Armchair Anonymous: Bad Proposals

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Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous.
I'm Randall Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Lilly.
Oh, that was cool. It was hard.
Okay, the prompt was bad proposals. Proposals gone wrong.
Yes. But oh my Lord.
I mean, this is like tied with that crazy bear attack or shark attack. This goes some places.
It really builds this one. It just gets more and more intense.
Yeah. And then the last one is a nail biter.
Wow. Wow.
This is a banger. Yeah.
Please listen to this one. And happy Valentine's Day.
Oh, is that what it is? Yeah. It was meant to pair up a little bit.
Okay, great. Yeah.
Happy Valentine's Day. May your heart be full of love and merriment.
And in his name we pray. He has risen.
What are you going to do for Valentine's Day? Eat chocolates? I'll try not to. Yeah.
I mostly think of my mom always would ask me to be her Valentine. Oh, that's sweet.
Yeah, and so I'll ask the girls to be my Valentine. That's cute.
And they'll still like it. They'll oblige.
Yeah. Did your dad ever ask you to be his? Of course not.
Yeah. Did you guys do Valentine's Day? We didn't even have it.
Yeah. Well, we did.
My mom, no, my mom would sometimes bring these. Would she get you a box of chocolate? Yeah.
My mom would get us a box of chocolates. I think she would do something nice every now and then.
But I'm not going to get my kids anything because they're already spoiled. They already have too much chocolate.
Why don't you tell them that on Valentine's Day? Be my Valentine. I'm not getting you anything.
You're going to repent this Valentine's Day. Please enjoy Bad Proposals.
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That's 20% off your first order with code DAX at liquidiv.com. my life i had a boat but one thing you gotta know i'm gonna keep on shining cole how you guys doing good can you hear us yeah i can hear you guys can you hear me yes where are you cole all right i was really worried about the sound quality so hopefully it's all right i am in my closet here sound.
Sound is dynamite. Connection is a little iffy.

Are you far from your Wi-Fi?

Because we might have to piss Monica off and get you out of the closet.

I'm through four doors.

I can go in a different room here.

Now we're getting a nice tour of your home.

I can go to the home office here.

Somehow got worse.

I hate to say this.

So I was right.

We've lost the visual of you.

Can I ask one last thing? Would you be willing to go to that first room you walked into? Because it was dynamite in there. My wife is getting ready for work here.
Oh, sorry. Our apologies.
Sorry. Now we've got great image.
We've got great sound. Hi.
Tell her we say hi. She's stressed.
She says hello. All right.
Now we're talking. Cole, where are you? I'm in Billings, Montana.
Oh, that explains the spotty Wi-Fi. Yep.
This story may or may not involve some other spotty cell service areas. Okay, great.
Are you from Billings? No. So I'm originally from Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.
What brought you to Montana? Work. You're a strong man.
You've got broad shoulders. Are you doing something physical? I am not.
I'm actually a chemical engineer, but I do work at a refinery. Are you lifting incredibly heavy test tubes all day? That's right.
I load them up with the lead and all the other heavy things. Okay, great.
Cole, hit us with this bad proposal. The bulk of it is in Billings, Montana.
I've lived here for about four years now. I was proposing to my girlfriend at the time, just to give a little bit of backstory.
Met on New Year's Eve, very high school musical. We like to kind of think that we're a little Troy and Gabriella.
Every New Year's Eve, after we kind of celebrate our anniversary, we both like to ski. So we'll go up to the mountains and make a whole weekend out of it.

Flash forward to March of 2021.

And I'm thinking about proposing.

I buy the ring, but I'm planning the proposal and I want to get engaged New Year's Eve.

The whole plan is we're going to go to Park City.

We're going to ski.

We're going to have beautiful time in the mountains.

It's going to be a gorgeous proposal.

Get engaged.

I love it.

Fast forward to April.

We now are moving houses.

