The Moth Radio Hour: The Games We Play

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Speaker 2 From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin Janes.

Speaker 2 I come from a game-playing family. Growing up, we played Dominoes, Uno, Jin Rummy, and Pounce, which is competitive solitaire.

Speaker 2 We also love backgammon, and in fact, my great-Aunt Fanny, at 97 years old and right before she died, beat my mom in a backgammon match. Aunt Fanny always played to win.

Speaker 2 So this hour is all about play and competition. It's an hour with winners, and because the moth loves an underdog, plenty of losers too.

Speaker 2 First up is Joey Garfield, who finally gets to hang out with the big kids on the block. Joey told this at a Moth Story Slam in Chicago, where we partner with public radio station WBEZ.

Speaker 2 Here's Joey live at the moth.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 when I was about five or six years old, I was upstairs in my room just beautiful summer day minding my own business when I hear some shouting from the backyard like a lot of voices and they're going Joey, come outside, this is a hot dog coming

Speaker 3 up.

Speaker 4 I was like, what? Like, Joey, come outside. This is just a hot dog gum in the middle of the twister board.

Speaker 3 So I walk up to the window and I open it up and I'm like, what? And I see my older brothers and their friends sitting around a twister board.

Speaker 3 And they're like, Joey, come on downstairs. There's a hot dog gum in the middle of a twister board.

Speaker 3 So I assume most of you guys know what a twister board is. It's that, you know, sheet with the polka dots and you play twister on it.

Speaker 3 And a hot dog gum is that like, you know, individually wrapped little nickel candy that looks like a hot dog but tastes like gum.

Speaker 3 Not the opposite.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 3 you gotta realize to a five or six year old, a hot dog gum is very exciting.

Speaker 3 But what's more exciting is that my older brothers wanted

Speaker 3 me

Speaker 3 to play with them.

Speaker 3 These are like the neighborhood kids, the older brothers,

Speaker 3 these are like real kids who

Speaker 3 can skateboard

Speaker 3 and they can pop a wheelie on a 10-speed, you know. These are real kids.
Like, I've got matches, let's blow something up. Real kids.

Speaker 3 And they wanted me because there was a hot dog gum in the middle of a twister board.

Speaker 3 So I ran down the stairs and I knock open the screen door and there they are surrounding the twister board and there's this hot dog gum right in the middle of the twister board and none of them are going for it.

Speaker 3 So I step out on the twister board and I go for the gum and they all stand up and I fall in a pit.

Speaker 3 Like up like the grass line up to my eyes

Speaker 3 They had dug a pit under this twister board

Speaker 5 and

Speaker 3 Now the the biblical irony of being named Joseph and having your brothers

Speaker 3 Drop you into a pit now that was not lost on my five to six year old self

Speaker 3 So I made sure that I found that little hot dog gum and had that in my mouth before I let them pull me up out of the pit.

Speaker 3 So, you know, they lift me out and they're all cracking up and cracking wise and

Speaker 3 giving each other five and patting me on the back. And I went back upstairs and chewed my hot dog gum in my room.

Speaker 3 And I'll say this:

Speaker 5 a hot dog gum, the flavor lasts about three minutes, tops.

Speaker 3 But the flavor of betrayal

Speaker 3 from your older brothers,

Speaker 3 that's a taste that lasts.

Speaker 5 Thank you.

Speaker 2 That was Joey Garfield. Joey grew up in Evanston, Illinois, but moved to New York City to pursue a film career.
It turns out the Twister Pit incident never truly left his mind.

Speaker 2 And a few years ago, he made a short film all about it. It's called Ex-Bully, and it premiered at the AFI Film Festival in Los Angeles.
Joey's brother lives in LA, so he invited him to come see it.

Speaker 2 And Joey says, My brother clapped at the end, but he still hasn't apologized.

Speaker 2 For a link to Joey's film, head to themoth.org.

Speaker 2 Our next story is also about sibling games. Todd Kelly told this at a Story Slam in Portland, Oregon, where we partner with Oregon Public Broadcasting.
Here's Todd live at the mall.

Speaker 6 When I was seven years old,

Speaker 6 I came home from school one day, and my sister greeted me with her friends.

Speaker 6 And everybody has that one person in their life that they just want nothing but their approval because they hero worship them. And for me, it's always been my sister.

Speaker 6 And my sister greeted me with a almond joy bar and said,

Speaker 6 this is for you. And I need to tell you why it's for you.

