Armchair Anonymous: Thanksgiving III

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Speaker 1 Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm

Speaker 1 and I'm joined by Lily Padman. Hi.

Speaker 1 It's that time of year, the seasons are upon us.

Speaker 2 It's holiday time.

Speaker 1 It's the holidays. I love the holidays.
Me too.

Speaker 2 Me too. It makes me feel very, very dusty.

Speaker 1 I feel bad for ba humbuggers.

Speaker 1 A, I'm sad that they're missing out on the joy I have. But then additionally, can you imagine if you didn't like it and then everyone around you loved it? That would really compound it.

Speaker 1 That'd be hard. It'd be really hard.
But that's not us, luckily. We love it.
We love it. Yeah.
Of course, for this holiday of giving thanks, we have Thanksgiving Disasters.

Speaker 1 Thanksgiving's always good for some disasters, and we have them today. Please enjoy Thanksgiving Disasters.
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Speaker 1 Hard times, come and go.

Speaker 1 Good times, take them slow.

Speaker 1 My life,

Speaker 1 I had them both.

Speaker 1 But one thing, you gotta know, I'm gonna keep on shining.

Speaker 1 Hello. Hi.
What fake name are we gonna go with? Whatever you want to give me. Okay, I'm looking at you.
You've got kind of a cool dark vibe about you.

Speaker 1 That's just because I'm in my dark closet. No,

Speaker 1 Jenna. Oh, Grant, I love it.

Speaker 2 You know how I got there?

Speaker 1 Tell me.

Speaker 2 Dark vibes, Wednesday. Jenna Ortega.

Speaker 1 Ooh, very nice. And you seem to have behind you a shirt that I've been looking for for 15 years and just recently got, right? That's a checkered, button-down lumberjacky shirt.

Speaker 1 Me, my husband, and both of my kids all have matching shirts of that, actually. Oh, I want to hang with you guys.
I hope you went to a cider mill matching. Every weekend.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Okay, so you're somewhere in the Midwesty? Yeah, I'm actually in Naperville. So Rob would know it.
Oh,

Speaker 2 he would know it very well. He would.

Speaker 1 Inside and out, some would say. Yes.

Speaker 1 Okay, so you have a Thanksgiving disaster story or just Thanksgiving. I don't know if it'll be a disaster.
It's a disaster. Oh, okay, great.
You could have won the lottery on Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 I guess that'd be worthy of a story. That would have been a preferable story to this one.
Oh, great. So I grew up in the Midwest, and I have a very big family.

Speaker 1 So this story takes place about 20 years ago. And my dad is one of 12 and eight of them are girls.
Lots of us.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So because of this, our holidays were always crazy, chaotic. Yeah, would you guys rent an arena to have a Thanksgiving? How the fuck do you accommodate this many people?

Speaker 1 Sometimes we would try to like break off into groups, but that always had its own drama of who was going where and when.

Speaker 1 So about 20 years ago, my aunt, I'm going to call her my Aunt Sally, is newly married and had just bought her first big girl house. So she wanted to host Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 And this was a typical 90s house. So there's carpet everywhere, white carpet, including in the dining room and the living room and pretty much everywhere besides the kitchen and the bathrooms.

Speaker 1 There's just white carpeting on the floor. Ambitious.
Especially for hosting your first Thanksgiving. And there's about 35 people there.
And my aunt is very high strung.

Speaker 1 So think Monica from Friends is very much how my aunt is.

Speaker 2 And Monica from Armchair Expert.

Speaker 1 And so she's spending a lot of the time making sure coasters are under drinks and sweeping up crumbs to make sure nothing is staining anything in her brand new house. So we all get there.

Speaker 1 It's probably around noon and we are not eating until five or six. So there's been five hours of just mingling, eating, drinking.

Speaker 1 And for my one uncle, who's an alcoholic, at this point, he's been having liquid snacks up until we sit down for dinner and he's had between one and two two liter bottles of coke with jack so his drink of choice was jack and diet that's jacks' well so he went through four liters of coca-cola which means he went through a fifth in change of jack what's normally the ratio if you're responsible a third jack two thirds coke if you're pretty normal half half if you're like aaron and i you want like 70 jack 30 coke

Speaker 1 of coke yeah yeah yeah we're in her dining room there's a huge table, several tables like pushed together, pulled from other areas of the house, and you still have people sitting on couches.

Speaker 1 So we sit down to dinner. My uncle happens to be sitting right across from me.
And in slow motion, I see him just start to go,

Speaker 1 oh no.

Speaker 1 And he proceeds to throw up

Speaker 1 probably around three liters

Speaker 1 all over the table. You 100% could smell the Jack Daniels immediately, couldn't you? 100%.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, come on, Uncle Turkey, whatever we're calling him.

Speaker 2 Keep it together.

Speaker 1 Because it's all liquid, the splash zone, let's say, was quite large across the table. And of course, now there's 35 other people there, all age ranges.
And so two of my young cousins proceed to also

Speaker 1 contagious

Speaker 1 at this point. Everyone is screaming, it's just pure chaos, and nobody handled it well.
So, everyone is just trying to save any food.

Speaker 2 Poor Aunt Sally,

Speaker 1 the whole family just hoes down the fucking whole dining room. Her response is she just starts screaming at everyone to clear out the dining room because she has to shampoo the carpets right then.

Speaker 1 Oh, oh, oh, wow. She's like, move the furniture, throw away the food.
Yeah, Thanksgiving's one day. These carpets are for life.

Speaker 2 I guess that's true. You don't want it to seep in.

Speaker 1 The smell of Dak Daniels remains forever.

Speaker 1 Eventually, we get all the furniture cleared out of the dining room. All the food just goes in trash bags and gets thrown away.
Oh, it all got pitched. Nothing was salvageable.

Speaker 1 And what's the uncle's reaction? This was not anywhere close to like the rock bottom for him. This is probably mid-range of getting to rock bottom.

Speaker 1 He just kind of like left the room and was like, oh, my stomach's empty.

Speaker 2 Pouring another drink.