I don't want her to find the ring as we're packing up all the boxes. I actually send it to Pennsylvania to my parents' house.
I'm young, so I just kind of pop it in a little manila envelope and let USPS kind of do its thing. Oh, wow.
Cole, you're a bright man. You're a chemical engineer.
I think keistering it during the move would have been preferred to that. I'll tell you what.
It made it there no problem. Oh, that was a red herring.
But now fast forward to October, November, we've kind of decided to make it a big trip. I suggested it because I wanted to have our friends and family there.
And that way it could kind of be a big celebration after the proposal. The issue is that all my friends and family could go and we're on board and none of her friends and family could go at all.
I have all these group chats going with my friends and she gets really sad. So I start thinking, well, she's going to be real sad if I propose and none of her friends and family are around.
This is when I kind of start wanting to audible here. The issue now is that I don't have the ring.
Right. Right.
So now I have to call my parents because originally we were going to go home to Pennsylvania for Christmas. I was going to pick the ring up.
I thought I had the perfect plan. So now I have to ask them to ship the ring back through the mail.
So now they put it in another manila envelope, ship the ring back through the mail. I can't send it to my house because she might open it.
So I got to send it to a friend's house now. So I'm not even receiving this thing.
Again, the ring gets here unscathed. USPS, whatever it is.
Good job. So now I adjust the plan a little bit because we live in Montana, beautiful state, about an hour away.
There's like a nice mountain near us. So I plan a little weekend that we're going to go to that mountain.
So it's Friday morning of the engagement weekend. And I'm texting in this New Year's Eve group chat and I sent a text that's like, I'm gonna get engaged this weekend you guys happy for me or what and the next thing I see pop up is Tess was removed from the group chat oh no she was on oh Jesus one of my friends had added her in to the group chat because she was so upset that she wasn't being included in these plans.
And the next text I get is, what the hell did you just do? And I look at my phone and I'm at work and I just scream, fuck. Everybody's dead silence.
So I worked kind of in a high risk business. So everybody thinks something really bad happened.
You could hear a pin drop because we've had really bad days. My boss comes over to me and he's like, what the hell just happened? And I kind of tell him and he says, go home and I don't want to see you until Monday.
Get your shit sorted out. Oh, good boss.
That is a good boss, but he was upset. Yep.
So I got about four hours until she gets home from work. I'm doing the whole nine.
I'm getting flowers. I'm getting chocolates.
I'm trying to set everything up at home. And then I remember she wants it recorded.
So I go and I try and set up the camera. My video on my phone is not working.
Oh boy. Quick troubleshooting.
Find the first number for a remote Apple support. Call it.
And they're just like, you know what? We can fix this problem. It's going to cost about $250.
If you download the screen sharing app, we can really see what's going on here. So I download the screen sharing app.
Then they say, we just need a wire transfer. So all you got to do is open up and log into your bank.
Oh no. Stop it.
So I go in, I got the screen sharing app. I open up my bank app and then it all hits me.
I'm just like, I'm getting scammed right now. Yeah.
I hang up on the guy immediately. He calls me back.
He's like, what happened? I was like, oh yeah, you wanted 170, right? He goes, yeah, yeah. 170.
I was like, you said 250 before, liar, hang up again. Now I'm smarter than you.

Some lies do it. So thankfully I avoid getting scammed.

At any point, do you think the Lord is telling you to not get married to this woman?

If that's what he was trying to say, I powered through.

Oh God, good, good.

Finally, she gets home. I proposed to her.
It was good. And she kind of looks at me and she goes, I really appreciate it, but I really want to see how you were actually going to propose.
So I get another chance of redemption. Saturday morning early, we load the car up.
It's December in Montana, but we're going hiking. And so we get about 10 miles out of cell service.
We're about a half mile from the trailhead. I can see the trailhead in the car and I hit a little snow drift.
So the first one car kind of moves a little bit and I see a second one coming up and I say, you know what? All I need is a little more gas. I'm driving my Honda Accord Crosstor.
So I give it a little more gas. We barely squeak through the second snow drift.
And then I see a third one coming up and I think to myself, you know what? It worked less. A little more gas is all I need.
I speed that thing up and i think to myself you know what it worked less a little more gas is all i need i speed that thing up and i beach the car on a two-foot snow drift totally immovable paul do you recognize you're an interesting mix of brilliant as hell and dumb as fuck i would say that's spot on i think my friends would describe me as the smartest person they know with the absolute least amount of common sense. That works more of a PG version, but yeah.
So now we're beached in the Honda. It is 15 degrees out.
I got about a quarter tank of gas. Usually prepping for the winter in Montana, I got my blankets, my snow shovel, my emergency kit, just in case.
I have not done that this year because it was a mild winter. All I have is a snow.
Oh, that's not going to help. I tell my fiance and wait in the car.
So I spend the next about three hours in small gloves because I wasn't planning on doing significant work with a snow scraper digging out the car. This is miserable.
Do you think she was like, I don't want to go through with this? She must be thinking there's a lot of red flags. I'm worried at this point now, get the car unburied, four floor mats under the wheels, get it out of this snow drift, start driving back.
And we are driving back in absolute silence. My fingers are numb.
I'm bloody. And finally, she kind of looks over at me.
She's like, you know what? One day this will be funny, but right now, aren't you glad that you screwed it up yesterday? And all I could just say was like, yo. Oh, boy.
Oh, wow. Oh, yeah.
That's a rough start. But can only go up from there.
That's a good silver lining. We got married on December 29th.
Just celebrated our first year of marriage. Congratulations.
You went through hell and high water or high snow to get there. Cole, you're a delight.
This gal, as shitty as the proposal was, is a lucky woman. And we got to meet her.
We didn't even realize. I did not tell her that I was going to try and commandeer the closet.
And she comes in at like 140 and she's like, what the hell are you doing? I'm getting ready for work. I got to go.
It was very high stress at the beginning of this. High stress feels like it might be status quo.
These are not really abnormal situations for me, unfortunately. Oh, this is great.
It's a delight meeting you. Thank you

for telling us that story. We're so sorry you went through all that.
Great to meet you guys. And my college roommate, Matt and his wife, Courtney, they got me into listening to the podcast and they are super up on the prompts and they sent it to me and they're just like, you got it.
Oh, well, thank them for us. All right.
Great meeting you. Nice to meet you guys.
Thanks.

Hi.

Is this Olivia?

Yeah.

