Armchair Anonymous: DIY Disaster

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous.
Today, our DIY project's gone wrong. Let's do it yourself.
I always said this wrong. This is always hard to say.
I always wanted to say

D-Y-I. Sure.
I famously said that

in front of somebody and they corrected me and I got

humiliated. Oh, who?

Martha Stewart? I wish.

Yeah. I want to be humiliated

by her. I'd be

a sub. Baby girl.
Yeah, I'd be her

baby girl.

I think everyone would. Yeah.

Okay, let's see. There's maggots

that I think I gotta warn. Oh, shit,

don't say that. No, I think I gotta tell

I'll be right back. baby girl i think everyone would yeah okay let's see there's maggots that i think i gotta i gotta warn say that no i think i gotta tell people what other things are here blood blood yeah blood and maggots please enjoy do it yourself projects gone wrong This episode is supported by FX's Dying for Sex, starring Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate.
Inspired by a true story, this series follows Molly, who after receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis, decides to leave her husband to explore the full breadth of her sexual desires. She gets the courage and support to go on this sex quest from her best friend Nikki, who stays by her side through it all.
FX's Dying for Sex, all episodes streaming April 4th on Hulu. We are supported by Ring.
You don't have to miss out on what's happening at home. With Ring cameras and doorbells, you can see and speak to who's there from anywhere.
With Ring's Battery Doorbell Plus, you can greet visitors, get notified about packages, and see what's going on at your front door. And head-to-toe video lets you see more of what's happening up high and down low.
Another great way to check in on home is Rings Pan Tilt Indoor Cam. You can control the camera from your phone and pan around to see what your pets

are getting up to. And with two-way talk, you can even say hi to them.
Oh, that's so cute.

It is. If I get my dog, I'm definitely going to talk to him with the Pan Tilt Indoor Cam.

I love, I have a Ring video doorbell and I really like it and it makes me feel very safe.

Yeah, they're fantastic and they're so simple to install. With Ring, you can check on home from anywhere keep on shining.
Hello. Hi.
How are you two? Wonderful. What a bright smile.
Did you just get your teeth zoomed? No. You'll never believe this, but I used Arm & Hammer.
I used the baking soda toothpaste. Of course you do.
It's the only one that works. It really is.
And your teeth are sparkling white. Thank you.
That's so nice. I feel so validated.
This has turned into a real commercial for the product. I mean, you asked.
Okay. So Christina, where are you at? Right now I'm in Phoenix, but I live in Salt Lake City normally.
Okay. Are you there on business? My boyfriend runs a local grocery store in Salt Lake.
There are a bunch of food shows all over the country, which if we have time, I have an Aaron Weekly story to tell about a food show. Oh, did you meet him? Yes, I met him at the Chicago food show for Ted Seeger.
And I really embarrassed myself. Please tell me.
I doubt that. Let's hear it.

Was he so cute in person? He was so cute. We walked up and my boyfriend obviously knows how much I love the podcast.
I was so excited to meet him. We have the same birthday.
J2C. Yeah.
So we walk up and my sister is an actress. And so I don't want to ever be starstruck.
It's got a very strong belief that I have.

So I was trying to play it cool and I forgot how to speak English. I turned bright red.
And my boyfriend was trying to be really sweet and was like, Oh my gosh, Christina is a huge fan of Armchair Expert. And then I got embarrassed and mad at him.
Like, I'm an arm cherry. I am not a fan.
There is a distinguishable difference. I walked away and was like, well, I hope I never get the opportunity to meet Dax and Monica.
Based on that, I hope that I can actually speak. So this is already going better.
I couldn't be happier that Aaron got that kind of reaction. I love it.
This is a perfect story. I guarantee he'll remember because J2C is so rare and coveted.
I didn't even get to tell him. You didn't.
That would have fast tracked you. Yeah, but I couldn't get it out, sadly.
Okay, so you have a DIY story that went poorly. I do.
This story takes place in the fall of 2013, kind of around Halloween, when I was in college. I went to a small liberal arts college in Salt Lake.
My roommates and I lived in this super charming 1900s house off campus. It had these beautiful original hardwood floors.
It was just full of vintage charm. And we had no business living there, but I was a sophomore in college.
And at my school, I think because there's this big religious influence in Salt Lake, I found that there's a really strong counterculture to that. And my college really leaned into that counterculture.
We embraced every opportunity to run wild. Oh God, I wish I went there.
It was very fun. But at my school, Halloween wasn't just a fun holiday.
It was the event of the year. There was an annual campus Halloween party and it was obviously one of the most important nights of the year.
It had political ramifications. Yes.
It was the night that you would probably hook up with someone that you wouldn't normally run into. You have some kind of life altering conversation that you wouldn't remember, make some kind of decision that would haunt you.
It ended up being such a mess at the school that they eventually had to shut it down. So it doesn't exist anymore.
But when I was there, it was like the pinnacle of college life. You were there at the right time.
Since we were broke college students, my roommate and I decided that we couldn't justify spending money on Halloween costumes. We had to DIY it, but we still obviously wanted to look perfect for this night.
At this time, we were also deep in a hippie phase. We were vegans and we loved patchouli and environmentalism and not showering to save water, all of that.
Were you into jam bands?

Oh, so into jam bands.