Speaker 1 Pretty much. Oh, boy.
We ended up leaving. We got pizza on the way home.
And my Aunt Sally's marriage did not last for more than two years. Oh,

Speaker 1 well, that's a big family to take on.

Speaker 2 Wait, was it Aunt Sally's husband? Oh, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 Oh, no. It's her terrible family.
And this guy's like, I'm out. Her brother.

Speaker 2 That sucks.

Speaker 1 He ruined a marriage along with the Thanksgiving. Did he get sober at some point? He is sober now.
This was 20 years ago. It took probably about 10 more years to get there.
Okay, good for him.

Speaker 1 And so, my follow-up question is: did people receive an amends for this Thanksgiving disaster? To your knowledge, did anyone get a phone call like, hey, I'm doing my ninth step? I don't think so.

Speaker 1 But I mean, we continue to make fun of him to this day. Nobody wants to sit by him at any of the holidays because everybody's like, we don't need to like yank all over the food.

Speaker 1 And he's like, like thanks guys this is kind of the beauty of families it's like you need to get some ups it's also probably hardest to hit your rock bottom around family because there is some cushion and built-in forgiveness a little bit maybe i mean i don't know or i imagine too it just ends up confirming whatever story he already had about his family like of course they hate me yeah like somehow i'm sure he was a victim by the end of the night is my guess

Speaker 1 I'm sick. Because I don't have a big house to host.
All the insecurities start coming out.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow. Well, I can't believe it caused a chain reaction.
It was horrible. Three people in total puked all over the food.

Speaker 2 I imagine like, take cover.

Speaker 1 I bet you'll be running out of the room into the kitchen before they get hit with piak. Wow.
Wow. Jenna, that was great.
That was great. Thank you for your time.
I really appreciate it. Take care.

Speaker 1 Bye.

Speaker 1 Yeah, for real. People from Chicago are very fun.
They are. And they drink a lot.
Yeah. It's a very drinky city.
I feel like they're in a tie with Detroit, but I don't know.

Speaker 2 I bet we could look it up.

Speaker 1 What I can say with ultimate certainty is Chicago is the type of town that if you're walking around at two in the morning, every tenth person's going to throw up in the street.

Speaker 1 It's that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Like overserving is a standard.
I've seen someone pass out on the street with shit out of his butt. Sure.
Sure.

Speaker 1 I saw that in spring break.

Speaker 2 That's, yeah, I was going to say, like, that's like college town behavior you see, but it's not a college town. No, no.

Speaker 1 And the people aren't in college.

Speaker 1 That's what I mean. Yeah, I guess that's what I mean.

Speaker 1 Caitlin? Hi.

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 1 Hi, what is this cute shirt you have on?

Speaker 4 It's a little cowboy hat.

Speaker 1 Cute.

Speaker 4 Well, I'm in Louisville, Kentucky, so I feel like it was appropriate.

Speaker 1 I'm becoming increasingly interested in Kentucky.

Speaker 4 You're close with Nashville now, so you got to come up.

Speaker 1 And I watched that Triple Crown show on Netflix.

Speaker 4 Oh, how good was that?

Speaker 1 It's so good. And that place could not be more beautiful in the summer and spring.
It's just green.

Speaker 4 That show put me into horse racing in a way that's like dangerous.

Speaker 2 You ever go to the Derby? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4 We've went a couple of times. It's like a little pricey now these days.
It's more fun the couple of days before. That's the days I recommend.
They call it like the Thursday before Thurby.

Speaker 2 Oh, Thurby.

Speaker 1 And what's happening there? Just younger horses are running or something?

Speaker 4 I think so. It's just a locals day.
It's still a dress up, but it's like $2 beers, live music.

Speaker 1 A couple dozen fights in the parking lot. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 I feel like Furbies really miss an opportunity to do a collab.

Speaker 1 What is Furby?

Speaker 2 Remember Furbies, sort of like the

Speaker 1 high school laboo boos?

Speaker 2 They were these little things, and they had little owl noses.

Speaker 4 They would just say their names over and over.

Speaker 1 They would just say Furby a lot in the middle of the night.

Speaker 4 They're a little haunting.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but they were a big deal for a minute.

Speaker 4 There's got to be some crossover to happen with the Derby there, though.

Speaker 1 Bring them back. Bring it back.
A special Derby Furby, obviously. Exactly.

Speaker 1 Limited edit.

Speaker 1 Now you have a Thanksgiving story.

Speaker 4 I do. This was last year.

Speaker 1 Oh, good, fresh.

Speaker 4 So my husband and I, it was our first year as a married couple and we're hosting Thanksgiving. We're super excited about it, of course.

Speaker 4 And, you know, our families, mine's coming in from West Virginia. His is coming in from Oklahoma.
So it's just a big sore. We'd hosted.

Speaker 4 holidays and everything before, but there's a weird pressure that comes with Thanksgiving. Enormous.

Speaker 1 You got to all of a sudden be a chef.

Speaker 4 All props to my husband. He's an amazing cook and he has got a little bit of embarrassing parts in this story, but I want to to preface this with props to him.
But anyways, he is on the meat.

Speaker 4 I'm more of a sides girl, so I like the mashed potatoes, the deviled eggs, the rolls. I like to do the entertaining part of stuff.
I'm not necessarily let's go stare at the meat.

Speaker 4 Guys love to talk about two things. What interstate did you take to get here? And like, how did you cook the meat?

Speaker 1 We're simple.

Speaker 4 He's doing a turkey. He's doing a ham.
There's a smoker involved. There's a girl involved.
There's the oven involved. A lot of things happening.

Speaker 4 And you know, I'm just having fun until an hour or so before is really when when most of the sides need to have some action. And so the last place the ham ends up is in the oven.

Speaker 4 There's so much juice in one of those aluminum foil pans. So it's those big, like disposable ones.
So big ham in that, but just like a ton of butter and a ton of juice that it's sitting in.

Speaker 4 And I'm working on the sides in the kitchen. And a key point of this is I had just bought this heating pad that you put on a counter.
and it keeps like pots and pans warm.