Look at your sweater. Just for you guys and my earrings.
Cherry to the max. For a second, I thought they were tattoos.
When I just first glanced, I thought those were your arms. No cherry tattoos yet.
I have an orange and a peach. Oh, so that would go perfectly into your fruit aesthetic.
It would. You're in a legit sound booth.
I'm at my brother's house. He does voice acting commercials and stuff.
As soon as I got the email, I was like, I need the setup. Help! Get out of there.
I don't care what audition you have. Are you in California? No, I'm in Syracuse, New York.
Oh, okay. He's doing voice work up there.
That's interesting. Remotely.
Nice. Okay nice okay so you have a bad proposal story since you guys started doing anonymous i was waiting for this prompt i said when this prompt comes out i am locked in they're gonna pick it and everybody in my life is like please don't get your hopes up there's millions of people that listen and i said no this.
May 2017, my boyfriend and I had been dating for like five years.

We're talking about getting engaged.

May 1st, we go look at rings.

I pick out a ring that I love.

I know he buys it that day, even though he makes me wait outside.

So after May 1st, I'm on high alert.

Nails done, dressed up.

Anywhere we're hanging out, I'm looking good.

I'm ready to go. That's right.
This is our proposal. May 15th, he says, we're hanging out i'm looking good i'm ready to go that's our proposal may 15th he says we're gonna go out to dinner wear a nice dress i'm gonna pick you up and i'm like okay it's gonna happen so we start driving he's driving past all of our regular spots we're starting to get into some weird back roads and unfamiliar territory after about 40 minutes in the car car, he starts to slow down.
I see a sign on the side of the road that I recognize. Trail of terror.
What the fuck? This is where he and I had our first date. Can you tell us what the trail of terror is? There's a huge open field, which in peak season is packed with people.
People are drinking. People are having snacks, they're hanging out with their friends.
There's a big projector playing scary movies. And then in the far right corner of the field, there's a trail that goes through the woods that you pay to get a ticket and you walk down and they jump out and scare you.
It's like a haunted trail. Year round? No, this is just an October thing.
So we had our first date like the week before Halloween 2012. So to the right of the field, it's not a haunted house, but it's like a trailer connected to a barn.
They makeshifted a haunted house. So that's a separate attraction, but basically an empty lot, dirt parking lot.
Nobody's there. We pull in.
I'm like, it's our first date. This is where it's going to happen.
But I am oldest daughter, Virgo, notorious rule follower, don't like to take risks. I'm not a trespasser.
He is the opposite. He's youngest son.
He's like, whatever, let's go. There's no other cars.
There's no sign of life in this place. It's the middle of May.
It's a beautiful sunny day. So he leads me out into the middle of the big field and he's holding my hands.
He's looking at me. We're chatting and I know it's about to happen.
I'm letting it sink in while still being like, I'm afraid of getting in trouble. As we're chatting from the tree line, away from the trail, away from the barn, we hear a voice going, Hey, what the fuck are you doing here? Oh no.
We're like in our sappy moment and we look over and this man bucket hat, sunglasses, shotgun starts us no i've told you kids get the fuck out of here no trespassing and i'm like i knew this was going to happen but i'm panicking i'm like sir i'm so sorry we're leaving right now and he's like absolutely fucking not this is not happening again and i am like this is how i'm about to die and my parents are going to find out that I trespassed at Alton Trail and that's how I was murdered by this man with a shotgun. Yeah, he wants to make an example out of you too.
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That's Squarespace.com and promo code DAX to get started today. The guy goes, this is the last time this is happening.
Come on, boys. From behind us in the haunted trailer slash barn, we hear the garage door open and hear chainsaws.
Are you kidding me? Out comes these people with masks like clowns. Scary.
The guy with the gun is charging one way at us. The clowns are coming the other way at us.
We're surrounded in the middle of nowhere. Nobody knows where we are.
This is a horror movie. I'm kind of laughing because I'm so nervous.
Like I'm having fight or flight, but freeze, I guess. Yeah.
I look at Paul. He doesn't look nervous about them.
He's like afraid of me in the moment. It all clicks.
He did not. Did you do this? Oh, I wasn't there.
He planned it. He was totally in there.
Oh my God. That's spectacular.
He kneels down and pulls the ring out we're still surrounded oh pictures it's so scary oh yeah i'm glad you sent pictures because this is really a hard to believe oh my god and you're now i would imagine husband has yeah they're very scary masks for anyone that thinks these were like amazon.com fucking masks no these are atelier bespoke masks your husband has the most nervous laugh smile on his face looking at you so he reached out to the trail of terror and said hey this is where we had our first date i know it's your off season do you mind come on the property so I can propose? And they're like, absolutely. And then the guy sends a message like an hour later and is like, do you want us to scare her? And sends this whole plot for how they would scare me.
And he was really unsure. And finally was like, we could do like a light scare, like thinking that they're going to pop out somewhere.
Like the gun was not mentioned. Threatening of our lives was not mentioned.
The chainsaws. He's got the ring out.
I feel like I blacked out. Like I really don't remember this, but I know that I plucked it out of the box and I started walking to the car.
It was so pissed. I was like, I'm taking my ring.
I'm getting the fuck out of here. Yeah, no party liked it, right? No, he's like laughing.
He's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. And I turn around.
All the clown people start taking their mask off. Two of the scary people are our super good friends that are photographers.
And they captured the whole thing. So that's how we have the pictures.
Do you start thawing as you see it's your own friends? Yeah, and they brought a bottle of champagne. She had it ready.
And then I started to relax. That is so funny.
It was really scary. Yeah.
What does that group of folks do between October and the following October? It's so funny because the guy who sent the whole plot that works at the trail, he's like, I'm going to see if I can round up some guys. Larry's got volleyball tonight or whatever.
They're just normal dudes. He's like, My scarers are around.
They're just jonesing to scare some people.

