153. More Embarrassing Stories!

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And I continue to believe

the best

people are free.

Bonayanza.

Yes.

Bonanza, she said.

Bonanza.

Apropos of nothing.

All right, we're starting with that.

I don't understand it, but welcome to We Can Do Hard Things, apropos of nothing.

Bonanza.

I don't know.

I don't know.

We are probably feeling weird because today

we are

doing an encore

presentation of mortifying stories.

Yes.

If you haven't listened to the first episode of Mortifying Stories, you're going to need to go back.

That episode has changed my life in unfortunate ways,

which is that people used to stop me and say

a myriad of beautiful things, but now they just tell me about the story where they shit themselves.

Like on the street.

I mean, they didn't shit on the street.

They'd stop me on the and tell me this.

Well, some of them did.

So it's been kind of fantastic and

unifying.

Yes.

Right.

It has that brought people together.

So we're going to do it again.

We're going to spend the next hour telling you even more and hearing more from our pod squad about their most humiliating, embarrassing, mortifying moments.

And we hope that it will bring us together in joy once again.

And also for a higher higher good.

If you're feeling guilty, like this is like watching trash TV, think of it of doing the incredibly vital work of normalizing the human experience.

That's right.

Okay.

Yes.

And we are also

taking

the step of having the LOL belly laughs, which are vital for our health.

Yes.

So this is basically like a yoga class and a therapy.

You're welcome.

That's right.

I love it.

We're self-helping.

Yeah.

Is it okay if I just tell you a couple more I've thought of since?

Oh, we're doing you.

So I just you have more embarrassing, you have more embarrassing stories.

I love this.

Well, it just, I do too.

Oh, good.

I'm telling you something about three of them.

Three.

You have three?

You guys, I unloaded all my good stuff.

I like, well, I have a never-ending supply.

I think my top runneth over with mortifying stories.

Oh, this is good.

Okay.

Well, the first story I want to tell is about my Aunt Judy.

Okay.

It's not.

Okay.

So in my family, we have.

Hi, Aunt Judy.

Hi, Aunt Judy.

We have a problem with kitchens, especially my mom's side of the family.

I don't know what happened to us, but like there's nothing goes well there.

Like we don't know how to cook.

It just wasn't in our genes or something.

And so it never has been passed down the way it's been passed down in other families.

And so what I think that people don't understand who know how to cook is that they have a schema in their brains that gets activated when they walk into the kitchen or they pick up a recipe.

Okay.

It's like background information.

Okay.

So, so what people say is, why don't you know how to cook?

It's just reading directions.

And what I say is, well, when I pick up the directions and they say mince and dice and julianne i'm just like i'm what the i don't know what all of that means so what i'm saying is we don't have it in our family we don't have the background knowledge so and judy has never cooked a thing in her life one day she decides she's gonna cook for this like bake thing that bonanza the goddamn family has to go to this is what judy would say the goddamn family has to go they're supposed to bring a goddamn cake right um because goddamn life all right so she tells my my cousin Karen, who's like eight at the time, to run to grandma's house to get the ingredients.

Cause of course she wouldn't go to the store.

So Karen has told her.

Yeah, run to her whatever you can at grandma's house.

But lucky, luckily, grandma has bologna and tomatoes.

So you're not going to have a lot of luck over there.

Oh, I love bologna.

So she goes to grandma's house.

Grandma doesn't have any of the stuff.

So she comes back.

She says, no, I actually have to go to the store.

My aunt gives her the money.

She goes down to the local store.

She buys whatever you need to make a cake.

Okay.

she comes back and judy's already pissed off she's in the kitchen she's got the things all laid out she mixes the things she does whatever she adds the eggs she's stirring stirring stirring stirring stirring in the pan okay

and then she looks at the box because of course she's just making it from a box right she looks at the box and she says god damn it where's the tape

and karen says

tape and Judy says yes how the hell I'm supposed to make a cake but there's there's no tape.

There's no tape.

Go, Karen, go find some tape.

Karen looks all over the house for tape.

She comes back.

She says, we don't have any tape.