Speaker 6 I was talking with all my friends today and they were explaining how like

Speaker 6 all their little brothers and their little sisters, they're terrible people. And I thought, I'm so lucky and I never treat you very well.

Speaker 6 And I realized how lucky I am that you're my brother and I love you and I bought this for you. And I was so thrilled.

Speaker 6 And I opened it and I took a bite and then I started.

Speaker 6 So here's what my sister did real quick. My sister had bought an almond joy and she'd steamed the package.
She'd opened it. She'd pulled it out.
She'd taken a bar of soap.

Speaker 6 She'd carved it in the shape of an almond joy. She'd melted chocolate over it.
She'd put it back, she glued it back and given it to me with this thing of sisterly love and i am like going

Speaker 6 and my sister goes because

Speaker 6 in this world there are winners and losers and you are a loser

Speaker 6 She didn't, like, this is 1970s. This is well before me and girls had L-fingered to forehead technology, but I have this memory of her doing this.

Speaker 6 My sister is five years older than me, and there's nothing I can do.

Speaker 6 Fast forward real quick, I'm a freshman in college. She's in graduate school.
By this point, we get along well. My sister and I, to this day, are unbelievably close.

Speaker 6 And we're home for break, and I make a list of 10 things that she's done to me in childhood that I'm going to repay her for.

Speaker 6 And later that night, we're having wine, and I tell her about the list, and she goes, well, that's fine. My guess is that, like, you'll probably get them all, maybe even this trip.

Speaker 6 But I'm telling you right now, you will never get me to eat chocolate-covered soap.

Speaker 6 And I'm like, I could. She goes, no, and this is why.

Speaker 6 Because I act with instinct. You overthink everything you ever do.
And that's why I will always be five steps ahead of you. And that's why I beat you every time we go head-to-head.

Speaker 6 Challenge on.

Speaker 6 So for the next 10 years,

Speaker 6 I try

Speaker 6 so many ways. I actually made a

Speaker 6 salad with grated parmesan cheese and I grated soap into it as well. And it didn't matter what I did.

Speaker 6 One point I even like stopped for three years, knowing that in the fourth year, I would do it again.

Speaker 6 And it didn't matter. And it wasn't like she wouldn't eat anything that I made.
She'd eat it with gusto unless it had soap in it. It was just instinctively she knew.

Speaker 6 Two nights before my wedding,

Speaker 6 my in-laws, future in-laws are coming into town. It's the night before the rehearsal dinner.

Speaker 6 And my new sister-in-law explains to me that she's going to make this little dessert thing. They're like little fig things and they're covered with chocolate.
And it hits me.

Speaker 6 This is my chance. My sister won't see it coming from my sister-in-law.
Who would do that? Nobody would do that. My sister won't see it coming.
And my wife to be was like, do not do this.

Speaker 6 partially because like we're a day and a half away from being married and partially because her family is already a little worried that my family is really weird and crazy which an idea that they've come up with through um what do you say um observation and

Speaker 6 She goes, you can't do this. And he said, just let me do this.
I promise it won't get weird. And I promise, I promise it'll be fun.
My sister will love it.

Speaker 5 And she goes, okay, here's the the thing.

Speaker 6 When your sister figures it out before she even eats it, you need to promise me you never do this again. That's it.
And I promise.

Speaker 6 And so I help my sister-in-law, and I make this little fig thing with chocolate over.

Speaker 6 And then we have the dinner, and then it's dessert time, and some people are doing the dishes, and my sister-in-law is putting them on this platter.

Speaker 6 My parents have like this long porcelain platter, and we put them one in a row.

Speaker 6 And the thought is, my sister-in-law will serve them first to my mom, then to my dad, then to my sister, then to my future mother-in-law.

Speaker 6 And by now, my sister-in-law, by the way, is getting cold feet. She's like, I don't know that this, I'm cool with this.
I'm like, no, it's gonna be fine.

Speaker 6 And she's like, well, your sister will find it amusing.

Speaker 5 I'm like, no,

Speaker 5 she will cry.

Speaker 6 It's gonna be great.

Speaker 6 So I'm putting them on the thing, and I go, one for my mom, one for my dad, one for my sister, one.

Speaker 5 I'm like, no.

Speaker 6 My sister's going to know that the third one is soap.

Speaker 6 So I'm going to put the soap in the fourth one.

Speaker 6 So I put it down.

Speaker 5 And then I'm like, wait, hold on.

Speaker 5 My sister is going to know that I know that.

Speaker 6 And so my sister is going to go for the fourth. So I switch them back.