Yeah. And is your life fun like this? He is so fun.
Oh, I love this. We have two little kids now.
And I still pick on him for this. And he's like, it's so special.
But I was traumatized for a bit, but I wouldn't trade it. Obviously, I got to talk to you guys.
That's one step away from choreographing a car accident.

Like you get T-boned and then the ambulance comes into your mom and dad and they've got you.

Look, it's memorable.

For sure.

My friends that took the photos and videos, they did our wedding too.

So they made this whole beautiful wedding video.

And at the end, he has the footage of the proposal.

And it's so loud and clear at the end.

I say, white guys with guns are my biggest fear. If he was just a clown, I'd be like, okay, weirdo.
Yes, I'm scared. But the man threatening my life really took it to another level.
Really ups the stakes in a hurry. You were right to know this would get picked.
Yeah. I don't think we're going to have a story like this.
I really have a feeling. I'm so glad.
He is here. And also my siblings are here.
If they could just peek their heads into the sun booth. Hi there.
This is the husband. You have the most adorable, nervous smile in all those photos.
Like, is she going to get over this? Oh my gosh. I was worried.
What a swing you took. I know.
I didn't intend to do anything scary, but he was just so passionate about it and so excited. And he was like, I'll get my crew.
That's a nice thing you did for them. Yeah.
It made it fun. We love you guys so much.
Oh, hi. I was squeezing into the booth.
You guys are so cute. It's delightful to meet you guys.
So nice to meet you all. We're so happy Liv got to tell her story.

It was hysterical.

Yes, unbelievable.

I was completely on the hook.

Did not see it coming.

Monica got it.

She was a little ahead of me.

A little ahead.

It took a while, though.

It was great.

It was so lovely to meet you guys.

Yes, you guys too.

Bye.

Take care.

I went into a hole.

I totally believe these crazies live in that barn waiting.

I could have gone that way.

How would I? You would. Well.
You don't know. I don't know.
You're right. But when you get scared.
I mean, I would be crying. Right.
Yeah. So then I'd maybe.
I would be crying, but I would also be happy. That'd be nice.
Which would you rather happen? The proposal on the Jumbotron from last week or this? I would rather this. Yeah, you wouldn't be hated.
Then you're surrounded by love, family and friends and champagne. All the stuff they wanted to get through this other part first.
I mean, I guess then you're really hopped up. Your adrenaline is up.
Aroused. You're aroused.
Hop in the back of the car. Maybe that's a fun evening.
You're feeling like life is so short. You get the chainsaws going in the background.
Oh, hi. Hi.
Jessica, where are you? I'm in Texas. Ooh, la la, where? What part? Fort Worth.
Do you grow up there? Yes, but I, at 18, flew out of here like a bat out of hell into Colorado. Oh.
Okay. So I was in a relationship.
It was serious. We lived together.
He made content in the Rocky Mountains for a ski resort. He ended up taking a job in Salt Lake City for an even bigger ski resort.
He comes to me and says, I have to hike this mountain facing the big mountain ski town that he works for to get content of stargazing. So he has to get a shot at midnight of the ski resort.
So we have to hike up this really intense mountain starting at dusk. It's going to be four hours to go up.
I'm complaining about this. I'm like, I don't want to do it.
I understand why I have to do this. Yeah.
We just go up there on your own and get the fucking shot and then come home. Well, apparently he has to go with somebody because it's dangerous.
I'm just hemming high. I'm like, I don't want to do this.
And he's like, no, please, this guy can't come with me. I need you to go.
I'm being pretty whiny here. No, you just have a boundary.
I mega learned boundaries from this whole situation over many years time. Then we even do a test run the Sunday before he's like, we need to practice this because this is a huge hike.
And so we're hiking up this mountain. I'm just upset the whole time.
The next week comes along when it's time to do this important night shoot where they're going to have the whole resort lit up. Turns out there's a storm coming as well.
Oh, geez. So we get to the trailhead at dusk and I'm complaining about it still.
And he stops and he goes, please, if you ever just do anything for me for the rest of your life, please just do this. At any point, are you getting the least bit suspicious? It's only when he said that.
But my mind went to, there's no way that he's going to do this when I have made it clear, I don't want to go on this hike. This is not my dream proposal situation.
No. And if you knew me, you know, I'm not wanting to live in the mountains.
He's like, I have to do this. It's dangerous.
Someone has to come. And so I'm finally just given, we get to the top and all I do is collapse on the ground.
I'm in fetal position, feeling sorry for myself. And he's setting up this camera on a tripod.
And all of a sudden he's like, please, please just come over here. I just need one thing from you.
And so I forced myself to get up. I walked past the camera and I could see actually, it was really beautiful.
The stars, there's lightning in the distance, by the way. Oh, wonderful.
You're at the top of a mountain of a really difficult height. I go walk over in front of the camera and he drops down on one knee and he opens a little box and it's lit up.
And I see this glimmering, sparkling flower ring. And the first thing out of my mouth was, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not now, please.
Oh, no. Yeah, this is tough.
I must have blacked out the rest. I just have a flash of I I know now I have to go down this mountain with this storm impending the moment that is supposed to be so special.
You're walking into your shared future together. The other thing is if I'm this person, I want a sincere yes.
That's what I'm in the market for. I don't want anything coerced.
Like people who ask people to marry to marry them in front of huge crowds i'm like don't they realize the person kind of has to say yes and in this case even if you wanted to say no you're like i'm gonna say no and then we're gonna be on a fucking four-hour hike in the middle of the night on this mountain you did say no oh that's the funny thing i look back now and i never said yes but it wasn't assumed yes right not now it