What kind of tape?

Scotch tape, whatever tape.

Karen runs back to my grandma's house.

Okay.

Finds a big thing of masking tape.

That's all she has.

Runs back to Judy's house.

Judy's standing in front of the counter, cursing.

Karen says, I've got the tape.

I've got the tape.

So, so my aunt Judy takes the tape from my cousin Karen and begins to tape

the pan

down to the counter.

Okay.

Against the counter.

Against the counter.

So she's covering it, like covering it, making it, it turns into like this tent, okay?

It looks like a tent of covered tape.

And then Karen and Judy sit

in front of the counter and just stare at this.

conglomeration now because it's just a mound of tape.

You can't even see the cake anymore.

And so Judy goes, well, what the hell now?

What the hell are we supposed to do now?

So little Karen takes the box and she looks at her mom and she's backing out of the kitchen.

And she goes, Mom,

it says, Tap the cake on the counter.

And then she runs

out of the kitchen.

Tap

the cake

on the counter, not masking tape

the cake on the counter.

And that has now become family lore.

Yes.

Yeah.

That's when you don't have a schema, then taping the cake to the counter doesn't sound any more unusual than folding something into the cake.

You fold, why the hell not masking tape the cake to the counter?

Okay.

Do you want to do one sissy?

Because I have a couple.

I just remembered in high school, I had this huge crush on this guy named Mike Spalding.

He was the coolest guy.

And I

really, really liked him.

And one time he just randomly stopped by our house.

And I was like, oh my God, this is so awesome.

So he opens the door.

He comes in.

My mom's like, Mike's here.

He walks in the living room.

And unfortunately for me, I am sitting on the floor of the living room

stuffing pennies.

You know, those penny rolls, the paper penny rolls?

Why did we always have to do that?

I don't know.

We didn't always do it.

It was like once a year, the whole coin jar would fill up and you'd have stuffed pennies.

And he came and he kind of was so funny.

He kind of made a funny joke about, oh, stuffing pennies.

It's like, you know, whatever.

It's odd to walk into someone's house and see them sitting within like 400,000 pennies.

Then

I still have a crush on him.

He still doesn't like me very much, but he likes me enough to stop by another time, time like five months later

he comes in the house and i'm sitting on the living room floor stuffing pennies

for the second time in five months that i've done it but both times he stopped by my house

sitting on the floor stuffing pennies

And it was so embarrassing because I had to be like, I don't always stuff pennies.

It's not like I'm always just sitting around stuffing pennies.

Yeah, he's like, Sure,

sure, Doyle.

Anyway, that was funny.

Oh, I love that.

I also remembered

in college,

I was in a sorority, which is kind of funny when you think about that.

I was a gender studies major in a sorority, but I was.

And

I

had a boyfriend who flew in for the event, and I would get like so excited for these big dances that I would be overserved.

And

I was overserved for this.

And this was in the era of like,

not tights, but what were they called?

Nylons.

Yeah.

Like you would wear nylons.

And I would always wear nylons, but I would not wear underwear because you could see, because what's the point of underwear if you have nylons on, right?

And you can see it on your dress.

Anyway, we get that back, the pictures, you know, the big pictures of everyone in the group that is like,

okay, and so they put these up in the house, in the sorority house.

And there's the huge pictures of everyone in the sorority, everyone at the dance.

And we were the first year, the youngest kids.

And so we all were kneeling in the front row, except I was kneeling with my legs apart

in my dress.

Oh my God.

With my no underwear on.

And so the picture, which is everyone's like favorite picture, people live for this, right?

To see everyone in the picture, except the entire picture is in the house.

And then on me in my crotch is a

sticker heart

that the people have had to put over my vulva

on the picture

because everybody wants to hang the picture so they can see themselves, but it's me in the front with a big red heart sticker over my vulva so I'm not flashing everyone who walks by in the house.

Is there any way to get a copy?

Someone probably has it.

Okay.

If you're listening to this, please don't post that picture.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's so good.

Oh my gosh.

I have a kind of an embarrassing story that happened to me in high school.

One of my dear friends, and she was a teammate of mine.

