaker 2 It's so annoying.

Speaker 1 It is. Stay with the fucking group.
Where do you got to go? Yeah, I know.

Speaker 5 Well, in this situation, I had to go find hot brother but i was known as a flight risk in college because i would just wander away i wanted to make more friends dax i understand a flight risk anyway while i'm out and about i made some new friends because that's the goal right along the journey and the people that own houses on torch like they don't like us tourists coming because it's upscale yeah it is and we trashed the lake and i will just say i'm really sorry because this was me i had to poop okay sure yeah yeah it's a long day and you didn't bring your bucket and even if you had you would have pooped in the bucket and thrown in the lake

Speaker 1 right

Speaker 1 so it's kind of blurry but that's happening you would have gotten along with aaron weekly and i perfectly in the sand or where'd the you're just standing in the water in the water or in the water oh oh oh got it behind somebody's boat like my new friend's boat okay

Speaker 2 Now I have a logistical question about that. Are you moving the bathing suit to the side? Are you pulling down the bottom? Are you just going?

Speaker 5 No, you're pulling it down in this situation too far off. And now they're gone.

Speaker 1 Oh

Speaker 1 my God.

Speaker 1 You're a mess.

Speaker 1 You're separated from the group. You're shitting behind a boat and you've lost your balance.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 5 So I go over to the group and I'm like, I just lost my bathing suit. And luckily there are girls there.
So they're like, come aboard. Here's a towel.
And I'm like sitting there.

Speaker 5 And I think that panic is starting to set in because I remember crying a little bit. Like, what am I gonna do? So, luckily, a guy with goggles and some scuba gear came and looked for my baby.

Speaker 5 Oh my god, he found them. Wow, hero.

Speaker 1 Here's my fear: he's gonna come back and go, Oh, I found him, and someone shit in the lake. Like, I thought he might find the turd with his goggle masks on.
No, or it was in the underwear.

Speaker 2 He's like, I'm so sorry, someone

Speaker 1 fucking dirtbag shit in your bottoms.

Speaker 5 Luckily, that was not part of my story that weekend.

Speaker 5 At this point, I've been gone for a while, so I'm like, I should go find my friends. So I go back to where they were, and they're not there.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 5 and I think it's kind of late in the afternoon because a lot of people have kind of cleared out at this point. So I'm like, okay, I will get back to the shore.
I remember where we parked.

Speaker 5 I will just walk back that way. Maybe I'll run into them.
Maybe I can go sit next to the car until they get there, take a little nap. But after walking for a while, I couldn't find it.

Speaker 5 So there's people camping on that road. So I wander into somebody's campsite and I'm like, hey,

Speaker 5 I've lost my friends.

Speaker 5 Can I borrow some water, a sweatshirt? Can you help me out here?

Speaker 2 You are not afraid to ask for help. This is the second group of people you've asked for help.

Speaker 1 I got to say, though, this is, and maybe it's universal. This is very standard Michigan, too.
When you're camping, there's always some gal wandering in your camp. She's a little lost.

Speaker 1 Again, maybe the boys are doing it too, but in my experience, there's a lot of random gals would wander in your camp.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 5 It's Midwest nice, you know? So everybody wants to give you water and listen to you talk about your. lost friends.

Speaker 5 Anyway, while I'm sitting there, a truck pulls up and this guy jumps out and then a girl jumps out and lo and behold, I went to college with this girl that jumps out of the truck.

Speaker 5 So I'm like, like, hey, Tara, how's it going? And she's like, hey, why are you here? So we're like chatting. And I'm like, well, I got lost.

Speaker 5 The guy who drove the truck was like, oh, I can drive you back if you need. I'm like, you don't have to.
I'll find my way. And he's like, no, I think you need a ride.

Speaker 5 So I call my mom and I'm like, that pin drop that I sent you yesterday, will you send it to this number? I just called you on and they're going to take me back to my campsite because I'm lost.

Speaker 5 And then they drive me. It's like a 10 minute drive and it's state land.
So I do have to kind of remember like, where did we go in? Oh, pull off into the ditch here.

Speaker 5 So we like drive through these trees and luckily we emerge to my campsite. And when I get back, my best friends are crying because they lost me.
I left me on the sandbar.

Speaker 5 They weren't sure where I went. So it was really hard to make that drive back without your friend.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's really fun for the person who disappears. It's not so much fun for the group who thinks you're dead.
Exactly.

Speaker 2 And there's water involved. Like you could have drowned.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. There's boats whipping by at 100 miles an hour.
That is very true.