means like later yeah yeah i'm just crying and we get down the mountain and he had this hotel room had champagne and chocolate covered strawberries i just remember crying in the hotel and i think he said something like i just thought that once it would happen you'd be happy probably picked the wrong girl for that whole exercise because no she said so many times no no i know he wanted the gal we talked to who is a riverboat guide he's picked the wrong partner for what he wants to do oh shit are you guys happily married you're not married okay i gotta panic you hold oh, fuck, you're happily married. But you know, like you're giving signs the whole time.

You want someone that wants to hike up to the top of this mountain.

Definitely that's true.

But I think more than anything, you wanted the photo.

I think he had a vision in his mind of, I want this photo.

And even if the intention was good.

It was a little murky.

I had to learn a lot.

We both did, obviously.

So what happens when you're in the hotel room and you're crying? We go to bed because we're so codependent. We're obviously getting married.
Oh, God. We're not going to break up.
That's insane. That's too scary.
The next day, he posts a picture. This is it.
Oh, it's beautiful. He was onto something with the photo.
So at first I was like, That's's so cute he figured out how to light the ring from the box so you could see it up there but now i realized no no that was always going to be a part of the photograph yeah and we were together for like two years and i couldn't plan the damn wedding and then it imploded you know the big lesson of if you don't listen in life it gets bigger and bigger and bigger until life you to change. I think in those situations, their subconscious figures out how to get them out of it.
If they themselves can't, you end up having an affair. Something materializes, your subconscious saves you somehow.
The bottom will fall out at some point. Well, thank God it wasn't post-marriage and kids.
I'm so grateful for all of it, genuinely.

And did he find an outdoorsy gal?

I have no idea.

Okay.

Fair enough.

I hope so.

Yeah.

Here's a question.

In your analysis, looking back, what was it that you think he represented that you had

decided, oh, I'm supposed to be with someone like this?

Like, what story did you have?

Why was he the person you were supposed to be with at that time? Well, I fell in love immediately. You know when you meet someone and it's like, whoa, all of your childhood stuff is brought up immediately because it's so intense.
Yeah. Immediately, I knew my life would change forever.
And now I know that's usually a red flag. Yeah, right, right.
It was just a mask, I think, for me to remain really comfortable, to not put myself out there and I could kind of hide. It was very codependent.
That ending shot me into deep emotional intelligence over time because to have the kind of life and love that I want has forced me to grow immensely. Do you think it's possible that when someone has great dreams and aspirations, but they have some fear preventing them, pursuing them, and then they meet someone who's already so clearly on a trajectory that just folding into that feels like a great way to not have to confront those fears? Absolutely.
I mean, I just didn't have internal backbone of like, I'm whole within myself. And I've had to learn that incrementally over time.
I was learning that through that relationship, even getting to that relationship, I had to grow tremendously to even be in it. So everything was perfect.
There was no time wasted. Well, good.
And you got a really beautiful photo out of it. I mean, there's no arguing.
That's a gorgeous photo. I mean, I haven't seen it in many years.
Sure. Could be on National Geographic.
Yeah.

I'm glad no one died on this hike, a nighttime hike.

Struck by lightning.

Yeah.

Well, it's so funny to me that there are all these impending dangers, like falling off

a cliff or being struck by lightning.

And the real danger was the proposal.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, Jessica.

Thanks for sharing that.

Yeah, lovely meeting you.

Thank you.