Speaker 4 And I thought in my head, because there's this pressure of hosting, oh we're gonna need this because we've got to keep the sides warm not thinking the sides are already gonna be warm like you're cooking them in that moment and then everybody's just eating there's not this like big break I stand by your

Speaker 4 yeah that helps me a little bit so I had planned you know the meats over here the sides are over here there's a whole flow to it that I'd not really told anybody which is like most of how life goes and mine are my husband's arguments is you know I've got this plan and I've never told him the plan and he just has to follow the plan.

Speaker 4 And so in my head, meat's here, sides here. So I was like, oh, Drew, we need to set up my heating pad over here.

Speaker 4 And he's, you know, buzzer's going off, got to get the turkey from outside, got to get the ham from the oven. He's moving around and I'm like, I need you to set up this tray really quick right here.

Speaker 4 He just put it somewhere and I was like, oh, that's not where I meant for it to be.

Speaker 4 But he had just pulled the ham out of the oven and he had sat it on the counter immediately because, you know, it's super hot and just like really heavy.

Speaker 4 He sat it immediately down and I'm like, that's not where the ham goes. That's where my heating heating pad goes.

Speaker 1 Sure, sure. Those pans are like Ikea furniture.
He starts moving it around. It's going to like taco and all the shit's going to leak out.
He can't be moving it a lot. It's pretty got two moves in it.

Speaker 1 Really true. That was his exact argument.

Speaker 4 He was like, well, we can't move it. Like, it's already been a little bit.

Speaker 1 It's home. He's like, this is where it's staying.

Speaker 4 And I'm like, well, I don't know what to tell you. We got to move it.

Speaker 2 Aesthetics are key on Thanksgiving.

Speaker 4 I'm a Virgo like you, Monica. So I was like, the flow has to be right.

Speaker 4 Our family who's eaten with us hundreds of times.

Speaker 1 The impression's over.

Speaker 4 My in-laws were there. I didn't have to impress him.
I'm already married. Like, I don't know what I was doing.
I was like, Drew, you just have to move it. So he's like, fine.
He picks it up.

Speaker 4 It immediately buckles.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Absolutely.

Speaker 4 Gallons of hot juice on him.

Speaker 1 Oh, fuck.

Speaker 4 It's scalding hot because he had just pulled it out of the oven.

Speaker 1 Oh, shit. Oh, in a medical emergency.

Speaker 4 He was immediately screaming. Immediately, every curse word from A to Z is coming out.
And not at me directly, but I could hear it.

Speaker 1 Oh, I would have been like, You made me fucking move this.

Speaker 1 You would have picked up the hand and

Speaker 1 thrown it through the glass window or something.

Speaker 4 If it weren't like on the ground in the tray, I'm sure it was coming at me.

Speaker 4 I'm like, immediately, like, oh, God, let me get a towel and start to help pick this up. And everyone, like, are you okay? I take one step and just completely eat it.

Speaker 4 The kitchen is a complete ice ring. ring.
So all our family come rushing into the kitchen from the living room, from the other side, because our kitchen's kind of in the center of the house.

Speaker 4 My dad's like, what's happening here? What do we need to do? He sees and just immediately gets to work. He's like, let me get some towels.
And then he falls.

Speaker 1 I was about to say, I was about to say, no, no one should come in. It's like when there's broken glass.

Speaker 4 Everyone's immediate reaction was like, let me help. But Drew and I are in so much pain from falling.
I mean, he's still screaming. His legs are scalding with burns.

Speaker 4 And so no one has time to say, don't walk.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 So my dad's doing like break dance moves essentially to like stay off the ground.

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Speaker 4 Finally, we get towels and clean it up and everything gets secure. Drew goes upstairs and he's like, i'm gonna change he's so furious

Speaker 4 his legs are just burning i go upstairs to do my wifely duty of a little an apology and just say i see where i was in the wrong here i had my goal but i see it wasn't your goal

Speaker 4 our goals didn't quite line up pulled his pants down to change pants and they're just attached to his thighs essentially because it just made the fabric go into his leg it's got like second degree burns happening here and so we wrap him and put some Neosporin and thing on it, like whatever we can.

Speaker 4 Cause I was like, well, let's just go eat. We're not ruining this.
But he puts on a different pair of pants.

Speaker 4 The issue is he put on the same pair of boots that he was wearing while we were in the kitchen. So as we go to go back downstairs, slippery suit just fell completely down

Speaker 1 the stairs.

Speaker 1 He's like Charlie Brown in this story.

Speaker 1 Kids keep on coming.

Speaker 2 And at that point, did you go over to him and you were like, oh my God. So this one definitely wasn't my fault.

Speaker 4 Crazy that you put on back the same pair of cowboy boots.

Speaker 1 They don't get great traction when they're not covered in oil.

Speaker 4 Words of the wise, maybe no disposable trays, maybe no heating pads this Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 Can I throw something out there? Still use the disposable tray, but put a cookie sheet under it so that when you're picking it up and moving it, you're actually moving the cookie sheet.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you want some stability under that thing.

Speaker 1 And ditch the cowboy boots on this this day. You can get right back in them the next day.

Speaker 2 And also, I would say don't ditch the heating pad. I think the heating pad's great.

Speaker 1 Nothing went wrong with it, right? Other than it caused all this.

Speaker 4 You know what's crazy, though? It's like I've not ever brought it out again. It just makes us all think of it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you might want to get that over to Goodwill and ruin someone else's holidays.

Speaker 1 Maybe it's got like a jinx on it at all.

Speaker 2 It's not. Listen, it was put in the wrong spot.
And if it had been put in the right spot at the beginning, then maybe this whole thing wouldn't have happened.

Speaker 1 We wouldn't be on this call right now. That's right.

Speaker 4 It was one of those ads that I got fed to me and it was like perfect hosting. And I'm like, I'm the perfect host.
Let me buy this.

Speaker 1 I need it. Yeah.
Or Instagram? Oh, yeah. Yeah.
They know. They're good, man.
They're fucking good.