Naturally, we decided to kind of go along with that, that we were going to go as Mother Nature to this costume party for our DIY costumes. We thought it was sexy and organic and effortless.
So our plan was to just buy a huge piece of brown fabric and hot glue real leaves straight from our front yard onto the fabric, and then kind of wrap ourselves in it like a toga. And we thought it was cute and cheap and sustainable.
The day of the party, we went into our lawn, we just scooped up huge armfuls of these kind of damp leaves that had been outside for a while. We sat cross-legged on the hardwood floor of our living room, just surrounded by piles of leaves.
And with a hot glue gun, we ended up gluing onto the fabric one by one, these leaves. And it took basically the whole day.
The hot glue gun strings are like floating all around us. We're burning our fingers, but it was Halloween and it was important.
Finally, we finished right before the party was about to start. So we reached down to pick up the fabric to kind of wrap ourselves in it.
And we realized that the hot glue had bonded the fabric and all of the leaves directly to this original, beautiful, pristine 1900s hardwood floor. Oh, it just leaked right through that sustainable fabric.
It wasn't even just stuff. It was like completely fused.
Oh no. And glue loves wood.
All those nooks and crannies. Whenever we would lift at the corners, it felt like we were pulling the hardwood floor up with the fabric.
We couldn't do it. And obviously this party was about to start and our costumes glued to the floor.
So in true 19 year old fashion, fuck it, it we'll deal with this tomorrow so we wore like flannels and suspenders and we're lumberjacks or something stupid no one knew what we were but we didn't really care i don't think they would have really understood mother nature also to be fair but they wouldn't notice the effort because a lot of times you're like i don't know what the fuck that is did it take them a while. And I applaud that.
I would love that reaction. And that was not what we got.
But it ended up being a fun night, I think. The next day was Sunday.
And we were very, very hungover. And when we walked into the living room, we were like, we do not have the capacity to deal with these piles of leaves and this fused fabric.
The day passed. And all of a sudden we were like back in the weekly routine.
Oh, wow. Okay.
So you just really keep kicking it down the road. I could see this.
So we just leave it for some reason. And it turns out that the leaves that we collected that were sitting in our living room, they weren't just leaves.
They were damp and decomposing and they were filled with lots of tiny, rapidly reproducing maggots. Stop! No! I was thinking snails, but maggots, that's a bit worse.
Oh, God. Ew.
You basically made like a habitat in your living room for maggots. We kind of started to notice little wriggling things near the edges of the piles.
And of course, we're like, huh, that's kind of strange. And just kind of left it.
Yeah, wow. It got worse.
Rapidly reproducing is the worst phrase to hear before maggots. Yeah, so we had a full-blown infestation.

They were in the kitchen, in the couch,

but we had been so in our groove.

Sure.

And we were never really at home in college.

Finally driven by sheer horror,

we had to scrape up the glued fabric

and the leaves and all of the insects.

And by the time we were done,

this beautiful hardwood floor was just completely scratched beyond recognition. Yeah, imagine all that dampness also could have warped everything.
I mean, you really did everything bad you could do to a hardwood floor. Moisture, glue, dirt, maggots.
Oh. It was a real fuck you to that floor, really.
It was never the same. Through the rest of the time I lived there, we would put a keg on top of that section.
Like, well, it's already fucked. It can't get any worse.
Was there a penalty at the end of all this? Did anyone get a bill? Oh, I'm sure we did. We lived in this house for four years.
So the number of things that happened in this house. You're not getting your deposit back.
No, no. Yeah, you kissed that right goodbye.
Ugh. Oh, I just hate a maggot.
Could you list, Monica, where is that in your top ten? Snakes out of your bottom, number one. Snakes up the bottom.
Well, slithering out, no? They go up there. That's the worst.
I guess you're right. When they slither out, you're kind of relieved, probably.
Yeah. You didn't know they were.
Let even tickle. Yeah.
Who knows? Maggots might even be worse. Really? Yes.
There's something about them and you can't get control of them and they're slimy and ugh. I think the grossest part, everyone plug your ears, that's sensitive.
But the grossest part is when you step on them, then there's mayonnaise on the ground. Ew, why? Why? I warned everyone to plug their ears.
What more do you want me to do? You made me listen. Oh, that was...
Help. Help me.
Well, Christina, you sound very easygoing, pretty laid back. That liberal arts college was the right choice for you.
The liberal arts education. Yeah, Hellenic studies, baby.
Hellenic studies. Western SIP.
This is before anxiety and adulthood kicked in, so I'm much less laid back now. But at the time, it was like anything goes.
You would stress out about it at the time, but really to reduce your life to just four term papers every three months, like that's pretty manageable. And then the rest of your time, you don't give a flying fuck about anything.
Kegs and yeah. All right, Christina, nice meeting you.
Thank you. And I just have to say I am so grateful that you two exist in this world and I appreciate everything that you do and so grateful that I got the opportunity to talk to you both.
Us too. I hope i bump into you at a food show it's possible i'm going to one with aaron in march or something we'll probably be there okay come over and lose your shit and join the j2c club i got it out of my system trial run yeah all right bye hello hi there can you hear me oh wonderful cute cure shirt i agree welcome to my closet thank you big fan of the cure so i had to represent.
Hi there. Can you hear me? Oh, wonderful.
Cute Cure shirt.

I agree.

Welcome to my closet. Thank you.
Big fan of The Cure. So I had to represent.