Take care. Bye, Jessica.
Yeah. Lovely meeting you.
Thank you. Take care.
Bye. I'm going to text you guys photos for the next one.
Don't look yet. Don't look.
I'm getting my phone. Don't look.
Ready for Cole? What if it's Cole again? Hello, can you guys hear me? Oh, beautifully. Cole, you're our second Cole today, and we don't generally have Coles.
Really? Yes. Okay.
I love that. Where are you at in the country? I am in Las Vegas, born and raised.
Oh, wonderful. Okay.
So you have a bad proposal story and we're dying to hear it. It is a pretty wild story.
So buckle up for this one. I'll set the scene a little bit.
My girlfriend and I, we had been together since high school. So we were high school sweethearts.
We were going to the university of Utah for college and we were in our junior slash senior year. We're kind of that new norm of five year senior.
We were living together and full intention of getting married and everything like that. Just still wanted to finish out school.
And we unexpectedly got pregnant. Okay, congratulations.
A little bit early, still wanted kids. And I was so close to getting my degree.
And I loved the University of Utah. It was really important for me to get my degree there.
And then we were going to move back home to where all of our family is. She really wanted her mom to be there when we had our first son.
I was kind of naive when I graduated. And I don't know if it was a little bit of arrogance or just being naive of like, yeah, I'm going to move back home.
I'm going to get a job. It's going to be easy.
They're going to see University of Utah. It's a pretty decent business school.
And I moved back home and I just could not find a job. What year was this? This was 2018.
I had made a promise to my girlfriend. I was like, all right, by the end of the year, we are going to get engaged.
But once again, this was with that naive intention of, I'll have an entry-level job. I'll be able to start saving.
I'm going to be living with her mom. We'll have the opportunity to save up some of those funds.
And then I got a recruiting job at a Bed Bath & Beyond e-commerce center. Oh, okay.
And all I had to do was recruit people to work there for the holiday season. And as long as you didn't murder people, you got a job.
That was only supposed to be there from October to December. And I had done a well enough job that they were like, okay, we'll keep you till March.
And it was approaching the end of the year. I still had this pressure to get this dang ring.
And I'm working all this overtime and busting my tail with all the pressure there so that I can meet this goal. Now it's like a goal for myself instead of this wonderful woman and mother of your first child that you've been with since you were 15.
This is also for her. It was like this personal stretch for me to get to the finish line.
Yeah, you're either going to be a failure or not based on this arbitrary goal. About a week before all of this happens, the job after telling me I was going to be there till March, they were like, we're not going to be able to do this.
We're so sorry you've crushed it, but they just aren't going to let us keep you here unless you want to go work on the warehouse floor. And I was like, I don't think I'm prepared for that.
I am super low. This year has gone really rough.
And I call my mom, we go to this Marie Callendars that's across from a jeweler. She's like, I'll help you with the financing of this ring.
You made a promise. We love her and we know you love her.
So we'll help you out. And I'm like, cool.
Part of me still doesn't feel right. I'm still just doing this to

meet a goal because I want to be able to have the elaborate dinner in that moment. And I get to

share all of my heart. And now it's kind of turned into, let's get this ring.
You're going to do an

impromptu proposal and just be like, trust me, we're going to have a good life. I love you to

death. I'm going to finish this promise.
We pick out the ring and next week they're like, come back. We'll have all the pieces together.
We'll put the finishing touches. We go in the morning, we finish it out and they're like, all right, come at 445.
Store is going to be closing and we'll get you set up. The piece I've left out so far is this jeweler was in a terrible part of town.

My mom wasn't going to come this time.

So it was just going to be me.

And I show up and there was another couple there.

I'm just waiting in their lobby

until they're ready to call me up.

Once I go up showing me the ring,

it looks amazing.

All that fear and kind of extra stuff

I was worried about went away

because now at the end of the day,

I do get to marry my best friend, mother of my child. It's amazing.
And then

out of nowhere, I would say the length of this is maybe 40 feet or so. Two robbers walk in.

No.

Both in ski masks and it's guns raised. Everybody get the fuck on the ground.
Don't move. One guy jumps over the display and starts heading towards the back.
There's two owners that are up at the front ones kind of dealing with the billing and closing out for the day and the others with me. And the other thief is heading towards us.
My hands are up now looking back like, there's no fucking way this is happening. Yeah.
And does it cross your mind? I don't care what they steal, but don't steal this ring. Oh, I think he was more than that.
It was like, is this fucking it? He then directs me to go behind the counter now.

And all I could think of in the moment to respond was like, please don't kill me.

I have a family.

And then he's like, all right, get down on the ground.

And everybody thinks this is a weird part when I tell the story.

But he was like, this will all be over soon.

And it kind of made me feel relieved.

It did, because to me, that could mean I'm going to kill you. It'll be over.
It says a lot of things to me. It means, okay, there's a human here.
They want me to know my suffering is going to be over soon. I wouldn't think he's going to kill me.
I would think he's letting me know we're going to be in and out. There's two ways to take it.
I think I'd be closer to you, Dax. Him responding in general gave me a little bit of just weird comfort because what he does next is then zip tie my hands.
Oh, wow. These are like pros.
Yes, we find that out later. As I'm down there, genuine near-death thoughts, am I going to ever get to see my son again? I'm seriously not going to get to marry my girlfriend.
I'm not going to get any any of this and then a tad bit of how is this my fucking luck we're gonna make you lose your job and then let's do this to you just strong arm robbery let's throw that on from the back long time jeweler for them he was like a venezuelan war vet he is peeking around the corner with a. Now you got to consider a shootout.
And consider I did. Oh my God.
Because they see him after he's poked his hat out a couple of times. And that is when the shooting starts.
No. There is a shootout.
Stop it. And it is a tight enclosure.
There's a reason they have you wear headphones when you are at a gun range or