Speaker 4 And it's just a click away. So easy.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Too easy.
Really figured it out. Was the ham salvageable? Did we eat the ham?

Speaker 4 It was. Some had to get shaved.
The parts that hit the floor got a little cut off. But, you know, the rest of it made it.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And then my second question is, here's the tricky thing about the juice in that tray.
tray.

Speaker 1 At first, quite slippery, but I'm imagining after you toweled it all up, now it's sticky sitting in there.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean, it was days of our house smelling like ham and just days of being sticky.

Speaker 1 You got to get like an industrial degreaser probably to cut through that. We cleaned it.

Speaker 4 It felt like every day for like two weeks, and we were still finding areas that needed it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, maybe the move would have been to throw a whole bag of kitty litter down on the ground, like an oil spill for a car, and then sweep it up.

Speaker 2 Because did it have some sort of like brown sugar glaze on it or something?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yum. This is in the South, girl.
It was as good as a ham could get.

Speaker 2 I imagine it with the brown sugar glaze. So then the sugary

Speaker 2 that's adding another sticky element.

Speaker 1 I need one right now. I'm starving for a big honey-baked ham now.

Speaker 1 Ham, ham, ham. What are you going?

Speaker 2 I love ham.

Speaker 2 Wow. That was great.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 This sounds like a fun family.

Speaker 4 We have a good time at all holidays. I just need to tell you guys, I need to say a quick little thank you to both of you.

Speaker 4 Your day seven podcast is my lifeline it's everything to me my husband is an addict and went to treatment earlier this year so we're sober this year

Speaker 4 i wouldn't have made it through this year without you guys dax you truly gave me insight into an addict that i did not know before and i just can't sing your praises enough.

Speaker 4 And then Monica, thank you so much for shining a light on what it's like to love an addict and how to love them through it and get through lies and manipulation and all of those things, but still show compassion and love and be everything that an addict needs.

Speaker 4 And I just think that you need a little love for that because. The day that he went to treatment, I listened to your guys day seven like three times in a row.
Like I just kept pressing play.

Speaker 4 You guys mean the world to me and were a part of saving our marriage. So thank you for that.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Caitlin. Have a great Thanksgiving this year and wonderful meeting you.
Bye.

Speaker 1 Hi. Hi, can you hear us?

Speaker 5 I can. Can you hear me?

Speaker 1 Yes. Do you have a fake name in mind?

Speaker 5 Yes. I'm going to go by Liz if I can.

Speaker 1 Wonderful. Let's just build out the whole backstory of this fake name.
Is Liz short for Elizabeth? Yes.

Speaker 1 See, that one little follow-up question cemented my opinion that you have an actual person in mind. I do.
Oh.

Speaker 2 Nice. Investigator.

Speaker 1 Detective work.

Speaker 1 Okay, Liz, are you allowed to tell us where you're at or at least an area of the country?

Speaker 5 Yeah, I'm in Southern California.

Speaker 1 Oh, SoCal.

Speaker 2 Close by. Close by.

Speaker 1 Are you behind us? Not quite. Okay.
Okay, great. So you, Liz, have a Thanksgiving disaster story.

Speaker 5 This takes place just last Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 Okay, another freshie.

Speaker 2 Last Thanksgiving was a big time for people.

Speaker 5 Still in SoCal. My fiancé and I had just moved back from living overseas.
Family's really excited.

Speaker 5 Everybody decides that they're going to come visit our very, very small Southern California apartment for Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 Congrats. I've hosted some holidays in my previous one-bedroom apartment and it's

Speaker 1 ambitious.

Speaker 2 I do it for Mons Giving, but it's hard. It can be done.

Speaker 5 Five people spent the night. A couple got a hotel room.
In total, this Thanksgiving event, I think, included 12 people. And I think our apartment was 800 square feet, one bathroom, quite small.

Speaker 1 So 7.5 square feet per person.

Speaker 5 Yes, it was standing room only. My fiancé is a big chef, loves to cook.
So decided that we're going to do the whole whole Thanksgiving spread by ourselves. My grandparents are coming.

Speaker 5 My mom is coming. My grandma is diabetic.
So, we make a whole second spread for her. Sugar-free, diabetic-friendly.
We're very proud of it. Everything's good to go.

Speaker 5 Everybody comes over Thanksgiving Day. We're all eating, watching football.
Everything seems to be going great. I've gone.
I've got some fresh oysters. We're having a great time.
So my family's there.

Speaker 5 And then some of my fiancé's coworkers who I'm meeting for the first time are also over,

Speaker 5 having a great time. Everybody's eating.

Speaker 5 About halfway through dinner, my grandma starts to note that she's not feeling so hot.

Speaker 1 Oh, oh, no. Oh, boy.

Speaker 5 Asked me if she can go to our bedroom and lay down. Yeah, absolutely.
No problem. So everybody's still eating.
She's coming in and out of the bedroom to the one bathroom.

Speaker 5 She starts to spend a lot of time in the bathroom. So I'm going to check on her.
Ask my grandpa to come to the bedroom with her. She can have some company.
So they're in there watching football.

Speaker 5 Everybody's still eating, been some plastic bags handed through the bathroom door.

Speaker 5 So things aren't looking so hot.

Speaker 1 Can I ask quickly how old grandma is? Are we talking 60s or 100s?

Speaker 5 She's in her 80s. At some point, my grandpa comes out to get me.
And again, still, everybody's in the apartment. And he says, Your grandma didn't make it.

Speaker 1 And I was like, what? What?

Speaker 5 To the bathroom. Oh!

Speaker 1 You watched if he came up that casually.

Speaker 1 Grandmother did not make it. Was she fighting for her life? I didn't even know.
What do you mean she didn't make it? Okay.

Speaker 1 Hold on, hold on. We got to gather ourselves, Liz.
That was. Oh, I gotta be.

Speaker 1 I was like, holy fuck, grandma died.

Speaker 2 That's the way he's yes.

Speaker 1 So, hey, no biggie. Grandma didn't make it.
Okay. So grandma didn't make it to the toilet.