Speaker 5 I didn't really think about any of that, but they're all relieved. And then Hot Brother is making fun of me because a random truck drops me off.

Speaker 5 Anyway, the weekend ends, and I got a Facebook message a couple days later from none other than best friend's Hot Brother. He was like, Hey,

Speaker 5 what's up? Saw that truck when I was leaving Torch Lake. That was 10 years ago.
So 10 years later, Hot Brother and I are are married.

Speaker 1 Oh my God.

Speaker 1 Me cute.

Speaker 5 Meet cute. I knew you'd love it, Monica.

Speaker 1 I love it. Take your pick, unauthorized evacuation or me cute.

Speaker 2 When those two combine, it's the best.

Speaker 1 Yeah, romance and a lake turd.

Speaker 2 Did you tell him about your poop?

Speaker 5 I didn't tell him that weekend, but he knows now.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 2 Do you think he got jealous? He got jealous of the car that dropped you off.

Speaker 1 It's a good start. Definitely.

Speaker 5 He's like, this girl can get random people to drop her back off.

Speaker 1 I better snatch her up. If I don't lock her down, she'll disappear in two seconds.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 She's a flight rescue.

Speaker 1 Wow. Beautiful.
I love that. Yeah, really cool.

Speaker 5 You know what's funny, though, is my sister was supposed to come on the camping trip. And in mine, in my roommate's mind, we were going to hook him up with my sister, her brother, my sister.

Speaker 5 But she ended up having a surgery scheduled the day before, so she couldn't come.

Speaker 2 Thank God.

Speaker 1 What a blessing that she had to have surgery. I was real lucky.
Best surgery ever.

Speaker 5 Now we just laugh because that would have never worked.

Speaker 1 Their relationship would have been a dumpster fire. How fun.

Speaker 5 Hot brother's here if you want to meet him.

Speaker 1 We want to say hi. Of course we do.
Oh, yeah. Hot brother.
Hot brother is hot. How's it going? Right?

Speaker 2 Nice to meet you.

Speaker 1 You as well.

Speaker 5 Star of the show over here.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you snagged a good one. Thank you.
Couldn't have happened without me.

Speaker 5 Yeah, thanks for Facebook messaging me.

Speaker 1 All right. well, nice meeting y'all.
That was great. Thank you so much.

Speaker 5 Nice to meet you, too.

Speaker 1 All right. Take care.

Speaker 1 Hello. Is this Matt? This is Matt, yes.
Nice to meet you, Matt. Where are you?

Speaker 3 I'm in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Speaker 1 Get the flying fuck out of here. Our last call was from Grand Rapids.

Speaker 1 Is your story going to take place on Torch Lake?

Speaker 3 It's not going to take on Torch Lake, but it is on the beach.

Speaker 1 Okay. Okay, good.
Did you grow up there?

Speaker 3 Born and raised Grand Rapids, left for college for a little while, but then came back.

Speaker 1 Do you know Lara? L-A-R-A? Lara.

Speaker 3 I do know a Lara.

Speaker 1 I doubt it's her. She lives by Gun Lake.

Speaker 3 The one I knew was from Ludington and then is now in Chicago.

Speaker 1 I know Luddington. That's right by Sleeping Bear Dunes.
Sorry, Monica.

Speaker 3 I knew we'd nerd out a little bit on geography. I got one for Monica.
Oh. I have family who lives borderline Marietta and Kennesaw.
They have three kids and their oldest son is a bulldog.

Speaker 2 Oh, and look, I'm wearing a bulldog shirt.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God, roll-to-that's perfect.

Speaker 2 What is wrong with you?

Speaker 1 I just love that 100% of the time. I get a reaction.
I'm wondering, like, when I won't.

Speaker 1 Maybe it's a Michigan thing. We fucking love geography.
Maybe because we're a state that's shaped silly.

Speaker 2 That you want to be mean and say a bad friend.

Speaker 1 No, geography.

Speaker 1 What's the new thing I'm saying, though, instead of there's a new thing?

Speaker 2 Texas or something.

Speaker 1 I don't know. Okay.

Speaker 3 Something else horrible.

Speaker 1 hook'em horns yeah

Speaker 1 oh yeah

Speaker 1 horrible

Speaker 1 where did you go to school i went to purdue that's indiana yeah i went to purdue with a lot of chicagoland folks i'm gonna include rob in this one i've been to hoffman estates you got us all yeah you really nailed us and you went to the one place that could make michigan seem exotic right exactly i'm sorry indiana

Speaker 1 wow you're really on well remember we did interview someone from indiana this week and he said he likes to claim Michigan. He lives in Gary or works in Gary.
Remember, he said that?