anything because it is loud. This whole ordeal feels like 30 minutes.
I've seen the video because I had to go to court for it, all this stuff. I mean, it plays out over like four and a half minutes.
And so the shootout might have been 10 seconds or so, and then it just stops. And then I feel somebody tugging at my back and i turn around and it's one of the robbers isn't saying anything and i'm thinking he's trying to maybe mug me and leave oh i'm thinking he's gonna use you as a shield he's got to get you up i think he was trying to prop himself up because all his motor functions are going at this point because he got shot oh several times and he's on top of my legs So I'm also trapped.
And so I'm looking back and I'm going, what do you want? And then his gun discharges in me. No.
What? And so he shoots me on accident. Where on you? Right in my side.
And I actually shared some pictures. I sent them over.
Oh my God. Oh, Mamma Mia.
It's not a graze because it definitely entered but you can see it entered and exited did it exit at least some shrapnel did oh boy thank god it was aimed just that inch to the right because it didn't get any intestine or anything right nope and everyone that i work with now in a medical background and my friends that are in medical background, they're like, do you know just how lucky you are that he was not off by a couple centimeters? And I was like, probably don't want to play that what if game. That's what kind of messes me up a little bit.
But yeah, so he shoots me. It's the full spectrum of panic, fear, potential shock.
I have like one shoe on at this point. My wallet and my phone are like sprayed across the room and I could like see all the blood off my phone.
And I tried to stand up and I was like, just no possible way. And so I inch over to this cabinet to kind of like prop myself up and I'm just holding the wound.
It felt like time had stopped. I mean, I'm looking straight ahead and there's a dead guy that I had to crawl out from under.
Oh my God. The dust kind of settles.
I'm focused now looking down at the wound the whole time holding it. I tried to like slowly pick my sweatshirt off of my skin.
And I mean, it's like sobbing. It's stuck.
It hurts.

I've been seeing these videos lately.

You know, like people doing the grip machine

and squeezing as hard as they could.

It feels like somebody is doing a grip machine

on that spot.

And the burning is insane.

That's why on the pictures,

you can see it's like black.

That's a burn.

Then the police come in.

They had to like cut all my clothes off

in the store on the gurney and I'm butt naked in a jewelry now. Oh my God.
I'm covered, but still. There's one last thing, sir, before we get you to some medical treatment.
You just got to embarrass the fuck out of you for a minute. Exactly.
And so now I'm on the way to the hospital. My uncle was a firefighter.
My dad's a firefighter. And so I'm cracking jokes about the city fire department versus county fire department.
They're probably thinking like, this guy is insane. He's potentially

going to die. And they're jabbing me with the IVs and everything.
And the ambulance is moving.

And so I'm in the hospital now. They're like, all right, we're going to take you up for a CT scan.

They were looking and they said, okay, so where you got shot, it would be way riskier for us to