Speaker 5 Go to the toilet. So I go in there and grandma had been laying on my side of the bed.

Speaker 1 oh

Speaker 5 and had had a little unexpected evac through her pants oh that kind

Speaker 5 oh through my duvet cover were soaked poor grandma i get a spare pair of pants a spare pair of underwear help my grandma and my grandpa get to the bathroom to resolve it but now i have to deal with the fact that my 800 square foot apartment with eight people still trying to eat dinner smells like human shit.

Speaker 5 I'm opening windows. I'm putting on fans.
I'm lighting candles. I am stripping the bed as quickly as my little legs can carry me because I don't want this to soak into the mattress.

Speaker 5 But the in-unit washer and dryer is in the living room. So I am then pulling these sheets out into the living room and trying to stuff them.

Speaker 5 into the washer and dryer as fast as I can, keep this smell out of here.

Speaker 1 Any thought to put them in a trash bag and get them outside somewhere? That would have been a great idea.

Speaker 5 We were living downtown and we had one one very small patio, which I would have had to walk through everybody to get to. Our options were limited.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 So I've got the door to my bedroom shut, as many windows open as possible. Everybody kind of starts to trickle out.
We pack up leftovers for our friends.

Speaker 1 Hold on, congratulations. So no one got wind of what was happening, and that's a pun not at all.
Wow,

Speaker 5 except for my fiancé, but none of the strangers at my house got wind.

Speaker 1 Oh, great.

Speaker 5 So we pack them up some leftovers. We send them on their way.
And then my grandma finally gets the strength up to go back to the hotel. I had just bought a new car.

Speaker 5 You know, I've got the seats covered. I got a towel.
We are running dramatically low on plastic bags. We're using doggy bags at this point, taking some of those with on the ride to the hotel.

Speaker 2 Is it an out both sides situation?

Speaker 1 Double output.

Speaker 5 It is an out both sides situation.

Speaker 1 Both ends. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 5 So we get my grandma loaded up. I get her back to the hotel.
As we're leaving, my mom, who is in her 50s, says, I'm not feeling so great. I'm going to go lay down in the other bedroom.

Speaker 2 This is not

Speaker 1 a mass infection.

Speaker 5 She goes to lay down. I come back, and my fiancé is in the bedroom with my mom.
She has no pants on.

Speaker 5 She's got a towel around her waist.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 5 she is now throwing up.

Speaker 5 She's in her 50s. She's had a couple kids.
The throwing up is causing, you know, we're getting a little leakage.

Speaker 1 Boy, oh,

Speaker 5 my saint of a fiancé is helping her.

Speaker 1 Oh, God, he needs a vacation.

Speaker 5 She eventually falls asleep. Everybody gets settled down.
We go to bed. My grandma is like, it has to be, you guys made a dish that had mayonnaise in it.
We didn't.

Speaker 5 So we start checking in with all the other people who have been at the house. Like anybody else not feeling well.
We might as well have had an Excel spreadsheet.

Speaker 5 We're like cross-referencing what was on everybody's plate.

Speaker 1 We're medical detectives now.

Speaker 5 Nobody's eating the same stuff. And the friends that...
came over, we've now sent home. They've taken leftovers home.
They've eaten leftovers. They're feeling great.
So it's not our food.

Speaker 5 This is Thursday. They're planning to stay till Sunday.
That night, my fiancee and I are asleep in bed.

Speaker 5 We wake up to find out that the two other people staying with us at some point in the night had to tag in. So back and forth, back and forth between the three of them,

Speaker 5 sharing the one bathroom.

Speaker 1 Again, out both ends for everybody.

Speaker 1 Mama.

Speaker 2 So this is a Norovirus.

Speaker 1 Yeah, this is a Norovir. Oh, yeah, last year.

Speaker 5 So I wake up in the morning, house is totally out of toilet paper

Speaker 1 and has been for hours.

Speaker 1 What are they using? Socks, anything to get their hands on.

Speaker 5 We've got the tushy set up. So the tushy is working overtime.

Speaker 1 The sponsor is brought to you by tushy.

Speaker 5 I'm running downstairs to the grocery store to get some more toilet paper. We're handling it.
So we slun Brack Friday. Everybody is down for the count.

Speaker 5 The thing I have left out is my mom and her parents, before they came to see me, had gone on a little soul searching journey through the desert.

Speaker 5 My grandpa had worked as a doctor in Arizona during Vietnam. They had decided that they were going to go back to where my mom was born.

Speaker 5 During this experience, they're knocking on strangers' doors to see if they can find these people that he knew where he lived. So they're exposing themselves to a lot of germs.

Speaker 5 The three of them were patient zero, right? We got grandma, we got mom. That's where it started.
So that's my best guess. So Friday, I'm still good.
I think I'm good. Saturday, we've got planned.

Speaker 5 We're going to go to the zoo.

Speaker 1 Good luck.

Speaker 5 So we're going to have a big event at the zoo.

Speaker 1 Oh, no, you're not. Well, you're going to have a big event at the zoo, perhaps.

Speaker 5 So, of course, Saturday is the day that this comes my direction. But I am a zoo member.
So, we all insist that I still go to the zoo. I can get some people in for free.

Speaker 1 That's right. I was a zoo member forever, too.
I know, but like, yeah, we need her. With her money, we need her.
Wow. She's got to show up.

Speaker 5 I manage only one end, but it's the worst end, in my opinion. I spend my day at the zoo trying to avoid an unintentional evac.
Every time we're stopping at an animal exhibit, I'm in the bathroom.

Speaker 1 I got to say, Liz, if you were going to shit yourself anywhere in the world, I agree. The zoo is the best because people would be like, that's fucking cage reeks.

Speaker 5 Well, my mom has the audacity at one point to go, was it you stinking up the bathroom? Was that smell you? Oh!

Speaker 1 How dare you? My husband cleaned your ass. Exactly.

Speaker 5 I was like, of course it was me. You know what's happening.
You did this to me. It makes its way over the course of the weekend through every single one of us.
It avoids my fiancé till Monday.