Speaker 4 And then I go, no.

Speaker 6 Because my sister is only several steps. My sister is going to know that I know that she knows.
She'll never suspect it in the third. And so I keep switching.

Speaker 6 I am like Wallace Sean in the Princess Bride, just back and forth between the third and the fourth. And finally, it just hits me that, like, I am going to lose again.

Speaker 6 This is my one opportunity to ever win against my sister, and I am going to lose the way I always do.

Speaker 6 And then I remember what she had told me at this point 12 years ago, and I thought,

Speaker 6 I'm overthinking. You know, I'm just going to do instinct.

Speaker 6 I'm going to close my eyes and I'm going to open them. And what would my sister do? And I'm going to put it there.
I close my eyes, I open it, I put it there.

Speaker 6 Dessert comes. My sister-in-law, my mom takes one, pops it in her mouth.

Speaker 6 Dad takes one, puts it in her mouth, hands it over to my sister. My sister's about to go for the third, and she stops.

Speaker 6 And then she goes to the fourth, and then she stops, and then she looks at me.

Speaker 6 And then she gets this shit-itting grin grin on her face, and she slowly reaches all the way to the back,

Speaker 6 and then two down,

Speaker 6 and picks it up and pops it in her mouth,

Speaker 6 and then lets out a scream, because that is where I had put the soap with the chocolate.

Speaker 6 And my sister screams and she gets up so fast that the chair falls back. And I am laughing maniacally.
And she's now chasing me around the table.

Speaker 6 And finally, she grabs me by the shoulders and she takes me down like a steer. And she's just pounding on my chair, going,

Speaker 6 and I am laughing and I see my in-laws and they are horrified. And my wife.

Speaker 6 is so angry and I've got so much to make up for and I don't care because for this one moment, I'm the winner. Thank you.

Speaker 2 That was Todd Kelly.

Speaker 2 Todd is a writer who has embedded himself in bizarre and extreme sub-cultures in America. Klan rallies, exorcism camps, and professional cuddling conventions.

Speaker 2 He's also the creator of the storytelling and live music show Seven Deadly Sins in Portland, Oregon, where he lives with his wife and two sons.

Speaker 2 And his wife has asked Todd not to teach the kids about hijinks like this. It turns out the soap was actually the last prank that he and his sister played on one another.

Speaker 2 After that, he says anything more would be a letdown.

Speaker 2 To see two photos of Todd and his sister, each taken the year they got the other to eat soap, go to themoth.org.

Speaker 2 After our break, a story of learning to run and a competitive Latin club when the Moth Radio Hour continues.

Speaker 7 The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by PRX.

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Speaker 2 This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Sarah Austin-Janes.

Speaker 2 We're exploring competition and sport in this hour. And weirdly, we also have a sub-theme of candy and chocolate, as you'll note.
Our next story is also about wanting to win.

Speaker 2 Wanting to win at all costs when you're in the high school Latin Club and competing against college kids.

Speaker 2 Romy Negrin told this story at the Bell House in Brooklyn at our first showcase of the Moths High School Education Program. Here's Romy.

Speaker 8 Hello. So at my school, there are some kids who take Latin.
We call them losers.

Speaker 8 And some of those kids have gone the extra mile and joined the competitive Latin team. We call them pathetic losers.

Speaker 8 And I am one such pathetic loser.

Speaker 8 I started taking Latin in seventh grade. I was like, oh, it'll be fun and ancient, whatever.

Speaker 8 And everyone I knew was like, don't take Latin. It's a dead language.
Who are you going to speak to in Latin? The Pope?

Speaker 8 Someday.

Speaker 8 But I started taking Latin and I fell in love with it.

Speaker 8 And at the beginning of eighth grade, my Latin teacher was like, hey, you should join Kurtamen, the competitive Latin team.

Speaker 8 Kurtamen, for those of you who don't know, means competition in Latin because you go to competitions to do Latin.

Speaker 8 And I was like, sure.

Speaker 8 So I joined the Kurtamen team, and

Speaker 8 it's me and three other kids in the novice team. and we start practicing for the first big competition of the year, Yale.

Speaker 8 They have these competitions at all the big universities, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, you know, where you expect this sort of thing to be.

Speaker 8 And we start practicing,

Speaker 8 and

Speaker 8 the big day finally arrives, and we gather at Grand Central at like 5:30 in the morning, too early.

Speaker 8 But we don't care because we're off to New Haven. New Haven, Connecticut.
What a town.