Speaker 1 He's like, I'd rather be known as being from Michigan, but I really live in Gary, Indian.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So they're in on it.
We don't want to claim Gary.

Speaker 1 Okay, so hit us with your Fourth of July story.

Speaker 3 I was talking to some of my family members to try to remember exactly when this happened, but I'm going to place it somewhere between fifth and seventh grade.

Speaker 3 We have a family cottage out on Lake Michigan, just north of Holland.

Speaker 3 A lot of old cottages built on 50-foot-wide lots and just everyone stacked up against each other going up and down the lake shore there.

Speaker 1 So fun.

Speaker 3 Amazing thing to grow up with. We would spend most of 4th of July out there.
My grandpa used to live out there full-time and so we'd go out there on 4th of July.

Speaker 3 The whole extended family would get together, aunts and uncles, cousins. And of course, we'd always be shooting off fireworks.
And so I'm sure you guys are...

Speaker 3 familiar with what we call the landings, but they're the decks that are built out over the dune. They're three, 400 feet away from the house, built out over the sand dunes right next to the beach.

Speaker 3 So we're out there trying our best to shoot shoot the fireworks out over the water. One errant bottle rocket took a left turn and hit some dune grass.

Speaker 1 Starts off.

Speaker 3 It's like, well, it's a little fire. It's maybe the size of someone's foot.
My dad jumps into action.

Speaker 3 He hops off the deck, off the railing, down to the dune grass, and he goes over and he's trying to stomp it out. And it's just not going out.
The grass was so dry, it just kept burning.

Speaker 3 So he's like, we need to sprint into action. He runs all the way up to the house.
He gets a blanket, soaks it in water. By the time he gets back, this thing has just spread.

Speaker 3 It's like 20 feet by 20 feet.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I was gonna say, that's a lot of time to take to wet down a blanket.

Speaker 3 It's just engulfing the entire side of the dune and it's just spreading.

Speaker 3 And the funny thing is, the way the wind is blowing, it's blowing it south of us, so it's going away from our cottage and heading in the direction of our neighbors.

Speaker 2 Did you start the fire in Pasadena too?

Speaker 1 Okay, no, no, I didn't go out to do that.

Speaker 3 I'm not gonna be held accountable for that one.

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Speaker 3 So it's just spreading and spreading and spreading and trying to get off the blanket. And we're like, well, we're going to need to do something, maybe get some hoses out here.

Speaker 1 No one's talking about calling the fire department.

Speaker 3 That's happening, but where we are in the lakeshore is pretty far from civilization. It's going to at least take them 20 minutes to get down there.

Speaker 1 Right, right. Okay.

Speaker 3 We got the call out to the fire department, but yeah, we're just having to spring into action.

Speaker 3 And so my dad even looks over and he's like, well, the good news is underneath the deck, there's no grass. It doesn't grow down there.

Speaker 3 So by the time the fire gets to the neighbor's deck, at least it will slow it down a little bit. So everyone's running up, trying to grab some hoses.

Speaker 3 And then as soon as the flames even just touch the neighbor's deck, just engulfs and booms!

Speaker 1 Tinder boxing.

Speaker 3 I don't know if they had just stained it or what, but

Speaker 1 it's just up in the flames.

Speaker 3 So it's just, we're all standing there, just mouths agate, and just being like, oh my goodness, what is happening?

Speaker 1 Really quick. I just love when a dad's predictions are just immediately proven false over and over again.
No problem, I'll stop it. Oh, shit, we're going to need a blanket.
No problem. Get a blanket.

Speaker 1 Oh, fuck. No, don't worry.
The pack won't catch up.

Speaker 3 You know, when you're that age, you're like, my dad's an older guy. He knows what he's talking about.
He's dealt with fire before. Not his first rodeo.

Speaker 1 Nope.

Speaker 3 It just shot up in flames. Being that the houses are set back a good 400 feet, we were going to multiple neighbors' houses, stringing together hoses.

Speaker 3 Finally, finally got it down there and hosed everything down and got it under control. But the neighbor's deck, total loss.

Speaker 1 Right off.

Speaker 3 Once we finally get it all out, that's when the firefighters roll up. They walk up and they're like, so how'd the fire start? We're kind of sitting there being like, it's the 4th of July, fireworks.