Speaker 5 He has a huge work event the next day.

Speaker 5 He ends up having to call out sick. It was an actual nightmare of a weekend.
We now have to put people on planes and they're still feeling sick.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 5 My grandma ended up sick for a week after she got back home. And for the first Thanksgiving, my fiancé and I hosted, it was an actual nightmare.

Speaker 5 We've since moved intentionally to a place with two bathrooms. We will never host an event again.

Speaker 1 That's smart.

Speaker 5 It was a literal shit show.

Speaker 1 Wow. You know what I like about your story? The diabetes was a red herring.
It was. I got it.
Right.

Speaker 1 I'm like waiting for she ate the wrong dish that was chalked full of sugar my first i was like well when she walked to the bathroom do you offer to get her apple juice she take too much insulin in anticipation of the meal well that was also part of our detective work because she did not eat any of the diabetes friendly menu that food all remained untouched

Speaker 1 okay

Speaker 2 and then she thinks it was the mayonnaise

Speaker 1 she still to this day i just saw her a couple weeks ago and she was like i hope there's no mayonnaise i can't i can't handle that nope nope nope nope nope

Speaker 2 did any of the friends and stuff end up getting it?

Speaker 5 They never got it.

Speaker 1 If I were your husband, Liz, on Friday morning when we woke up, I would have said, pack your shit. We're moving back overseas.

Speaker 1 I hate it here. This place is not for us.

Speaker 5 At this time, he was just my boyfriend and he sends proposed, so it did not scare him off.

Speaker 2 He was your boyfriend when he cleaned the mom's butt.

Speaker 1 This guy is a champion. He is.
It's almost a cautionary tale to not celebrate Thanksgiving. I mean, that's how.

Speaker 1 Oh, no.

Speaker 2 No, it's a cautionary tale to not bite off more than you can chew. If you have a small space, you don't need to have 12 people over.

Speaker 2 Like, I understand we all feel like we need to do that, but you have one bathroom. I mean, I'm about to do it, so I don't know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 I don't know what you're saying. And also, like, really, the story is the only thing you could say is don't bring norovice to a party, but you just don't know you have it.
This is the risks of life.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Oh, well, great meeting you, Liz.
That is a banger of a story.

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

Speaker 1 Yeah, you too.

Speaker 5 I do have to give a quick shout out to my friend Paul and his girlfriend, whose name is too recognizable for me to say on an anonymous platform, but they were the ones who pushed me.

Speaker 5 We're both big armchair anonymous fans, and they were like, you have to tell it. As soon as it happened, you have to.

Speaker 1 Next year's prom. How fun.

Speaker 1 I do like the idea of that while something's going wrong. And this is to any listener currently.
This year something's going terribly wrong. At least just go like, okay, go, let's take some notes.

Speaker 1 So I'll be talking to them in a year.

Speaker 2 Thanksgiving or Christmas or your holiday, Whatever. Yeah.
You'll have a story to submit.

Speaker 1 All right. Well, lovely meeting you.
I hope you have a much better one this year.

Speaker 5 So nice to meet you.

Speaker 1 All right. Bye-bye.
Bye.

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Speaker 3 Not an Empower client paid or sponsored.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that got ugly. These are fucking three people diarrhea in an apartment with one.

Speaker 1 For real.

Speaker 2 I was like, I can't believe this grandma died in the house.

Speaker 1 That was incredible. Your grandmother didn't make it.
Wait, she was dying?

Speaker 1 I hope I can be that casual if Kristen passes in her old age. Mom didn't make it.
I really didn't make it. Yeah, we was like, well, this is going to be a dark.
I don't know how we're going to recover.

Speaker 1 I was optimistic. I was like, oh my God, they're going to have to deal with a dead body.
Like, they're going to have to move it around. It's going to be like a weekend at Bernie's, maybe.
Hopefully.

Speaker 1 Hopefully, she's got a sense of humor about it. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Wow. All right.
Let's talk to Devon.

Speaker 2 Hi.

Speaker 2 Very cute sweater with strawberries on it.

Speaker 6 Thank you. It was the closest thing I had to arm cherries.
So I just had to go with it.

Speaker 1 If you had not said strawberries, this whole thing would have gone by and be like, what a cute sweater with cherries on it. Really?

Speaker 2 Yeah. Well, you saw what you wanted to see.
That's my point.

Speaker 1 You see what you want to see. Where are you? And why do you have this fun setup? You're a musician.
Someone in your house is a musician.

Speaker 6 So Elliot, he is a musician. That's my boyfriend.
I'm in his office. I hope that it sounds okay.
I kind of put some blankets up. It's okay.

Speaker 1 It sounds wonderful. Elliot's the cutest name, and Devin's a really cute name.
This is a great pairing, Elliot and Devin. Thank you.
Okay, so you have a Thanksgiving story.

Speaker 1 You see the synchronicity? We were both sipping from a glass pint glass at the same time.

Speaker 6 That's really simple. So my story actually takes place near Chalk River in Ontario.
It's a very teeny, tiny town up north, which is where my whole family is from.

Speaker 6 I do have to start with a little bit of context because my family celebrates Thanksgiving a little bit differently for most.

Speaker 6 So back in 1972, my grandpa and my great grandpa and my great uncle Spike, they all went partridge hunting in a remote spot outside of Algonquin Park. They decided to make this an annual thing.

Speaker 6 And slowly but surely over the years, more and more guys joined. And then eventually my auntie Kelly, she ended up crashing the party and she opened the door to all the other ladies in the family.

Speaker 1 She integrated.

Speaker 2 She broke that glass ceiling.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 6 So to this day, about 80 of us all trudge our way out to the middle of the woods. We bring a big giant army tent, which we make into the kitchen tent.
It's honestly my favorite thing in the world.

Speaker 1 Do you guys eat the partridges that you're shop?

Speaker 2 We do, yeah.

Speaker 6 But we also make a big giant turkey dinner for everybody. We have full-scale propane ovens and generators and everything.

Speaker 1 You're like a carnival.