Me too. Robert Smith?

Indeed.

What do we know about him? He's such an enigma.

And that's kind of his draw. There was an interesting thing when they were inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Trent Reznor said, Robert Smith has curated this Robert Smith world that we can go and become whenever we want, whenever we feel a little left out or alone. And that's exactly what it represents.
Yeah. Oh, I like that.
Also, falling in love. Oh my God, what good lovesick music.
What's your favorite? Name that tune, Chris. Pictures of you.
Yeah, Pictures of You. Good job.
Yes, everyone did a great job. Yeah.
What's your favorite? I'm a really big fan of their new album, Songs of a Lost World. Highly recommend it.
It's their first album in, I think, eight years. He's getting older and some of his loved ones are past.
And he's looking at mortality like we all are. Yeah, he was able to articulate heartbreak.
So in the early part of your life, that was all romantic love. And now people are dying.
It's just continued on the heartbreak. Life is hard.
It is. You can tell a Cure fan miles away.
If not the get up, at least just they have this bon-a-mi about them. Bon-a-mi.
Bon-a-mi. That was a great word.
Yeah. It's an SAT word for sure.
Yeah. Where are you at? I am in Northern Virginia, just outside of D.C.
But I have to say, originally from Michigan, Ann Arbor. The wife is from the thumb, proper farm country.
So we met in Michigan, and that was 20-some-odd years ago. This is why he's so interesting and knowledgeable.
Monica, and I'm not going to leave you out, I've been to the Atlanta airport. Oh, I think it's that.
I think it might be how cultured the airport is. Like those Holiday Inn Express commercials?

It's very Bon Ami. It's like, did you go to a Hy-Vee League? No, but I flew into Atlanta one time.
Exactly. Okay, you have a DIY story that went awry.
I do. So August 2019, I wanted to put up a camera on our front porch to see the comings and goings of Amazon delivery drivers and all that good stuff.
And our house has a really beautiful wraparound front porch with 10-foot ceilings and like a ceiling fan.

And we have a porch swing and a good place to hang out when it's not stiflingly hot. But I needed to get power over to where I was putting in the camera.
And I figured I would just tap right into where the junction box is for the fan. So I took the fan down.
One thing to note at this point, I'm home alone.

My wife and younger daughter are out running errands. My older daughter is in North Carolina

with her friend and their family. At home, it's just me and the dog.
So I get my ladder out,

take the fan down, put it on the ground. I'm going to ask a dumb, dumb question,

but you obviously already threw the circuit breaker. Of course.
You're preempting something

stupid that I would do, but that's for another time. Okay.
Okay. Right at the Romex over, put the new plugin, put a GFI plugin because it's outdoors, tested it.
So now I just needed to put the fan actually back up. So I grabbed the fan and I climbed up the ladder.
Key mind, it's a 10 foot ladder. So for some reason, I didn't think or want to take the four minutes to remove the fan blades or the undermount light or anything like that.
I have the top of the neck of the fan motor in my right hand. And, you know, the fan blades are all banging around my body and hitting the ladder.
And I just need to get the fan motor clipped into the little holder and then I can let go of it. Then it's kind of in place.
But the junction box is a bit more full because it's got a separate piece of Romex. It's got some wire nuts.
So I can't quite get it into place. So I figure, oh, I'm just going to use my left hand to help push it in a little.
However, at the bottom of the fan, there's light bulbs and a nice glass dome. Again, which I didn't take off.
So I push my left hand on that glass dome, give it a heave, and my left hand smashes through the glass dome with a few light bulbs, slicing open my wrist. I scream out in pain.
I'm joking I didn't fall off the ladder at this point. I can only kind of remember climbing down the ladder.
Thankfully, my wife and younger daughter had gotten home not three minutes beforehand. They were still putting away groceries in the kitchen.
So I flung open the door and just yelled, Paul 911. You knew immediately you had cut the artery.
Was that obvious? There's blood everywhere. Going to save five minutes.
Exactly. This message is brought to you by Apple Card.
Apple Card is a no-fee credit card that gives you daily cash back every day. That's 3% back at Apple and 2% back on every purchase made with Apple Card using Apple Pay.
Apply for Apple Card in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval, variable APRs for Apple Card range from 18.24% to 28.49% based on credit worthiness.
Rates as of January 1st, 2025. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City branch.
Terms and more at AppleCard.com. We are supported by Quince.
Quince is one of our favorite apparel brands with luxury fabrics and finishes at affordable prices. Everyone I know is obsessed with Quince.
Quince is amazing. I was gifted an incredible blanket for Quince from Elizabeth and Andy.
Oh, wow. And it's so warm and soft and fuzzy and cute.
Yeah, all their fabrics are so nice. You get the best of both worlds.
Killer style at prices that don't break the bank. Quince has some great wardrobe staples, all at prices that are way less than similar brands.
We're talking 50 to 80% less. This is a gift giver's like paradise, correct? Well, that's because Quince partners directly with top factories, so they cut out the costs of the middleman.
And they also make sure the factories they partner with use safe, ethical, and responsible manufacturing practices so you can feel good about your purchase.

Indulge in affordable luxury.

Go to quince.com slash DAX for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.