Speaker 8 So we get on the train and one of my friends has brought along this ball of chocolate, this big, huge for chocolate, wrapped in the shiniest tinfoil you ever did see. And

Speaker 8 we agreed as a team that we would eat that chocolate if and only if we made it to semifinals.

Speaker 8 So that's an extra incentive other than the fact that I'm inherently competitive by nature and there's glory in victory.

Speaker 8 So we're on the train and we're practicing, we're conjugating our verbs like porteau, portas, portat, portamas, portatis, portat.

Speaker 8 And we're singing our song, Ro, Ro, Row, you're emperors.

Speaker 8 And my Latin teacher's just there and she's like, yay, we're all gonna have fun. And I was like, yeah, winning would be fun.

Speaker 8 And we finally arrive at Yale.

Speaker 8 And every competition starts off with a lecture where they bring in one of the classics faculty to like give us a talk about Roman pottery, to get us into the competition mood.

Speaker 8 That's like the start of the day. And then they ask you questions about Roman history, mythology, Latin vocabulary, grammar, literature, basically like everything.

Speaker 8 And so we go to the lecture, and after the lecture, they tell us that they've pioneered this fun new system, a bracket system, where for each division, novice, intermediate, and advanced, there will be two brackets, an A bracket for people who have been to a curtamen before, and a B bracket for people who had no idea what they were doing.

Speaker 8 And we clearly belonged in the B bracket because we'd never done it before. And we were like, off we go to the B bracket.

Speaker 8 But the B bracket would only send one team to semifinals, while the A bracket would send eight teams to semifinals. Yeah,

Speaker 8 you can all do math.

Speaker 8 So

Speaker 8 at After the lecture, they say, hold on a minute. One of the teams from the A bracket isn't here.
Would one of the teams from the B bracket like to join the A bracket?

Speaker 8 And we looked at each other and we were like, eight is greater than one.

Speaker 8 So we were like, we will join the A bracket, please. So we switch and we're like, high five in ourselves about this decision that we've made.

Speaker 8 And we skip along off to our first round where we meet our first challengers.

Speaker 8 Acton Boxborough. Acton Boxborough is the name of their school.
Just think about that. Five syllables.
So many syllables. You know it has to be pretentious.

Speaker 8 And they were.

Speaker 8 Their team was comprised of a junior and a senior in the novice division. And we're in eighth grade.
And the senior

Speaker 8 is flirting with the moderator, because the moderator is just like a sophomore at Yale. So, yeah.

Speaker 8 So he's like, uh, who's your favorite Roman poet? And she's like, I like Ovid?

Speaker 8 And he's like, Ovid?

Speaker 5 I love Ovid.

Speaker 8 And I'm just looking at my friends like, Ovid? I've never read Ovid. I'm still stuck on book two of the Cambridge Latin Course.

Speaker 8 A great read if you ever have the chance.

Speaker 8 So that's round one, but we actually do pretty well in round one. So

Speaker 8 round two.

Speaker 8 Our fiercest competitors yet, Oak Hall. Only two syllables, but one of the syllables is hall.

Speaker 8 So just contemplate that.

Speaker 8 And they're buzzing in before the questions are finished. It's like, in what year did the emperor

Speaker 8 123 AD,

Speaker 8 what's the ablative singular form of

Speaker 8 pane? And it's like, how did they know? And the reason they know is because they have a coach,

Speaker 5 Adam.

Speaker 8 And Adam,

Speaker 8 he ties his long hair back in a ponytail. And he wears this flannel.
And he stares those children dead in the eyes.

Speaker 8 And God forbid they should get a question wrong because then Adam has something to say about it. He goes, um,

Speaker 8 excuse me, but actually,

Speaker 8 in Virgil's Aeneid, book one, line 324, he uses

Speaker 8 the alternative poetic form of the word, which is the form that Keegan answered with. Keegan is your name if you go to Oak Hall, I guess.

Speaker 8 So Keegan deserves to be awarded those points. And what is this moderator going to do? She's like 19 and it's the middle of a Saturday afternoon.
So she's just like, yeah, I guess.

Speaker 8 So Oak Hall thrashes us.

Speaker 8 But the preliminaries end, and we actually feel pretty good about our score. And we're like looking at each other and we're like, we think we're going to make it to semis.

Speaker 8 And we're looking at our chocolate and we're like, we're going to eat you.

Speaker 8 And we're just waiting for them to post the scores. And we're waiting and we're waiting.
And we're like, eighth place or better, eighth place or better. Eighth place

Speaker 5 or better.