Speaker 6 Yeah, basically. We show up and turn the whole place into a little village for a few days and then we leave without a trace.

Speaker 1 Now, really quick, before we move on. I am only aware of a partridge from the song, Partridge and a Pear Tree.

Speaker 2 Oh, what about Partridge Family?

Speaker 1 And then, of course, the Partridge Family. But I don't even know that I know it's a real thing.

Speaker 6 It's basically a bowling pin on two legs because it is about as stupid. You don't even really have to hunt them.
You can just drive your car down a highway and you will inevitably hit one.

Speaker 1 You'll be able to bag a fijas on the trip up.

Speaker 6 Yeah, exactly. I literally was at a liquor store in Ontario a few months ago and there was a fellow inside and he had a partridge sticking out of his grill and he didn't even know.

Speaker 2 Do they like run rampant?

Speaker 6 There's a decent amount the further north you go for sure.

Speaker 1 Okay, interesting. Thank you.
That's all I needed to talk about partridges.

Speaker 6 So aside from hunting, which we still kind of do while we're there, people play cards, we go hiking to the waterfalls, we shoot stuff, and there's a fair amount of alcohol consumption in that

Speaker 1 coupled with all of those activities.

Speaker 2 It sounds like the sand dunes Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it does. Those are really fun.

Speaker 6 So mornings usually start with a coffee and Baileys or a mimosa or some of the best Caesars that you've ever had.

Speaker 1 Oh, Caesars.

Speaker 6 They're very popular with my family. My uncle Stephen makes a mean one.
And then from there, we usually hit the ground running on the beers.

Speaker 6 One year, we actually cut down some trees during a snowstorm and we built our own bar. And now we actually bring the bar back with us every year.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 Does an 18-wheeler bring all this shit in? Like, what is this? A ton of trucks and trailers?

Speaker 6 Yes, everybody has a truck and a trailer.

Speaker 1 You haven't invited me, but yes, I'll attend. Yeah, this is perfect.
100%.

Speaker 1 Open invite to you both. I think that you would have a blast.

Speaker 1 It sounds really fun. It does.

Speaker 6 So the specific year that the disaster takes place, because as you can imagine, there have been more than a few. I'll have some honorable mentions at the end for you.

Speaker 6 Was 2012 when I was 22 years old and I had a thing or two to learn about moderation for sure.

Speaker 6 So after a long day of having a little bit too much fun, I was heading towards the bonfire and I tripped and I fell out of both of my shoes.

Speaker 6 So I took that as a sign from the universe that maybe I should probably put myself to bed and I discreetly grabbed a bottle of water and sequestered myself to my tent.

Speaker 6 So a few hours later, my mom realized she hadn't seen me for a little while and She started to get a little bit worried, of course. So she asked around and nobody knew where I was.

Speaker 6 So that kind of launched a bit of of a search party situation. She went to go check the trailers to see if I was playing cards and she sent my dad to check the tent.
Unfortunately, my dad is a man.

Speaker 6 And so he did a bit of a lackluster job on that front. And he basically just stood outside and said, Dev, are you in there?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's very Canadian of him. Yeah.

Speaker 6 He's actually from England.

Speaker 1 Oh, well, that's even worse. Yeah, actually.

Speaker 6 So I obviously did not answer. He took that as evidence enough that I was not present.

Speaker 1 Oh, boy. Come on, dad.
I mean, I have to do the same thing. I can't remember being You're always so critical.
You would. Well, I can't find anything.
It's insane, right? It's like, oh, in the fridge.

Speaker 1 It's on the second shelf. I'm staring, staring, staring.
And I'm like, really, what's wrong with me? And then my wife always walks up and just grabs it. So I probably go to the wrong tent.

Speaker 6 There's a reason it's a stereotype, right?

Speaker 1 Yes, exactly.

Speaker 6 So obviously when my mom learned this, she went spiraling and she enlisted everybody that was up to try and help her find me.

Speaker 6 So she had people shining flashlights under the bridge in the creek looking for a floater.

Speaker 1 Oh, no.

Speaker 6 They were combing the woods and they were checking inside. And I mean like inside of the outhouses because obviously my family had a lot of faith in me.

Speaker 6 So finally someone had the bright idea to go and check the tent again.

Speaker 2 And lo and behold, there I was safe and sound.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Or so we thought. Unfortunately that is not where the story ends.

Speaker 6 And around 4 a.m., I woke up to my dad tossing and turning because obviously an air mattress, you wake up to everything and it was freezing cold. So my dad and I were on one air mattress on one side.

Speaker 6 And then my cousin Jesse and her husband Ty were on the air mattress on the other side. And then there was a propane heater in between us.

Speaker 1 Oh, no.

Speaker 6 Check off's propane heater.

Speaker 1 Hold on, because I bet other people are thinking it. I'm just now learning.
Is your Thanksgiving not on the third week of November? No.

Speaker 6 Fortunately for us, it's a lot earlier. It's usually the second week of October.

Speaker 1 Can't believe I didn't know that. Because I'm thinking this whole time.
I'm like, I can't believe you motherfuckers are camping in late November. And like, I wouldn't do that in Michigan.

Speaker 6 It is still very cold.

Speaker 4 Don't get me wrong.

Speaker 6 We have had snow many, many different years.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 6 I heard my dad get up and I heard him open the valve on the tank. And usually you're going to want to have a quick turnaround time on that.

Speaker 1 But I didn't hear anything after that. Oh, boy.

Speaker 6 I waited for a little bit. And unfortunately, I was still pretty groggy from my...
escapades earlier. So I didn't actually do anything useful, like stop him.

Speaker 2 Wait, sorry. I need a little more information because I don't know about these really propane heaters.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
So you turn them on and then you hit a button and it's kind of like a striker and you want to ignite the gas that's coming out. Right.

Speaker 1 And sounds like maybe my right dad has turned on the gas, but there's no striker happening. Okay.
Yeah.

Speaker 6 This was long enough ago and some of our equipment's pretty old. I'm pretty sure that he had to like manually use an actual lighter to light it.
So that slows down the process even more.