That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash DAX to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash Dax.
We are supported by BetterHelp. Let's talk numbers.
Traditional in-person therapy can cost anywhere from $100 to $250 per session, which adds up fast. But with BetterHelp online therapy, you can save on average up to 50% per session.
And you know, people don't have any problem investing into their physical health, and I sure would like to see them have that same willingness to invest in their mental health. With BetterHelp, you pay a flat fee for weekly sessions, saving you big on cost and time.
Therapy should feel accessible, not like a luxury. With Online Therapy, you get quality care at a price that makes sense and can help you with anything from anxiety to everyday stress.
Your mental health is worth it, and now it's within reach. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally.
It's convenient, too. You can join a session with the click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life.
Plus, switch therapists at any time. Your well-being is

worth it. Visit BetterHelp.com slash DAX today to get 10% off your first month.
That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Dax.

So I sit down on the front porch steps and with my right hand, put pressure on the wrist. My wife comes out with 911 on the phone.
They're telling her to get clean rag or clean shirt or something and just apply pressure. And an ambulance is on its way.
I'm bleeding through these rags like no one's business. I'm lightheaded, pale, dizzy.
I actually got the 911 call from the county. Oh, wow.
My wife hasn't had the heart to listen to it yet. I wasn't really there.
I was kind of in another space. So it was kind of fun for me to listen to.
And at one point, the dispatcher asked her how bad I'm bleeding. And she said, it's dripping all over the porch.
It's in bad shape. Do they suggest a tourniquet at any point? They didn't.
They were just saying direct pressure. Somehow, I didn't pass out.
But the paramedics arrive and they quickly see that things aren't great. They're able to stem the bleeding a bit more.
They wrap it up with gauze, get me loaded into the ambulance, and off we go to the hospital. It's probably about a 20-minute drive to the hospital.
The paramedic calls ahead to the ER just to kind of let them know what to expect. I'm still conscious.
And then about five minutes before we get to the hospital, both the EMT and I happen to look down and the gauze is now completely red and it's dripping onto the floor of the ambulance. Without missing a beat, she puts kind of one thumb on my pressure point on the bend of my elbow with the other hand, opens up a cabinet, grabs a tourniquet, rips it open with her teeth, puts it around my arm, cinches it tight.
And that somewhat stopped at least the dripping. We get to the ER, we get into the triage room and within seconds, 20 medical professionals are there.
I'm crying. I'm thinking, yeah, I'm in a lot better shape now because I'm at least at the hospital, but this is scary stuff.
They strap my arm down to a board, wrist side up, start spraying it with saline. And then the next thing you know, I'm out.
That was the last thing that I remember. I woke up hours later in a recovery room, still super groggy.
I woke enough basically to say hi to my wife and then crashed again. And then the next thing I knew, I woke up at three in the morning in my hospital room and my hand is just bandaged from fingertip to elbow.
But I could see that I had all my extremities, which was pretty, pretty cool. I'm thinking out loud that you were lucky that you probably landed in a hospital with a vascular surgeon.
So one of the benefits of living in Northern Virginia is we have an amazing medical system. So it's a level one trauma, which I just learned about on the nurses.
You do. We're all learning at the same speed.
We learn so much. So they did have all the necessary surgeons there to perform immediate surgery.
I was discharged later that afternoon. I was in crazy heavy medicine for several weeks.
I had hand physical therapy for months, then some really nasty scars and a little loss of motion in my thumb. So basically what I did is when I pushed up on the globe, obviously it shattered, but I was pushing pretty hard and I cut my artery long way.
Vertical. That's the worst.
Exactly. So I cut my artery, several tendons and nerves.
Monica, I actually sent you guys a couple of pictures. Oh, Lord.
Hopefully Rob has them up. That's on the table.
Okay. I'm ready for this.
Oh, my. Also, you were doing this project in flip flops? Yeah.
On the ladder. On the ladder.
God, are we the same person? You can handle this, Monica, but my God, for the listening audience, it's a good six inches of gash. It serpentines around, into the hand, down the wrist.
Oh, it goes in. Ew.
Oh. It's raw.
Ew, maggots. Yeah, no one can listen to this episode.
A slight bit of humor to the whole situation. I found out later that after I left in the ambulance and before my wife and daughter drove to the hospital, my wife took the garden hose and hosed on the front porch because there was just blood everywhere.
And it's probably best because when she got home from the hospital late that night after seeing me recovery, there was an Amazon package on the front porch. And I could only imagine what the poor Amazon delivery driver would have thought if they saw it.
Would they have taken a picture of it or they would have been like, customer not available. It just went on their way.
If I were the Amazon person and I just arrived at a big pool of blood, I would open the box to see if someone had ordered bleach. Oh my God God.
I was not complicit in the cleanup effort. That's actually interesting.
Do you think delivery people have an obligation to, like, report? Like HIPAA? First reporters, like school teachers. Yeah, we have to call 911 if we see something really bad.
Chris, you're so smart. What line of work are you in? I know.
I am a full-time stay-at-home dad. Oh, okay.
Well, yeah, you gotta be smart to do that. I left the workforce about a year and a half ago, and I love it.
Girl dad, 13 and 15, it's what works for our family, so I couldn't be happier. And I have an endless list of projects and things to do.
Oh, God, stay away from the projects. We have some new rules in our house about the projects I'm allowed to do and no one is home.
And if I get up on a ladder, I need to let someone else be there. If my wife hadn't arrived home just before it happened, I'm confident in saying that I wouldn't be here today.
There's no way that I could have grabbed my phone and called 911. I just wasn't in this state.
And obviously, since there was such significant bleeding, I would have probably passed it pretty quickly. Oh.
Okay, I want to tell you a quick story. It's not to equate your injury with any kind of property damage, but I think you'll just get a kick out of it.
Because I bought a car in 2019. The previous version of it had gone up three times, and I was able to get one.
I got it just for an investment. I got the entire car covered in this thin see-through wrap so that it would never get any scratches or anything.
And it's just gonna sit in my garage. So I need to get my snowboard bag out of this loft above the car.
And it's raining outside. So I don't wanna pull the car out into the rain because then that's its own thing.
And then I determined, you know what? I can just get on the ladder next to the car and I can grab that bag. This is not a huge deal.
What I didn't really think about was I had tracked some water in from coming from outside. I set the ladder up.
So the ladder is now on some water, which I didn't really notice. And I'm pulling the snowboard bag out from on top of the car.
And all of a sudden, the ladder starts slipping. And now I have this decision to make.
If I fall, it's coming down on top of this car. So I have to, with all my weight, chuck the board from the air so it'll clear the car.
And when I do that, I then fall off of the ladder. And I shoot the ladder into the car that I'm trying my hardest to protect.
And it hits the mirror perfectly where the vinyl wrap has come together at a seam and there's a gap. My first thought when I land on the ground, I was like, oh fuck, I broke my rib on my bench.
Okay, oh, my arm hurts. And then I'm like, oh my God, did the ladder hit the side of the car? And I'm looking at the side of the car.
No, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. And then all of a sudden I see it and I took a fucking two inch chunk of paint out of the mirror and I'm like, there we go.
I saved myself wiping the car down and now I've got to go find a painter qualified to not take the value. And you're thinking, damn it, I can get my rib replaced, but aftermarket parts are so hard to find for this car.
What am I going to do? I destroyed the pristine value of this car. So yeah, I really deeply relate to just trying to save a few minutes and really fucking regretting it absolutely it was a learning opportunity for sure because i've cut corners in the past and skated through and the same i cut a corner and it didn't end nicely at all but at least i'm still here there's the dude that i've been going with for 22 years and his saying and i it every single time, is cutting the corners the quickest way to the back of the line.
Something like that. I've heard it a million times.
Well, it's like cut off your nose to spite your face type of thing. Just don't do it.
Yeah, you just always end up in the very back of the line. Well, Chris, delightful meeting you.
I'm not shocked you're above average because you're from Michigan. Thank you very much, Paul.
Thanks for chatting. This is an absolute pleasure.
All right. Take care, Chris.
I think it's something like taking a shortcut. Fastest way to the back of the line.
Yeah. Something like that.
The shortcut's the fastest way to the back of the line. I think that's what it is.
Yeah, that's it. Can you hear me? Beautifully.
I don't want to give out your full name, Tanya, but it's criminal you're not a country western singer. That's the best country star name I've ever heard.
I know, right? The 70s is when my name peaked. If you look at the bell curve for popularity of your name, there's not very many of us.
Who is it? Tanya Tucker. But she wasn't famous in the 70s, was she? Sure she was.
I'm a 75 baby like you. Are you about to turn 50? When? This summer.