do surgery to remove shrapnel than it would be to just let it be pushed out of your body over time. Right.
It was not critical now. And so that kind of brought me some comfort.
And then my girlfriend shows up and it was like, surprise. Oh, I bet she thought it was so sweet, though.
She's already worried about you. And then you look at her and you say, I was there to get a ring.
That's very sweet. She was like, I was looking at your phone location because you just stormed out of the house.
You didn't say anything. You just said, love you.
Bye. What am I going to say? Hey, on the way to get something really nice for you.
She's like, I was looking at your location and then it just stopped at the hospital. My mother-in-law thought I got like in a bad road rage accident.
And so I was like, maybe I need to work on my anger because of this. Who all got hit? You, the one robber who was on top, you died.
And then the jeweler got shot a couple of times too. The guy that was shooting the gun? Yep, he shot and got shot.
And then the robber died from his shots. And then the other robber took off.
Wow. Oh boy.
Wow. And did they ever find the other robber? They did.
And it was wild because I ended up having to testify. But I had never seen that guy's face.
I could point out the other guy's eyes, at least from his mask. So I'm up there.
I have to recant my story, then just say, I don't know this guy, though. But they had planned this for weeks.
They were jailmates in Florida. They had been pinging their phones and saw that there was like a thousand texts and calls over the past couple of weeks.
I think that couple that was in the store earlier, they thought was probably the last customer instead of me. And so when that couple left, they're thinking, OK, we're good.
Let's get in here. Are you resentful at the jeweler for escalating it to a gun battle? I hate to be judgmental of anyone when I wasn't in that situation, but I feel like they could have maybe just gotten out with all the jewelry and no one would have been in the emergency room.
I think overall, I'm just glad I'm alive. People thought I would be angry and bitter towards the robbers.
And honestly, I'm not. Maybe they were in a circumstance that made them feel like they had to do that.
That's unfortunate. People say, did it give you this newfound look on life? I think probably yes, but it didn't give me like, why did he shoot? And why did he do this? I made it out alive.
It's a crazy story, but I didn't have as much anger towards him for that because I don't know what I would do in that situation. I was not one of those people that now that this happened to me, I'm going to go get a gun.
I was like, I'm still not going to even get close to that. I'm good.
Well, unfortunately, the fact that the jeweler had the gun is kind of what led to all the shooting. I can't imagine those guys were trying to get murder on top of robbery for no reason.
Maybe that's also why when he told me this will all be over soon, that's why they zip tied me and just were trying to do a smash and grab. And then it turned into a shootout.
Yeah, fuck, dude. That is wild.
Oh, man. I'm so glad you got out of there.
Did they get the ring? The robbers didn't. It was a botched robbery.
They didn't get anything. My ring stayed intact.
No issues with it. It doesn't give you PTSD when you see it on her fingers.
No, everybody makes a joke. It's like a blood diamond.
I would actually get mad if she wasn't wearing it because it was like, do you know what I had to go? Yeah, sure. Did they give it to you for free? They should have at least done that.
So at first they weren't, but I think it's because they didn't know the extent of what happened and then everything as it came out they were like we got it yeah that's nice that feels like a minimal gesture when their employee calendar's got you a couple free meals oh that cheese soup they make is delicious that marie calendars isn't even there anymore oh well yeah there's shootouts across the way i would shuttered it as well. We were married five years ago and then we added another child as well.
So there is a happy ending to this. Okay, good.
Love that. Just meeting you, you don't deserve to go through this.
Like this should happen to me because I'm always sticking my nose into things. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
I'm good now because it's six years removed. But that first year, you look in the mirror every day and it's just right there.
And the scar kind of used to be gross because it would keloid. It's way better now.
And then nightmares? Any nightmares? Not really nightmares, but I would be like overcome with emotion sometimes. I remember one time we were just eating dinner and I just start bawling.
I actually work on the same street about a mile away from where it happened. And so for the first four and a half years that I drove to work, I would take a different location so that I didn't have to drive past it at the time because I obviously had to go to therapy for it.
Yeah. You're the first person we've talked to who's been shot.
I wasn't expecting it in a proposal story. Oh, yeah.
It's a real left turn. I'll give a shout out to my wife.
She definitely wants to come in. Please.
Yeah. Bring her in.
Hi. You want to see the blood diamond? Oh, the blood diamond.
Yes. Wow.
So, yeah, she was the biggest armchair fan. Everything that she brought up, she was like, oh, I heard this on armchair.
And then she finally made me listen when we go on our road trips and she would play the fart armchair anonymous. That one's hilarious.
And then she was like, if a proposal prompt ever comes up, you have to tell it. And so it came up and I didn't know, but I was just like, I'm going to say this and let's see.
Wow. Well, it's a slam dunk.
That's hard to beat. Yeah, yeah.
Very hard to beat. Well, you guys are so cute.
Yeah, we're delighted that you listen. Thanks for indoctrinating your husband to us.
Yes, I'm spreading the word. Can I just quickly shout out my best friend in Germany? She just had a baby and she's a big arm cherry.
So I wanted to shout Jordan out. Jordan.
Shout out Jordan. Shout out.
Congratulations on the baby. All right.
Well, lovely meeting you guys. Lovely meeting you.
Thanks so much, guys. This is awesome.
Take care. All righty.
Bye-bye. That ran the gambit, didn't it? It certainly did.
Almost every kind of story was within proposal. You don't know what you're going to get.
Don't know. It makes me think you could throw out any prompt, like tell us a story about Tupperware.
And then it would be like a skydiving disaster story. You just don't know.
Do you want to tell your proposal story before we go? I bet people would want to hear that. Okay.
Similar to all these stories. It's funny how us guys, we go get a ring and then we're going to try to plan some time.
So you have this thing for a while. And I had the great luxury of having Nicole in my life.
So I took Nicole to the ring store and I said, I want to say first which one, but I want to then know what one you think she'll like. And she said, there's two I think she would love.
And I said, okay, great. Don't say.
And then I said, I like that one. And she got really excited.
And she said, that was my favorite of the two. Oh, great.
So that was lovely. I get the ring.
I've told the story. I was about to get my credit card.
What is this weird feeling? I have a very familiar feeling. It's a weird feeling, specific, specific.
Oh, it's the moment you tell the tattoo artist after you look at the transfer. Yes, I'll take it.
And you go, okay, this is for life. So cut to, it's in my pocket of one of my jackets in my closet.
And my plan was to go to this restaurant we had gone to early on. The first place I said, I love you.
Which was? Stanley's. It was her restaurant.
And so I was going to say, let's go to Stanley's, which would have already been suspicious. But maybe it'll have been a gesture.
So that was going to happen, I guess, I had thought sometime in January. And it was Christmas Eve.
And my mom had flown in. And we had had both just got back from Michigan and we had this really, really wonderful Christmas Eve.
And then we were laying in bed and I thought, oh, I'm going to try to recreate all this lovely feeling I'm having right now at this restaurant in three weeks instead of just taking this moment that I feel like it should be. I was naked.
I walked to the closet. I got the ring out of my jacket.
She's like, why is he going to the closet? Then I came back to the bed and I kneeled down on one knee naked. And then she started hysterically crying.
And I asked and she said yes, but she had cried so loud and long that the next morning getting coffee when i saw my mom in the kitchen she said oh sweetie what happened did you guys have a terrible fight i heard kristen crying last night i was like oh it was christmas morning she thinks we got into a real dust up last night that's funny yeah that's very sweet rob did you have a ring for a while yeah it was my grandma's ring that i got the diamond reset i made a website for a fake restaurant that was like a prefix pop-up okay this is very wob and it was this airbnb i rented on the lake in chicago and it had this whole outdoor balcony and i had a friend that was a chef came and cooked a like eight course meal. Oh my lord.
So we got to the Airbnb and he was there cooking. And so did you propose a movie? She knew.
No, it was by the end of dinner, but we got there and it was just for us. And it was so zombie.
She saw him there. Oh, that's lovely.
Started putting together the pieces. Yeah.
She's a bright gal. All right.
Love you guys. 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 our cherries, we'll get some suggestions on the flyer rindish on the flyer rindish 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 by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

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