She was like a junior when I was in eighth grade, senior when I was a freshman.

I was always like on the varsity soccer team.

One of the very first like weeks of practice,

she comes up to me and says all right so you're the youngest of the family i am too

i never got taught stuff so here's the deal before you come to school you got to brush your teeth

and every night after practice you got to take a shower

oh honey and i was like

i was like oh okay and you got to wear deodorant you know like it's just one of those things you just you

didn't have a schema for hygiene no you've you've been stinking

and

you know we're all in close proximity and then you get into a car the whole shebang and i was like okay so like i was in eighth grade when i first learned that i needed to brush my teeth every morning brush my hair she also said wear deodorant and shower after practice every night Bless her heart.

And your heart, did you feel embarrassed?

Yeah, it was so embarrassing.

And then I think I went like the other way, and I was like, you know, I was like,

oh, I like, that's like how I like it.

You're doing a thing here because of my heart.

But now I think I'm like super sensitive.

Is that why you always smell so good and you put on all the things?

Yeah, because I'm like, do I smell bad?

Do you smell anything?

Oh,

those things traumatize you, I think, a little bit.

Yeah.

And also, I've also had a lot of teammates that have also had this problem

for whatever reason.

And I just, people come to me as like the leader captain of the team and they're like, we got to talk to so-and-so.

And I'm like, y'all.

Tell Liz, she smells like shit.

Y'all, I.

Is that part of your job as a cast?

This is a toughie.

This is a toughie.

We might just need to like, so you go through a process of modeling, like modeling.

You get into the locker room and everybody's like, everybody has to shower.

You know,

everybody's going to shower right right now.

Let's all take showers, try to like get people into the mindset.

That's good.

Well, you smell really good now, babe.

Thank you.

I was thinking back, sister, do you remember like 10 years ago or something, I had seen some situation in a magazine or online where a woman

was being photoshopped.

So like she posed for something and then

with no knowledge of her own, they just like photoshopped her up and put her on the cover.

And she was so pissed.

So that I got so

pissed about like women and photoshopping and all of the things.

So I wrote this like

manifesto.

It was manifesto.

Ed or something.

Yes.

But it was like about how I

You will never Photoshop me in any situation.

Women are, do not need to be made, you know, more palatable to whomever with your fancy machines.

And I will appear in periodicals and media exactly the way I am.

And no, and it was this entire thing.

And I sent it to sister.

And then she didn't call me.

And I was like, what the hell?

So I call her and I was like, did you get my Photoshop manifesto?

And she was like, I did.

And I was like, well, what do you think?

And she was like,

it's well written.

And then didn't say anything else.

And I was like, well, okay.

So what's the plan?

Like, what?

She goes, well, Glenn, no one's ever asked you to like be in a magazine or like anything.

What do you want?

Do you want me to save this just in case someone ever asks to take a picture of you?

Like, what is this for?

Apropos of nothing.

Bonanza.

But I am.

It was like, to whom it may concern.

And I was like, no one is concerned.

No one has asked you to appear in their periodical.

But if and when they do, I'll make damn well sure

if they want to use a photograph in said non-periodical, they will not Photoshop it.

Oh my god, it's so embarrassing.

I'm sweating.

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Okay, so one more of like it's kind of like that.

Picture it.

Sister and I are on the road.

I have an event.

Okay, I think we were in like Charleston, South Carolina or something.

And we were staying at a hotel next door to the event that I was at, the speaking at.

Okay.

And so the hotel was a buzz, a buzz, a buzz, a buzz with a buzz,

a bonanza of women who,

many of whom were going to the event, okay?

So

I

come down to the lobby,

getting ready to go over to the event.

And I'm standing next to this group of women and they like kind of look, do you know where I'm going?

They kind of like look look over at me.

In my mind, I'm registering these people are going to the event, right?

You're registering maybe these people want to put me in a periodic

me with their eyeballs.

So

one of them

comes over to me.

And so I turn to look at her, and she says, Would you take a picture?

and then like gestures back to her group.

So I, in my ever so humble, generous spirit, say, of course, of course.