I'm getting scared. It's going to be great.
I just got a rebrand for us. I'm stealing it from

Bad Sisters. I'll acknowledge where I got it.
But from now on, I'm not 50. You and I are both

mid-century. Boom.
Sounds cooler. Right? Sounds architectural.
I'm mid-century. Fuck, I love it.

Yeah. Don't you dare, Monica.
I'm going to make shirts that say mid-century. You are? Yes.
Okay. I'll buy one if you do.
Okay, great. Okay, okay.
Three customers. Three customers.
Hey, we have a wide net. I'm kidding.
This is great. I'll wear it.
She's really relishing in her age privileges, isn't she? I have to. What a bitch with her fresh eggs.
They're not fresh. They're old and stinky.
They're huge. It happens to all of us.
Where are you, Tanya? I am in Utah in a oral surgery office of the man that this story is about. I'm working for my dad today.
Is he a periodontist? He is an oral surgeon. He pulls teeth.
Perio, I think, is about gums. He still works.
He's 84 years old. Wow.
And he works on a semi-retired schedule. He's just finishing up his afternoon nap.
Oh, what a stud. This is great.
Okay. Hit us with your DIY story that went awry.
Okay. So this is a landscaping DIY disaster.
A few things about my dad that you need to know is that he is a genius, but this is usually what gets him in trouble. He knows how to do things.
He knows how to figure them out. If he doesn't, he is big on self-sufficiency.
His parents were world war two age. That's another thing about his brilliance is he skipped out on the last year of college when he took his entrance exam into dental school because his scores were so high that they admitted him immediately my dad has only ever paid for landscaping once in his life and that was in the last 10 years at 85 he still maintains five acres of land and my mom who's 80 mows the lawn he will spend a dollar to save a penny.
He's that kind of a person. And the same goes for his time.
He will work an idea a hundred times over. He's very persistent.
He does not give up. Also, the last thing you need to know about our family is Saturday chore day was an all day thing.
If you stayed the night at somebody's house, you had to be back in time for chores. If somebody stayed the night at your house, they either needed to leave or help out.
There are eight kids in our family. This is all screaming Mormon.
The industriousness, the eight kids. Yes, okay.
We are Mormon. We're in Utah right now.
Yeah, yeah. But this story does not take place in Utah.
I was raised in the Central Valley of California, San Joaquin Valley, outside of Fresno. This is 96, maybe.
I'm home from college. My dad had a job for us to do for the summer.
It included my older brother who was in college, myself, and my younger sister who was in college. So this is probably May.
And we had a newish house. We had built a pool the summer before, and now my dad is trying to landscape the backyard.
In digging our pool, we found out that there is about 12 to 18 inches of what's called hard pan. It's thick concrete like soil.
You can't penetrate it. You can use a pickaxe all you want.
You're never going to get to the bottom of it. But there is an orange grove in the back of our property.
So how the heck did they get their trees planted? He finds out that you can get an ag permit for dynamite.