Speaker 8 And they post the scores. And we were in ninth place.

Speaker 8 I know!

Speaker 8 I know!

Speaker 5 And the worst part, the most,

Speaker 8 the worst part is

Speaker 8 we looked at our score and we looked at the top score from the B bracket.

Speaker 8 And yeah, you can guess, our score was higher than the top score in the B bracket. So had we remained in the B bracket, We would have advanced to semifinals.

Speaker 8 And my Latin teacher is like, 9th out of 18, that's pretty good. Let's get back on the train.

Speaker 8 And we're like, not good enough. And we're looking at each other and we're looking at that chocolate.
And we're like, oh, we didn't deserve this chocolate.

Speaker 8 But I'll be damned if we didn't eat it anyway. And we swore that next time we would earn it.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 That was Romy Negrin.

Speaker 2 Romy told the story when she was a senior in high school. She refers to herself as a denizen of New York and the best friend of her cat, Edith.

Speaker 2 She named this story Dulce et Decorum, which translates to, it is sweet and right.

Speaker 2 Romy says she's a prolific reader, a mediocre baker, and a terrible athlete.

Speaker 2 Kurtamens are run by college classics clubs, and Romy would love nothing more than to organize one of these competitions of her own someday.

Speaker 2 To see photos of Romi from the Latin club Kurtamen in this story, go to them.org.

Speaker 2 Next in this hour, a story from the running club. Tamin Olla told this in one of the Moth's college workshops at the City University of New New York.
Here's Tamin live at the Moth.

Speaker 9 Hi everyone. Hi, I am.

Speaker 9 So since I was a little girl, I always wanted to be strong. The idea of having muscles was just amazing to me.
And a lot of the women in my family were like, whoa, you're crazy.

Speaker 9 But

Speaker 9 I was always suppressed from my dreams because where I'm from,

Speaker 9 girls were raised to be married and not really have an education.

Speaker 9 But my mother, she always wanted me to have an education and also get married too, but

Speaker 9 education first, but I don't really care about marriage at all, to be honest.

Speaker 9 Not just that, but my mom also had

Speaker 9 like a dress code.

Speaker 9 She taught me to always cover up and I didn't really always like that. It never fit for me.

Speaker 9 So

Speaker 9 I've always been kept indoors. I never had the freedom as a kid to go outside and play in the park like most kids do.
My mom just gets scared that maybe I'll get lost or something.

Speaker 9 But anyways,

Speaker 9 I had an idea in my head like when I was like 13, like I want to do a sport. I want to be athletic.

Speaker 9 But will my mom allow that?

Speaker 9 No, she would not.

Speaker 5 No,

Speaker 5 she would not.

Speaker 9 She would say things like, you know, men are going to look at you when you're running around and like you're wearing shorts.

Speaker 9 And hearing those things always really hurt my heart because I strongly believe that she is wrong,

Speaker 9 but she strongly believes that she is right.

Speaker 9 So one day I'm at Hunter and I'm at the athletic room and I see pictures of strong athletic women like sweating and they look determined and they look exhausted, but they look like I have to do this.

Speaker 9 And I see these women and I know that is me.

Speaker 9 This is like, it's my third year in college. And I thought to myself, I kept myself inside for way too long.
I have to do something that makes me who I am because I'm tired of not being me.

Speaker 9 So

Speaker 9 I joined track.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 9 I kept it a secret for a while.

Speaker 9 In the beginning, it was brutal. Every single day, I felt like

Speaker 9 I was dying.

Speaker 9 I was always the last girl to finish the race. And my coach would yell, like, oh, for this girl, like, two minutes, three minutes, and then when I'm coming in, he would yell, five minutes, and then

Speaker 9 I'm like exhausted. But all the other girls on the team pat me on the back because they know that I just started and this is new, and it's hard.

Speaker 9 So, one day I'm coming home from track, and I'm passing by my mom's room, and she calls me over. My mom, she's sitting on her bed, and she's she looks looks pretty tired and calm.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 9 she makes me sit down on the bed and she asks me, like, are you doing track? My stomach turned and

Speaker 9 I just decided to tell her the truth because I didn't want to hide anymore. I'm tired of hiding.
And I said, yes.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 9 there was like a really long pause. She wouldn't even look at me in the face and she said

Speaker 9 you're going down the wrong path

Speaker 9 I could have argued with her like I've argued with her my whole life,

Speaker 9 but I knew that she will stick with her beliefs just as much as I will stick with mine and I just left the room.