So

I hand my sister the phone and I walk over to the group of women.

I snuggle myself in the middle of their line.

Okay.

There's like six of them.

So I get into the center of them.

I put my arms around their waists.

Okay.

I smile at my sister who has the camera.

My sister is shaking with laughter, takes the picture.

And then I notice that the women are just being weird.

They're just being weird.

They're not like smiling or excited.

And one of the women turns to me in the line and she goes, she goes like this.

She goes,

that was weird.

Could you take a picture of us?

She had no freaking idea who I was.

She just wanted a picture of her friends.

And I got in the middle of their picture and squeezed them like they were my best friends.

I would love to have that photo of all of them going like.

And I just had to walk away.

I just walked away.

And then sister got her shit together and took a picture of the women by themselves because she knew what was going on.

the entire time and just let me go through the shrod

Somewhere that picture exists with

all seven of you, but you have a heart-shaped sticker

so they can block you out.

If anyone asks me for a picture now, I always say of me.

Yeah.

Because I'm

a good test.

Yes.

I'm so scared that they don't mean it.

Okay.

That was weird.

That was weird.

Okay.

So

let's hear from

Meredith.

Hi, Ms.

Meredith.

My embarrassing story.

I was coming back into the U.S.

with my Australian partner, and he was going into one line for foreigners, and I was going into my line.

I'm in Philadelphia, and we get in there, and the TSA agent says to,

I had my passport in hand.

There's a scanner, and he said, face down.

on the scanner and pointed to it and I just slowly tipped my head down putting my face to the scanner.

But you guys, he meant my passport.

He didn't mean my face, and he just looked at me like, oh God.

But he looked like he'd seen it before, like I wasn't the first mega idiot.

And then I joined back up with my partner, and I kind of just kept this little moment to myself.

But I told him, I shared that humiliating moment where I put my face down on the scanner, not the face down of my passport.

And I told him, and he loves that story more than anything and won't let me live it down.

Face down, and she put her face to the scanner.

That reminds me of the passport.

Okay, this is what I need the pod squad to understand.

We were trying to renew Gladen's passport, and so I texted her one day and I said, I need a picture of your passport.

I have to get that to get the information off of it.

And she says, Okay.

And she texts me back

a picture of her passport, except she has sent me just the front,

the clothes, the blue front of the passport where it just says passport.

She's like, here it is.

And I'm like,

thanks.

Cover of the blue, when I said picture of your passport, she just sent me a picture of the blue cover as if there was anything that anyone was going to do with the cover of a passport.

I was like, thanks.

That also looks like my passport.

I think that I thought I was just being tested because I thought you were asking me to prove that I had gotten my passport.

Well, that wouldn't have proved it because that could have been anyone's passport.

I mean, to go back to what Meredith and the TSA agent, I will say, there's two things that really freak me out.

Customs and DMVs.

Oh my God.

There's something about

not being able to like drive and not being able to get back or into a country that I actually lose part of my consciousness.

Yeah,

I freak out.

Like Tish saw it the other day because she was getting her license at the DMV and I was like running around and I have all the documents because clearly we just found out that Glennon is not the document person in our family.

And Tish was like, kind of rattled because she never sees me in this, like, TSAs.

You lose your mind.

We lose our minds.

We panic.

We panic.

It's a major power differential.

And it's also like the wild west.

They can say whatever you want.

There's no grievance process.

There's no escalating.

The DMV could be like, I'm sorry, confiscating this license and you'll never drive a motor vehicle again.

And then the rest of your life, you're trying to fight.

And it's because you were in the wrong line.

I just saw it the other day that I thought was the funniest thing on earth that someone said, the DMV is like, did you bring the Declaration of Independence?

I mean, listen, you have to bring your documents.

The whole thing.

And then they're like, you don't have it.

So you have to come back.

And you're like, I can't take off of work.

My kids are busy.

Okay, let's hear from, I don't know who this next person is.

Hi, Abby and Glennon and sister.

My mortifying story is when I was 19, I was dating

this hippie, long-haired man who was also 19.