Perfect.

Now we're talking.

In the two acres that we have, he would need to plant 60 trees.

So he figures out the recipe.

He researches how to do it.

He knows where to get all the stuff.

It's getting close to blasting day.

We had to rent an auger.

You sure you got to drill a hole and dump the dynamite in there? We had to put like 30 inches down into the stuff. It's getting close to blasting day.
We had to rent an auger. You sure you got to drill a hole and dump the dynamite in there? We had to put like 30 inches down into the ground.
That took three days to do all 60 holes. And it's blasting day.
My dad took off work. He never takes off work.
The only reason I know he took off work is that my two younger siblings were at school and my youngest sister was home with the chicken pox. We start in the far, far back part of our property, two acres, so pretty far.
We put one scoop in. One scoop was about the size of a paint can, a small quart.
My brother lights it, we all run, and there is a kaboom, like a howitzer cannon kaboom. So it was a little bit anticlimactic and no earth moved at all.
It just shot straight out of it like a cannon. So dad being a Mr.
Scientist, he treated it like a science experiment. We changed one thing.
We adjust. So some of the things we tried was stuffing it with a blanket to make it push out like a firecracker.
We tried chicken wire in a blanket. We tried a big, huge boulder.
Things weren't working. So now we're increasing the number of scoops.
We go to two. We finally get up to three.
Oh, great. This is like when you take too many drugs because the drugs haven't hit you.
Yes, yes. And you're impatient.
We're up to three scoops in the hole. My mom calls my brother and my sister and I that were home from college.
We had to leave for an eye doctor appointment. We take off.
Uh-oh. At the last second, she makes my little sister with the chicken pox come with us.
She didn't want to leave dad experimenting with dynamite with a sick little girl inside. So he's doing it all by himself.
We come home, country roads. Everybody has a couple acres.
And we're at our neighbor's house. And there and there are dirt clots everywhere.
And the closer we get to our house, there's more. And my heart starts beating.
We're getting scared. The closer we get to the driveway, to the house, it's so much that my brother just undoes the van door, huge Mormon van door, by the way.
And we bolt out of there and we just head towards the back of the property. And we're looking for body parts, honestly.
Like, where is dad? Oh, no. We are supported by Squarespace, our old friend Squarespace.
Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online. We love Squarespace.
We have our Armchair Expert website, which was built by Squarespace. And it's gorgeous.
It's a great, great product. If you want to build a website that looks as snazzy as the Armchair Expert site, Squarespace makes it simple.
With their collection of cutting-edge design tools, you can build a bespoke online presence that perfectly fits your brand or business. Start with Blueprint AI, Squarespace's AI-enhanced website builder, to get a fully custom website in just a few steps.
Basic info about your industry goals and personality will generate premium quality content and personalized design recommendations. Squarespace also offers a complete library of website templates with options for every use and category.
You can make a gorgeous website without any previous experience. Check out squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, use offer code DAX to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
That's Squarespace.com and promo code DAX to get started today. We are supported by Vital Proteins.
Have you heard of Vital Proteins collagen peptides? It's a supplement that has four benefits all in one helping support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones, and joints. Because after 30, our body's natural collagen production can start to decline by 1% a year.
Aging, it is coming for us all. The loss of collagen may lead to the appearance of fine lines, saggy skin, and your bones and joints not moving like they used to.
That's where Vital Proteins comes in. By taking collagen peptides daily, you can help support your hair, skin, nail, bone, and joint health.
It's an easy addition to your daily routine, and Vital Proteins is the number one brand of collagen peptides in the U.S. I've been using this product for quite some time, way before it was a sponsor.
And your collagen's looking great. I've commented on it.

You have, and I'm post-30, so it's time.

You are, yes.

Get 20% off by going to vitalproteins.com and entering promo code DAX at checkout.

That's vitalproteins.com, promo code DAX for 20% off.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.

This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

So, the hole back there is massive.

New swimming pool?

Exactly.

New spa.