Speaker 9 So whenever I go to practice, I would always remember that my mom doesn't want me here.

Speaker 9 And then I would question, why am... Why am I here? Why am I putting myself through all this pain? Why go and do this and feel like I'm going to throw up after a run

Speaker 9 and

Speaker 9 be last and suck too?

Speaker 9 But every time I finish a race,

Speaker 9 I feel good about myself. I feel stronger every day.
I can feel my legs getting stronger. I would run just four blocks and I would get exhausted, but then I'd push myself to go, okay, go one mile.

Speaker 9 Now go two miles. Now double, like double that, try it.
And like the longest I ever did was six

Speaker 9 and I'm just so amazed at myself

Speaker 9 whenever I'm running and I feel like maybe I should stop halfway because I can't do it I tell myself no don't don't insult yourself like that you can do it and then I would hear all the voices of the people that I love and they would say like go Tamine go you you're almost finishing this and like Finish strong.

Speaker 9 Always finish strong. I have people in my life that's waiting for me at the finish line, waiting to hug me, and that's why I do it.

Speaker 9 I'm never going to stop. I'm always going to fight because

Speaker 9 I want to love myself.

Speaker 9 And it doesn't matter how slow or how fast you are, as long as you finish the race. Thank you.

Speaker 2 Tameen Ulla is a graduate of Hunter College, where she studied human biology. And to find find out more about our high school and college workshops, you can go to themoth.org.

Speaker 2 After our break, our final story. An inventive and almost disastrous marriage proposal.
When the Moth Radio Hour continues.

Speaker 7 The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the Public Radio Exchange, PRX.org.

Speaker 2 You're listening to the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Sarah Austin-Janes.

Speaker 2 The last story in this hour about winning and losing is from Abhishek Shaw. Abhishek told us in Alaska, where we partnered with the Anchorage Concert Association.
Here's Abhishek live at the mall.

Speaker 5 Wow.

Speaker 5 Hello, everyone.

Speaker 5 A couple of years back, I went to India to visit my family.

Speaker 5 And during that time, I remember I went to this nightclub and I saw this beautiful girl. And I was looking at her,

Speaker 5 and I kept looking at her.

Speaker 5 And then she looked somewhere else.

Speaker 5 And then she looked at me, and then I looked somewhere else.

Speaker 5 And then we both looked at each other

Speaker 5 and we fell in love at the third sight.

Speaker 5 A year later, we were dating. You know, we had now decided that we wanted to get married.
But see, our relationship was modern in a sense that it was a love marriage.

Speaker 5 But it was still traditional in a sense that we wanted to get the blessings of our parents and approvals of our parents. otherwise we had decided that we will not get married.

Speaker 5 So first I introduced my girlfriend to my parents and my parents loved her and she loved my parents. It was amazing.

Speaker 5 Now

Speaker 5 it was my turn to meet her parents.

Speaker 5 And I didn't know how this was going to go because my girlfriend had warned me

Speaker 5 that her dad's personality is exactly opposite as mine.

Speaker 5 I was a little bit concerned. I was like, I don't know.
I have to create this good first impression, you know, in order to make sure that he likes me.

Speaker 5 So the next day, they invited me over for the dinner at my girlfriend's house. I was like, you know what, I'm going to create a very good first impression.

Speaker 5 But I reach at their house like two hours late

Speaker 5 because there was a lot of traffic.

Speaker 5 And when I reached there, he was like hardly talking to me.

Speaker 5 So I was trying to diffuse the tension. So I kind of tried to do like a fist bump,

Speaker 5 but he didn't react.

Speaker 5 So I just did a fist bump by myself.

Speaker 5 and everything that night I tried to do, it just didn't work. So, I was like, you know what, I have to keep trying in order to impress their parents.

Speaker 5 Like the next day, I told my girlfriend to switch off the internet,

Speaker 5 and then I went to her house and I fixed the internet.

Speaker 5 It didn't work out.

Speaker 5 Her dad realized that all I did was put the adapter back in socket.

Speaker 5 So I was like, you know, I'll keep trying. Like the next day, I know that her girlfriend likes to go for running every morning, like for health reasons.

Speaker 5 So I just kind of joined, you know, just to do like an informal conversation.

Speaker 5 I even tried to crack a joke. I was like, oh, even you go for running every day? Even I go for running every day to the restroom

Speaker 5 when I eat a lot of spicy food.

Speaker 5 He didn't like the joke. He didn't.

Speaker 5 So everything I kept trying, it kept getting worse and worse.