Speaker 3 And the firefighter happened to be standing right next to a big bag of fireworks. And he just looks to the side and he's like, like those fireworks right there?

Speaker 3 Like, yep, just like those ones, right at your feet.

Speaker 3 In the end, our neighbor wasn't pleased, but the insurance paid the deductible, and then he ended up building himself quite the luxurious deck.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay. So, kind of a win in the end.

Speaker 3 I think it came out good for him in the end.

Speaker 1 Great.

Speaker 2 Oh, that's scary.

Speaker 1 It just for the first time in my life occurred to me while you were telling that story. No firefighter has ever had the Fourth of July off, right? They must all be called in on the Fourth of July.

Speaker 3 Probably one of their biggest days.

Speaker 1 That's their Super Bowl. Although, as we just found out, the surgeons are not.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's true. They take holidays.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. They're going to enjoy it, the 4th.

Speaker 2 Wow. God, I'm glad he didn't burn down the whole state.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 It made me want to go so fucking bad to Lake Michigan in the summer. It's so fun.

Speaker 3 This time of year, that's where you want to be. It's so nice.

Speaker 1 It almost makes the rest of the year worth it, but it doesn't.

Speaker 1 It's close.

Speaker 3 My wife and I are always joking. We're like, how can we get our lives to a point where we can just leave for a few months? Just January, February, just kind of get out of there.

Speaker 1 Maybe even March to. That's an annoying month because it's misleading.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you get the one 70-degree day, and then it just all of a sudden snows again. And you're like, I'm done with this.

Speaker 1 Well, Matt, it's a delight to meet you. You're a good representative of the remittance.

Speaker 3 When I was asking my family members to give their best recount of the story, I never remembered who exactly lit off the firework, but apparently it's been an ongoing feud between my dad and my brother.

Speaker 3 They both blame each other for starting the fire. At least I know my hands are clean.

Speaker 2 I'm going to blame your dad.

Speaker 1 I think we should blame fireworks. They're just highly unpredictable.
Even if you're like the most skilled deployer of fireworks, they go sideways.

Speaker 3 This was a time when the good fireworks were not legal in Michigan. These were actually Paul from Indiana.

Speaker 1 Yeah. That's what we do love about Indiana: you can buy M80s there.
Exactly.

Speaker 1 Monica, you would get a bang on it. Is it like this in Georgia? All along the Michigan-Indiana border, anywhere where there's a border, it's just endless fireworks stands.

Speaker 1 They're clearly just selling to Michiganders.

Speaker 3 Now we have it in the reverse where we have all the cannabis stores along the border because it's still not legal in Indiana.

Speaker 1 There should be a little swap. They should bring up a bunch of fireworks and trade it for weed.

Speaker 2 Barter system.

Speaker 1 Well, delightful meeting you, man. I hope you have a wonderful fourth this year.

Speaker 3 Hopefully, less fires.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Fingers crossed.
All right. Take care, brother.

Speaker 3 See you later. Bye.

Speaker 1 Two Michiganders. I wouldn't be shocked if we get a third.

Speaker 2 Let's get some southern blood in here.

Speaker 1 Kevin, can you hear us? This is really happening.

Speaker 1 Hi. You sound spectacular, Kevin.

Speaker 2 You sound clear.

Speaker 1 Tell me about this headset. Are you a gamer?

Speaker 7 My sons. I am a gamer, but too much of a parent for that nowadays.

Speaker 1 Sure, sure, sure. And you got to model good behavior.
I try. What are the limits? A, I don't have boys.
And B, I was like, there's no games in that. That's the one thing I'm going to dig about.

Speaker 1 What are the limits for a boy?

Speaker 7 Violence and sexuality, depending on like my oldest is 14, my middle is 11. And then I've got a daughter too.
Fortnite's okay, but Call of Duty is a little too much.

Speaker 1 Okay. Got it.
Okay. Where are you at?

Speaker 7 I'm in Cincinnati. I'm 400 miles, about four hours or so from Cedar Point.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 yeah.

Speaker 1 Cincy, I-75.

Speaker 2 How often do you go?

Speaker 7 Not very often. We have another amusement park close by.

Speaker 1 Kings Island. Very good.
Yes, yes.

Speaker 1 The beast.

Speaker 2 Is that a Six Flags one?

Speaker 7 It's the Cedar Point property. It's not Cedar Point, but the same ownership group.

Speaker 2 Which I think is Six Flags.

Speaker 1 Well, now they've merged. Well, someone did correct.
It was a merger, not an acquisition.