Dax, you could lay in the bottom of it with your arms outstretched and just be fine. Wow.
Wow. A foxhole.
Oh my God. Then we hear some laughter coming from the inside of the house.
And my other sisters were in there with my mom and we go inside. My brother and I run over there.
My dad is laying on the bed of his bedroom. There's a tarp on the floor.
There's a ladder set up. There's a bucket of tools and a 12 inch hole in the ceiling.
What? With a rock. Oh, that shot up and came down? Yep.
Now he's repairing the roof. It came through the house.
It blew up in the air and then came, God, lucky it didn't come down on him. It took about two weeks for him to finally tell the story.
He was telling some tall tales all along the way. He was saying things like, oh, an alien must have come and tried to get me and the laser beam shot through the roof.
Or I was kicking and screaming when the aliens were trying to get me and I kicked a hole in the roof. He's a little rascal.
He has a lot of different tall tales he tells and aliens is a favorite of his. A go-to.
About two weeks later at family dinner, he finally fessed up to the whole story. With the three scoops in the hole, the boulder nearby, he had remembered there are these things called boosters or blasting caps that fit over the detonator.
And it gives you maximum explosion with minimal amount of dynamite. This is Nobel, the Nobel Peace Prize.
He invented that blasting cap. So much of the earth was destroyed by his invention.
He felt like he should take the money and give back. And that's what the Nobel Peace Prize is from.
He gets those from the safe. He kept them separate.
He lights it, runs back about a hundred feet. And this time it was kaboom! The sound waves knocked him flat on his back.
And he is being pelted by all of these little dirt clods all around him. And he comes to, and he sees the rock up in the sky.
And the rock is pretty big, maybe 24 inches, splits in two. One lands in the orange grove behind our house and the other just gets swallowed up into the house.
Oh, wow. Talk about saving a little money on a professional and then now you got to replace part of the roof.
Yeah. He never had anybody fix it.
He tried to fix it himself that afternoon before we got home, But it was time for a nap, just like he loves. And he does his best thinking in nap time.
How did the remaining 59 holes get blasted? So we did finish up. We ended up only needing a third of a scoop through trial and error.
I am shocked that we didn't blow all the windows out of our house from that first one because the rattle was so big. My brother heard it about a mile away after school and he was just like, what is going on? Our neighbors called the cops on us, but he had a permit.
He showed that cop exactly what he had. Carry on, sir.
Mind your own business. It looks like you've got it.
We've got things under control here. And I think it was kind of exciting, too.
She was mad because her horses were losing their mind. Probably pretty frightening.
We did get a twofer in that whole thing because that big old pit turned into a fire pit. Oh.
Okay. All of our friends started calling him Dr.
Boom Boom. That's so funny.
Well, that's great, Dania. That's a great story.
Yeah, I'm glad everyone was away from the house. Let me see if he's around, if you would like to meet this mad scientist.
Yeah, yeah, let's see if he's awake. Give me one second.
Jack, you got to come right now. Here he is.
Yes. Hello.
Hi. You left out that he's very handsome, too.
Oh, yeah, he is. I want to thank you for blowing up your entire yard and sending a rock into your roof because it made for a great story for us.
When I told him we were going to do this, he said, I'll ask him if he wants to go for round two. Do you have any holes that need to be dug? Once I get to Nashville, yeah, I might call on your services.
Once a pachymaniac, always a pachymaniac. Great meeting both of you.
Tanya, thank you for telling us that story. That was great.
No problem. Glad to share it.
All right. Take care, you guys.
Oh, fathers are funny. We're all kind of the same.
You are all the same, and you're always trying to play with your trinkets and put trinkets up.

You call them tools, but really they're trinkets.

Sure.

That whole story is appealing.

I would love to get the permit, and I'd love to have an excuse to use dynamite.

I've always wanted to.

Rob, have you wanted to be able to blast dynamite?

Absolutely.

I mean, I've shot firecrackers a lot.

Yeah, M80s and quarter sticks.

You're always looking for a quarter stick in Michigan. What's a quarter stick? A quarter stick of a lot.
Yeah. M80s and quarter sticks.
You're always looking for a quarter stick

in Michigan. Quarter stick of dynamite.
Hi. Are you Chris? Yes.
Oh, wonderful. Short for Christine or Christina.
Yes. Because we had another Chris today and I said, well, double Chris's.
One of my best friends' name is Chris. Short for Christina.
An Atlanta friend? Uh-huh. With a K, But you're with the C?

CH, yeah.

So where in Canada are you?

BC, outside for Christina. An Atlanta friend? Uh-huh.
With a K, but you're with a C? C-H, yeah. So where in Canada are you? B.C., outside of Vancouver.
Okay, so you have a DIY story that went bad. Technically, my husband was supposed to be telling the story.
He was the one who experienced it. I will admit I was the catalyst.
Okay, we've been down this road already. I am just the designer and he is the planner, which after you hear the story, that is now shifted.
I am now both. Okay.
We moved into our house in 2019 and we're in a townhouse row. So we're like the first six and then the entire complex is behind us.
I'm a cleaner.

I hate baseboards. The old schooled ones with the grooves.
I don't want to get in there. I wanted a more modern block.
Make it nice and simple for me. So we removed all the old crappy baseboards.
It's a bit of an investment to obviously put back into your home. So we started off very small.
I'm like, let's just do the bathrooms and then we'll eventually get to the rest of it. So I tasked my husband with the downstairs bathroom as I'm away at work.
And this bathroom shares a wall with our hot water tank. Okay.
So my husband starts nailing the baseboard to the bottom. Prior to this,

he does turn off the water that's by the toilet tanks. He's making his way around.
And now he

gets to the wall that shared the closet hot water tank. Pierces the wall.
He's using a nail gun.