Speaker 5 I was like, you know, I need to do something very quick because I have to come back to the United States and I was getting a little desperate.

Speaker 5 So at that time, I realized there was this one friend of mine who had helped someone in a similar situation. So I called him.
I was like, you know, I need your help. Can you help me?

Speaker 5 Now, this friend of mine, he was a big Bollywood fan.

Speaker 5 Like, everything he would do is over the top.

Speaker 5 nonsense,

Speaker 5 won't even make sense. Like he would do everything over the top.
So, I called him. I was like, you know, let's meet.
He met me. I was like, you know, what can I do? Can you help me?

Speaker 5 And he was like, bro,

Speaker 5 I got this, bro. I got this.

Speaker 5 This is what we are going to do, okay?

Speaker 5 You meet your girlfriend with her parents,

Speaker 5 and then I will come and snatch the purse of your girlfriend.

Speaker 5 and then I will run and you follow me

Speaker 5 and then you bring the purse back and her parents would think you are the hero.

Speaker 5 I'm like what?

Speaker 5 That's a terrible plan.

Speaker 5 He was like bro It's 100% guaranteed success.

Speaker 5 If you follow this plan, you will be good for the rest of your life.

Speaker 5 I was like, I don't know, I wasn't very sure with the whole plan. But then I told my girlfriend, and she was like, really?

Speaker 5 You are going to impress my parents with fake mugging?

Speaker 5 I was like, yes,

Speaker 5 that's exactly how this is going to work out.

Speaker 5 So we both weren't sure whether this would work or not, but we also knew that we were running out of ideas to impress her dad. So I was like, you know, we'll go ahead with the plan.

Speaker 5 So we decided, like, the next day, it was her mom's birthday. And they go to a fixed restaurant, like this very beautiful restaurant every year.

Speaker 5 And I was like, that's the restaurant where we'll execute our plan.

Speaker 5 So I told my Bollywood friend that this is the restaurant, this is the table, there's a table in the corner and you come there and you do your thing and be there at 8 p.m.

Speaker 5 So the day comes next day, I reach to a restaurant like two hours before

Speaker 5 And I'm nervous. I'm like a nervous whack.
I'm swearing. I have like thousands of thoughts like what if this doesn't work, what would happen if it works, like what's going on.

Speaker 5 And I was just very nervous, I was pacing back and forth. It was like then 7 p.m.,

Speaker 5 7.15, 7.30. And as the time was coming close to 8 p.m., I was trying to call my Bollywood friend just to make sure that the plan is still on.

Speaker 5 But he wasn't responding. Like his phone was going directly to voice message.
He wasn't responding to my text messages. So I was like, you know, I was just getting more and more nervous.

Speaker 5 And then my girlfriend and her parents came and we sat down for the dinner. It was almost like half an hour, like 8:30,

Speaker 5 and I still didn't hear anything from my friend. So I was like, you know what, maybe he just backed out of the plan.

Speaker 5 Maybe he doesn't want to do this anymore.

Speaker 5 And just around 8:30,

Speaker 5 I see a stranger person

Speaker 5 walking towards our table

Speaker 5 and he snatches the purse

Speaker 5 and he starts running

Speaker 5 I'm like who is

Speaker 5 that guy

Speaker 5 He wasn't even part of our plan

Speaker 5 what is like I'm confused, my girlfriend is confused,

Speaker 5 and it's all happening so fast. I'm like, I don't know what to do.
So I just stood up and started running after that stranger.

Speaker 5 And he just disappeared. He dropped the purse somewhere in the corner.
So I took the purse, I came back to a table, and I told her parents I took care of him.

Speaker 5 and at that time like her girlfriend's dad was so happy and relieved to see that you know I was okay and for the first time I saw him smiling and I remember I wasn't even eating a dessert but it tasted like a sweet million bucks

Speaker 5 I was like you know what this wasn't part of our plan but it just worked out in our favor. So I was like, very happy.

Speaker 5 And just when we were about to finish our dinner,

Speaker 5 my Bollywood friend shows up.

Speaker 5 And now,

Speaker 5 I don't know what to do.

Speaker 5 Like,

Speaker 5 I cannot say anything, so I'm trying to express with my eyes.

Speaker 5 Like don't do anything.

Speaker 5 I've already proved that I'm a man.

Speaker 5 But my Bollywood friend, he has an IQ of minus infinity

Speaker 5 So he just ignores the whole telepathy thing

Speaker 5 and just goes and grabs the purse.