Speaker 6 So I just pulled my sleeping bag up over my face because I had a bad feeling.

Speaker 6 And then when I finally did hear the click, the only way I can really describe it is that the birth of a new star happened localized entirely within our tiny town.

Speaker 1 Oh, it just filled completely up with gas. Yes.

Speaker 6 So the resulting fireball was so big and so loud and so bright, it felt like it was daytime.

Speaker 2 Oh my God.

Speaker 6 And it obviously woke up everyone in our tent, as well as everyone in all the tents adjacent because people were like, what the fuck was that?

Speaker 6 So I remember looking up at the beautiful night sky through the brand new hole in our ceiling as I slowly deflated back down to the cold, hard earth.

Speaker 6 But fortunately, it was just a lot of cosmetic damage to our stuff, and everybody was fine.

Speaker 1 So it did, it blew up the air mattresses.

Speaker 6 Yes, air mattresses were totaled, sleeping bags were totaled, tent was totaled.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but everyone was okay.

Speaker 1 And a great time for a PSA. So the order of events is get the starter strip out and lit, then turn the gas on.
We don't turn the gas on, then try to light it.

Speaker 1 We light the lighter and then turn on the gas going forward. Yeah, for all listening.

Speaker 6 And maybe don't do it when you're half asleep and/or had 13 too many beers.

Speaker 1 I don't even know if a propane heater in a tent is even recommended on its own. Everything is so slammable inside.

Speaker 2 There's so much flannel.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 6 Most people stay in their trailers now. There's not a lot of tent folk left at Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 Wow. Scary.
So an atomic bomb went off.

Speaker 6 Yeah, it was pretty wild. So there was nothing we could do in the moment.
So everybody just put on every piece of clothing that they had and we all just went back to bed.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's when those 13 beers come in handy.

Speaker 2 You're kept warm a little bit from that.

Speaker 1 You need to be back asleep so bad, nothing else really matters. Yeah.

Speaker 6 I won't even get up to pee. I'm definitely not letting the fire stop.

Speaker 1 Yes, yes.

Speaker 1 Oh, man. That is the gift of it.

Speaker 6 I was in line for breakfast at the kitchen tent the next morning. We do like a full army style breakfast and it's phenomenal.
And my mom was reading me the riot act about disappearing.

Speaker 6 I didn't think that was really fair after my dad's pyrotechnic display. Fortunately, as soon as he walked in with his newly bald face and chest.

Speaker 1 Oh my God, what happened?

Speaker 6 And then my mom saw the wreckage of the tents. He took all the heat off me.

Speaker 2 Wow, I'm really glad everyone's okay because that could have been horrible.

Speaker 1 Actually, I'm happier to hear that there was an explosion versus the propane was just left on all night and everyone got covered by monoxide poisoning. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 1 The lesser of the bad outcomes that could have happened.

Speaker 6 Yeah, there were a lot of options for sure. I do have some honorable mentions of other things that have happened.

Speaker 6 So one year, Uncle Slug tripped on a route and he fell hand first into the bonfire and absolutely destroyed his hand like skin slopping.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 6 One year Uncle Spike cut off part of his thumb while he was making stew. He was on blood thinners, so it was just an absolute crime scene.

Speaker 6 Then we had Uncle Smiley dislocated his finger and survived an oven explosion all in one day.

Speaker 2 We've got Smiley Slug Spike was the other one.

Speaker 1 This is great.

Speaker 6 There's a lot of characters for sure. And just this past year, my mom wanted me to make sure that I told you that my uncle Brian tripped and fell neck first onto a chainsaw.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 7 What the fuck?

Speaker 1 I'm not even joking. Oh my God.

Speaker 6 And he just missed the artery.

Speaker 1 So he's very lucky.

Speaker 6 Completely fine, by the way.

Speaker 1 He was back chainsawing in no time. Oh, honestly.
Yeah. I have pictures of him from the rest of the weekend just with a bandage.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 6 And a few years ago, my uncle Ryan accidentally bear sprayed himself and my mother while he was showing her his new van.

Speaker 1 Oh. Oh, wow.
Wow. It is.
This is a party. I think you guys need to consider making a reality show based on just this weekend.

Speaker 6 We have a lot of footage from back in the day. My dad used to always be the guy with the camcorder.
So we do have a lot of videos. We could splice something together.

Speaker 2 I would watch that.

Speaker 1 It's also reminiscent of Aaron's Fourth of July party in the field behind the barn. I mean, it's just like one thing after another is happening.
Rapid order. Well, Devin, that was spectacular.

Speaker 1 And I really am sad I've not enjoyed one of these.

Speaker 6 You'll just have to come experience it for yourself.

Speaker 1 And the fact that it doesn't actually conflict with the American one is.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's true. That can happen.

Speaker 6 You don't have any other plans.

Speaker 1 That's right. We might be talking to you next year.
Perfect. Yeah.
Yeah. I think we might.
It should be an annual check-in from Devon.

Speaker 2 Well, thanks for sharing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that was a delight.

Speaker 6 Thanks so much. It was really nice to see you guys.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Have a good rest of your day.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Take care.

Speaker 1 Wow. Oh, wow, man.
They go hard.

Speaker 2 Real hard.

Speaker 1 A bunch of chainsaws, fucking propane heaters.

Speaker 1 trailers.

Speaker 2 If someone tripped and fell on a chainsaw and died, that's such an embarrassing way to die.

Speaker 1 Boy, is it? Like in my circle, that's kind of a win.

Speaker 2 Tripping, though. It's not that you were using it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you weren't like fighting a bear with a chainsaw and it kicked back and got you. But it's better than slipping in the bathtub and dying.
That's very emasculating.

Speaker 1 Like, why were you even bathing yourself?

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. All right.
Love you. Happy Thanksgiving.
Happy Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 Do you want to sing a tune or something? I'm going to have 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 our cherries, we'll get some suggestions

Speaker 1 on the flyer rhyme dish.

Speaker 1 On the fly rhyme dish, enjoy.

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