Yeah. Water starts to come out of the wall, like pressurized water.
He's immediately feet up. It's

Thank you. He's using a nail gun.
Yeah. Water starts to come out of the wall, like pressurized water.
He's immediately feet up. It's quite a small space that he could at least put some pressure on it.
He's like, I turned off the water. I don't get why this is happening.
He calls me while I'm at work and he's like, you need to come home. Something's gone wrong.
And I'm like, you dropped me off at work this morning. We have one vehicle.
I'm sorry. You're on your own.
Also, we don't have time with water gushing everywhere for anyone to come home from work. We've got to turn off the main water here.
Exactly. So thankfully, our neighbor, he has the key to our six row utility closet goes to turn off the water.
And he's like, why isn't the water stopping? We get a plumber out and they come to turn off the main water to our six houses that we can't get to. Is water still gushing out? It's stopped at this point.
My guess is it ran for a while after because he punctured the hot water heater, which holds like 100 gallons of water.

So it was going to leak long after the water supply was turned off.

It was in our water tank that he hit.

So the water's just off for the night.

It's 5 p.m. at this point.
Our six houses, nobody has water.

Oh, I'd be so pissed.

I would too.

My neighbor, I'm like, hey, you're not qualified to do this now.

None of us have water.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Husband comes to pick me up from work.

I'm like, we need to give them a jug of water.

Thank you. to be so pissed.
I would too. My neighbor, I'm like, hey, you're not qualified to do this now.
None of us have water. Yeah.
Yeah. Husband comes to pick me up from work.
I'm like, we need to give them a jug of water and a little gift card. We've literally just met these people.
Yeah. Not a great look.
We've got somebody coming in the next day. Plumber comes, fixes it.
They go to turn the main water back on and it's still pressurized. He goes, we have to turn off the main water again.
And we're like, okay, great. He goes to turn it off and he breaks the valve.
Oh, wow. Okay.
So now we have to call the city to get them to turn off the water to all 65 homes behind us. No, my God.
Just keeps growing in the whole town, doesn't it? Exactly. Usually 24, 72 hours in advance gives you notice that they're turning off water.
It was immediate. Because Trav is trying to figure this out with the plumber who just broke the valve, he didn't contact Strata for like three hours after this happened.
So they're getting phone calls, emails. What the heck's happening? Why is our water turned off? What we thought was going to be, I think maybe 12 hours without water was close to like 20 hours without water.
So then the city comes out the next day, they fix it. So we're like, whew, great.
Everybody gets their water back on. Then we get another plumber to come back in.
He actually tells us that the way our house was originally built, they did not put that main water line buried far enough down in the ground. So if he would have punctured our water line, we would have been able to turn it off, fix it.
He would have been able to put it on no problem. But because it wasn't buried enough in the cement, he hit the whole.
The water main. Exactly.
And so we still do not have baseboard to this day. We've been in this house for five years because I'm just traumatized.
I don't want to puncture anything. How fucked up was the ground underneath? Oh, we had to like jackhammer, pull it out, dry it out.
It was like two days of that plumber coming in and out of our house. What a disaster.
Just for some baseboards. I mean, the theme of all these is like we're all trying to save a few bucks and it ends up costing way more than having someone else come in and just do it.
I don't mean to pat myself on the back, but I don't suffer from this. Yeah, you really shine.
I am very fast to just ask someone to please come take care of, in fact, everything. Bless my husband.
I feel like he wants to be handy. He's techie.
That's his domain. I'm like, you stay there.
You gotta know your lane in this life. A man's got to know his limitations.
A woman, too. Clint Eastwood.
Everyone. Oh, he said that? Yeah.
Yeah, know your lane. More men need to really.
I think they're taking bigger swings. Yeah, I guess so.
Let me just listen to some of the previous callers. It's true.
I am just so, so excited to hear some of these other ones. Oh, wow.
Well, Dynamite makes an appearance. It does.
You should know that. Someone decided they were qualified to use dynamite because they were able to get a permit for it.
That is wild. But yeah, that is our first experience in our home.
So sorry. I feel like we were laughing about it in the moment because how do you not? I just couldn't believe that it literally went from a tiny hole to like, now we have to call the city.
Well, I think the silver lining is that this all took place in Canada. Because if you had 60 American neighbors without water, I think someone would have come to your house to fight.
Well, Chris, lovely meeting you. We love our Canadian neighbors so much and our Canadian armed cherries.
I have to give a shout out to my bestie, Cora, who also listens. And my sisters, they all love you.
Dax, I do have to give a special. My one sister, she's just like, please tell him I love him.
What's her name? Amanda. Amanda, I love you back.
She will love that. You guys are such a great example of what a friendship is.
You guys just hold space for each other, even when you don't agree. Thank you that oh thank you very kind monica your eye rolls can't help i've also been told that mine are pretty epic so i'm always just like yeah girl like you get it thank you so much it was great meeting you thank you it was great meeting you guys all right take care i'm gonna do these things i didn't learn a lesson.
I just want you to know. I will still be trying to do all my own home improvement.
DIY. That was a good one.
Yeah. All right.
Love you. Love you.
Do you want to sing a tune or something? We don't have a theme song. Oh.
Okay. Great.
We don't have a theme song for this new show. So here I go, go, go.
We're going to ask some random questions, and with the help of Armchairies, we'll get some suggestions. On the flyer, I'm Dish.
On the flyer, I'm Dish. Enjoy.
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.