He was not a man, but he was at his family's home and his parents were throwing a big party.

They were the type of rich parents that let underage kids drink.

And so we were

very drunk, and he had the lower basement part of the house.

We were drinking and hanging out and it was probably time to go to bed.

I went to go to sleep and somehow managed to like go upstairs.

And

his mother looked a lot like him and was in bed naked.

And I crawled in bed naked with his mother and lay there for the rest of the night, not knowing that it was not him.

And so the next morning, I woke up and I

ringed her on the bottom and said, Noah, what are you doing?

And she turned around and said, I'm not Noah, I'm his mom.

Oh

my God.

My favorite part of that story was the way she tried to justify it.

He looked a lot like his mom.

Exactly, come on.

Anyone could have made that mistake, even if they weren't 19 and plastered.

You know, you too would have jumped in bed with Noah's mom.

I mean, it often happens when people have look like their parents.

You find yourself sleeping with them.

When I was growing up, one of my cousins,

it was like

college, just after college, party time in my family's household.

She fell asleep and went to go to the bathroom.

And this is like an older, older house that I grew up in.

And so there's one bathroom that served like five bedrooms upstairs.

And so the bathroom was to the right.

She was so drunk that she took a left into my parents' bedroom and sat at the end of my parents' bed, pulled her pants down.

No.

Yeah.

And my mom was like, Joanne,

Joanne,

what are you doing?

And Joanne says, why are you in the bathroom?

And so then she was so drunk, she couldn't find her way out because she was so disoriented.

I don't know what happened after that but that's family lore and my family that's really good i mean who hasn't done that yeah who hasn't done that who hasn't peed in their parents bedroom like i don't think i've even done that no but i mean when you think it's the bathroom and it's not

you're like you're like in the closet you're like what

the bathroom is so different it's not mortifying that's just human nature exactly

so i just thought of this story when you were talking about the sorority thing.

So there was this one situation that my friend told me about.

It was a group of women that were living together and it was in college.

You remember in college or in communal living where one person flushes and all of the hot water would go away.

So everyone in the shower, the same thing would like free us.

So there was still the story of my house.

So because of this, there was a sign in the stall that said, don't forget to yell flush.

Because that way people who are in the shower

could like step step away from the water but this one girl i don't know if she's drinking or if she just she misunderstood the sign so she peed and then she stood up and then she kept saying to the toilet flush

flush go down flush

down flush she thought that the sign meant that the toilet was voice activated and you had to yell flush at it until it flushed.

She thinks it's 2025.

That's really good.

Oh my gosh.

She thinks it's 2025.

Okay, let's hear from Terry.

Hi, this is Terry.

Back in 2001, Raleigh, North Carolina, just had a baby in the hospital.

And back then, you know, the preacher came to the hospital to like welcome the baby.

And I was asleep and my mom had come in and the preacher came to the door of course my mom woke me up like the preacher's here

so I kind of woke up I was worried that like my boobs were like gonna hang out of my nursing gown so I was getting all situated

anyway he came in he apologized he woke me up I said no no it's fine it's fine

and he like said a prayer over our family

and he went down, I guess, to kiss my forehead.

And I thought he was going to kiss me, so I puckered up and I kissed him on the lips.

Nope.

Literally, right there in front of my mom.

I kissed the preacher on the lips, and my mom was like, What did you do?

And I said, I thought he was coming in for a kiss.

I didn't know.

So, anyway, so I kissed our preacher on the lips in front of my family at the hospital.

The baby one day old.

Oh, my god, that's beautiful.

Terry, oh God, how awkward.

So awkward.

Just like, he was coming in and I just went for it.

Sister, remember when our first big, huge meeting with all of the fancy people in New York

and they were on that big Zoom or something.

And

when we were leaving the meeting, I said, okay, bye.

I love you.

Yeah, that was really awkward.

Yeah.

Because we had just met them like five minutes before.

It's not like a team we had worked for.

And it was a dude.

And it was dudes.

And we never, we didn't even end up working with him.

No,

which we could probably guess.

We were po of nothing.

Bananas, though.