Speaker 5 But before I could do anything,

Speaker 5 my girlfriend's father jumped on him.

Speaker 5 And he started punching him

Speaker 5 and just at that time, this is what my friend says:

Speaker 5 Abhishek, help me.

Speaker 5 I'm like,

Speaker 5 I don't know you. you.

Speaker 5 And then he goes on, he's like, oh, I was late, my phone was switched off.

Speaker 5 So I sent one of my other friends to take care of this thing.

Speaker 5 I'm like, what?

Speaker 5 What a great time to bring that up.

Speaker 5 And we were just disappointed. Like I was extremely disappointed.

Speaker 5 My girlfriend was extremely disappointed.

Speaker 5 And just when I reached home, I was thinking, where did I go wrong?

Speaker 5 Everything was a mess. Everyone was disappointed.
and I was just thinking that, you know,

Speaker 5 what I did wasn't very good. So I just opened my laptop and I sent her dad an email that, you know, whatever I did today, I'm extremely sorry.

Speaker 5 I know it's not the right thing, but my intention was not bad.

Speaker 5 And if there's any person whom I'll ever get married to, it would be your daughter. And this is 100%

Speaker 5 honest year

Speaker 5 and then I closed my laptop

Speaker 5 I

Speaker 5 was just awake the whole night I couldn't sleep and there was nothing from their side

Speaker 5 and then the next day I got a call

Speaker 5 from her dad

Speaker 5 and he told me to bring me and my family all they invited us over the lunch

Speaker 5 We went to their place and I was like, I don't know how this is going to work out.

Speaker 5 And then her dad told me that, you know, it's not that you are a bad person, we know you are a good person,

Speaker 5 but to send my daughter all the way to a new country,

Speaker 5 you know, to move all the way to a new country is an extremely huge decision for us.

Speaker 5 But if she does move, then it would be only with you.

Speaker 5 And then I tried to do like a fish bomb.

Speaker 5 And this time he did give me a fish bomb.

Speaker 5 Now we are back. Thank you.

Speaker 2 That was Abhishek Shah. Abhishek works as a biomedical engineer, and even with a few missteps, he won in the end.

Speaker 2 He and his wife, Final, have been married for years now and live in California with their two kids.

Speaker 2 Abhishek never spoke to his Bollywood friend after this, but he has a great relationship with his in-laws, and yes, his father-in-law still makes fun of his botched proposal whenever they're together.

Speaker 2 And for anyone out there considering a proposal, Abhishek says, if you're trying to make a good impression with your could-be in-laws, be honest, keep it simple, and don't act in desperation.

Speaker 2 It makes things messy. I asked Abhishek if there were any photos from the night of his mother-in-law's birthday, and he said no.

Speaker 2 But to see photos from his wedding with all the family and 1500 guests all looking very happy, go to themoth.org.

Speaker 2 And the moth is all about true stories, so our fact-checking team, in this case me, called up Abhishek's wife, Final. Hi, Final.
I've been wanting to chat with you for so long.

Speaker 9 Same here. Hi, Sarah.

Speaker 2 So, I had to call and ask you, did this really happen?

Speaker 10 Yeah, actually, yeah,

Speaker 10 it happened and it's unbelievable.

Speaker 10 I told him that it's really not a good plan. Let's not...
Let's not do this. But he is like, you know what?

Speaker 10 We are running short of time and we can do this uh trust me it will be fine i loved seeing the photographs of your wedding that he sent it's the best wedding ever like we had like 14 to 1500 people in our wedding yeah it was like a one week one week of celebration

Speaker 2 that was final shah remember you can share these stories or others from the moth archive through our website themoth.org find us on social media too or on facebook instagram and twitter at the Moth.

Speaker 2 In the end, it's not really about winners or losers. It's the story of how you play the game, right?

Speaker 2 That's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time.

Speaker 7 Your host this hour was Sarah Austin-Janes. Sarah also directed the stories in the show along with Catherine McCarthy with additional coaching in the high school program by Michaela Bly.

Speaker 7 The rest of the Moss directorial staff includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson, and Meg Bowles. Production support from Emily Couch.

Speaker 7 Moss Stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift.

Speaker 7 Other music in this hour from Medeski, Martin, and Wood, Cormack, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Blue Dots Sessions, and Jerry Douglas and VM Bott. You can find links to all the music we use at our website.

Speaker 7 The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay Allison, with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Speaker 7 This hour was produced with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is presented by PRX.

Speaker 7 For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us, your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.