Speaker 2 I choose not to take that.

Speaker 1 Okay, so you have a crazy 4th of July story.

Speaker 7 I do. So my family grew up in the East Coast, moved to Ohio.
My dad got transferred to Elizabeth Elementary School. We were always Fourth of July people.

Speaker 7 My sister's birthday was July 4th, hundreds of dollars every year on fireworks and a big show and a big party and it was our rager.

Speaker 7 So in 2020, after years of looking, I was able to secure basically the bigger fireworks. So they sell the one-inch version.
I got a two- and a three-inch version of the mortars.

Speaker 1 For people who don't know.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so for people who don't know, it's a long tube and that's empty. And then you drop in this ball and you've lit the wick and it explodes and propels up into the air.

Speaker 1 But you're reusing this mortar tube over and over again.

Speaker 7 So the ones they sell retail are about an inch. They're like a golf ball.
I was able to procure through people double the size and triple the size of that after years of trying.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I got some of those in Wyoming. They're pretty loosey-goosey there with those.

Speaker 7 They're intense. So the added layer to all of this is my sister's birthday was July 4th.
She was diagnosed with cancer. So we're talking 2020.
She's been sick a couple years.

Speaker 7 So it became that much more intense of a year just to have a good time. Yes.
My parents have a lot of acres. We're about 200 feet from any building lighting things off.

Speaker 7 And the fuse on the big ones is really fast, like instantaneous instantaneous practically so we rigged them so we could light a sorter fuse and run away and the first one we tried didn't work so one of the guests at the party is like that's weird takes it into the barn which is a 30 by 40 foot pole barn yep you already got it

Speaker 7 metal or wood metal well it's got wood struts but it's like a kit basically but it's big cuts off three inches of wick holds them in a pair of pliers and decides to light it because he wants to see how fast this thing really goes off.

Speaker 7 Okay. It burns instantaneously right through

Speaker 7 the pace he's holding and catches the one that he cut it off of that's sitting on the table in front of him and sets it off.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 7 I'm 200 feet away, happen to be walking towards the golf cart, which is between me and the barn, and I see the explosion.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow.

Speaker 7 So this is just the piece that's supposed to launch it in the air. And I see it go off and I dead sprint to the barn.
Just as I'm about halfway there, the actual fireworks

Speaker 1 goes off.

Speaker 7 And I see flames come out of the ceiling oh i see the largest explosion i've ever seen in my entire life oh my god inside an enclosed space and he's in there i didn't know who was in there so the whole family's next to the barn they're you know 50 feet away outside but sitting there so we're thinking we're safe we're really far away shooting off all this stuff i get through the door into the barn place is filled with smoke i'm looking on the ground thinking that's where i'm going to see anybody nothing there's a compressor that all of the lines got destroyed so the compressor's running and you see air hissing and hear it.

Speaker 1 It looked like a war zone.

Speaker 7 I start screaming, get away from the barn, get away from the barn because there's gas, there's diesel, there's oil.

Speaker 7 They have a farm, so there's farm equipment in it. I get out the other side.
My uncle's there being tended to by my aunt and my brother-in-law. Everyone else is cleared away.

Speaker 7 So luckily, not for him, it went off. It hit him instead of going into the fuel room that was behind him.

Speaker 1 Whoa. He ruined the day and and saved the day.

Speaker 7 There were other fireworks on the table that also went off.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God.

Speaker 7 So, the second explosion was both the large firework going off and a whole bunch of what are essentially M80s also going off. Wow.

Speaker 7 So, I think I sent a couple pictures.

Speaker 1 Oh, let's see. I've seen footage of actual firework factories that have caught on fire, and that is really spectacular.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, there's I'm just going to count one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. 16 mortar tubes here.

Speaker 1 You're overly armed for this holiday.

Speaker 7 You can see the legs of the stool next to it. Yeah.
That was sitting on the stool. The explosion went off on the floor.

Speaker 3 That bare spot is where that tile used to be.

Speaker 7 All of the ceiling tiles got blown out. There's actual scorch marks on the wood on the roof from where the fireball left the building.
and scorched the wood.

Speaker 1 Oh. What kind of damage did the perpetrator of this crime endure?

Speaker 7 He was okay. He was feeling it for several days.
He had a pretty good bruise, no internal bleeding, thankfully. We had some people in the medical field that were there to tend to him the day of.

Speaker 7 But at the time, my kids were four, seven, and nine. So they were right there.
And for several years, we stopped with fireworks and

Speaker 7 didn't attend anymore. But after years of trying, I finally get my hands on something that's really powerful.
And I get to watch it go off inside a barn.

Speaker 1 And the guy who did it, was he a family member or did he marry Ann? He was a family member. Oh, thank God.
And he felt awful.

Speaker 7 He paid for all the damage. He obviously literally felt awful.

Speaker 1 But if you were like a son-in-law and you pulled that shit or a brother-in-law, that would be rough.

Speaker 7 It was my sister's birthday and it ended up being her last birthday. Oh, shit.

Speaker 1 Oh, man. Well, I mean, it was memorable.
It was memorable.

Speaker 7 We didn't touch fireworks for a couple of years. The kids still.
all remember it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, remember when the barn blew up?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 7 And my oldest, his survival instinct kicked in because I was yelling get away from the barn thinking you know it's going to catch on fire and he just took off good so my wife grabbed the younger two and carried them and is like where's the oldest he was already standing in the garage everyone's ears were ringing people couldn't hear don't mess with fireworks now no fireworks go inside the barn it's all outside I can only be so judgmental because I did this similar situation on New Year's Eve.

Speaker 1 The mortar fell over right before it shot. And then, yeah, all fucking hell broke loose.

Speaker 7 This is how intense we are. My dad had stainless steel tubes built.
So if you put the mortar in upside down, it just goes bing, it won't break it.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 Maybe we stick with the legal one.

Speaker 1 Maybe some sparklers

Speaker 2 or some regular old sparklers.

Speaker 7 The legal ones are legal for a reason.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 What are your plans this year?

Speaker 7 We'll go up to my parents' house and probably do something a little more tame than usual, but they've got a pool and dogs and go-karts.

Speaker 1 Oh, go-karts. Yes.
Well, kevin great meeting you yes have a happy you as well

Speaker 1 yeah have a happy fourth enjoy the summer you too thank you take care brother

Speaker 1 you really can do some damage with these fireworks this is also cautionary tale you know high reward high risk mainly high risk i love fireworks i love fireworks at a big place at a city like a municipal firework display yeah we went in michigan to some nice ones oh the bass were nice the absolute bass in benton Harbor, I think.

Speaker 1 They were going off over the pier. That long pier.
They were sitting on the beach. That might be one of my very favorite.
I'm going to say my favorite. Wow.

Speaker 1 That was so kind of enchanted storybook dreaming.

Speaker 2 It was a very storybook.

Speaker 1 It looked like a set. Like if they were going to make a movie and the family had the nice fire, that would be it.

Speaker 2 Yeah. We also, in the town, they would always do it at this place called River Glen.

Speaker 1 That's not what it's called. In Duluth.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So the whole town would go and you'd go early and you set up your picnics and you hang out all day in your blanket and then the fireworks would start.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's a fun holiday. It is.
Well, enjoy, everybody. Enjoy your Fourth of July.
We love you. Be safe and be happy.
And get a little wild so it's memorable. In a safe way.
Okay. All right.
Bye.

Speaker 1 Do you want to sing a tune or something? I'm going to do a theme song. Oh.

Speaker 1 Okay, great.

Speaker 1 We don't have a

Speaker 1 song for this new show, so here I go, go, go.

Speaker 1 We're going to ask some random questions. And with the help of Arm Cherry's, we'll get some suggestions

Speaker 1 on the fire rhyme dish.

Speaker 1 On the fire rhyme dish. Enjoy.

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Speaker 8 Hey there, Armchairies. Guess what? It's Mel Robbins.
I'm popping in here taking out my own ad. Holy cow, Dax, Monica, and I, I don't want this conversation to end and I'm so glad you're here with us.

Speaker 8 And the other thing, I can't believe, Dax loves the Let Them Theory. He can't stop talking about it.
I hope you're loving listening as much as I love having you here.

Speaker 8 And I also know since you love listening to Armchair Expert, you know who you're going to love listening to?

Speaker 1 The Let Them Theory audiobook.

Speaker 8 And guess who reads it?

Speaker 1 Me.

Speaker 8 And even if you've read the book, guess what? The audiobook is different. I tell different stories.
I riff, I cry. You're going to love it because it's going to feel like I'm right there next to you.

Speaker 8 We're in this together as we learn to stop controlling other people.

Speaker 8 So thanks again for listening to this episode of Armchair Expert and check out the audiobook version of the Let Them Theory, read by yours truly. Available now on Audible.

Speaker 8 You can even try it out for free with an Audible trial.

Speaker 1 Download the Audible app today.