Okay, bye.

I love you.

I mean, but how often do I do that so often?

Because when I got off the phone with the kids every time, it's like, okay, love you bye.

I know.

Okay, love you bye.

And so I'm on the phone with some Joe Schmo and I'm like, okay, love you by From Verizon.

Yeah.

And you're like, love you, bye.

So weird.

All right, let's hear from Shannon.

My name's Shannon.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I had a little boyfriend that I was very promiscuous with.

And

we were being teenagers, hooking up on the couch, you know, watching a movie, air quote, and I thought my parents had gone to sleep.

Well,

all of the sudden, my boyfriend is on the floor underneath the blanket

doing things

and I hear rustling in the kitchen and I turn around and my dad is standing there

and I don't know what to do.

I'm trying not to enjoy what is happening.

So I start kicking my boyfriend and screaming, did you find the remote?

Hurry up and find the remote.

Yes.

Quick thinking.

Yeah.

I'm still mortified telling this story 10 years later.

Shannon is a genius.

That was a genius.

Sometimes you just got to say something that makes it plausible for everyone to pretend that's what was happening.

Exactly.

That dad was like, that's exactly what Shannon's doing.

What a helpful boyfriend she has.

Always looking to find the remote.

I have a hilarious story that I have to leave anonymous because it's so, it's so funny.

One of my friends was hooking up with somebody on a rug.

And,

you know, there's like a sexual maneuver where you pull somebody closer to you.

with their with their knees you pull them closer to you okay well she was on a rug and she was naked

and

the rug it was like a shag rug Okay.

Okay.

Apropos of everything.

They were shagging on a rug.

So it was a shag rug.

Do you see what we did there?

They did.

And so she ends up in the hospital

because

the threads of the shag get stuck and get embedded into her vagina.

No.

No.

And it blows up.

No.

Yes.

Wait, the shag expands?

No.

So her vagina swolled up.

From the shag rug fibers.

Yes.

Are we sure it wasn't something else?

They had to go in there and pull out the little shag fibers

when she got to the hospital.

Do you think that's how it's got its name?

The rug?

The shag rug.

I don't know.

Oh, my God.

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Okay, how about

the next person?

Hey, Glennon, Abby, and sister.

So there's a thing at the University of Florida and it's called Dator Growl and it's like a little bar hop and then you take the bus back home.

So, you know, I did the whole concentrating really hard and not miss my stop whole thing.

And the whole time, this guy that I was seeing is like texting me, like, hey, come over, hey, come over.

And I was like, yeah, yeah.

He's like, you can just do an Uber.

I was like, yeah, yeah, I can do that.

And I'm like, I've never ordered an Uber before ever.

This is like 2014.

Uber just got to Gainesville.

We're real excited.

So I go to order an Uber and I'm like, it's not working.

I don't know what's happening.

Like, I put in my name.

I put in like my address and the address I want to go.

Well, the next day, come to find out, I get a call and it's like, hey, and I'm like, hi.

And and they're like thanks so much for applying for a job with Uber we can't wait to hear more about what you are as a driver and why you want to work for us and I was like

I applied for a fucking job I did not order a car and that is my way to work

oh by the way I was graduating with my master's degree that day

I will say this.

Oh, she accidentally applied for a job.

Yes, I will say this.

So there are some apps that are hard to navigate.

They're all.

And you're like,

I don't understand how to do this.

Also, I went to the University of Florida, so go Gators.

Go Gators.

Go Gators.

Oh, that's good.

All right, Kristen.

Hi, my name is Kristen.

So I was in grad school at a fairly small university that didn't have a robust program yet for the degree I was getting.

And so we did teleconferencing classes.

And I was in the program program with my boyfriend.

And so we were the only two people taking the class at our university.

So one time we were in this room and we were fairly new to dating and it was fun.

And so we're all set up waiting for the class to start.

We're conferenced in and muted or so I thought.

So I

turned to him at one point.

And I said, you know,

I could blow you under this table and no one would know, which never in my life have I said before or after or done.

All we hear is, Merced, could you please

turn your mics off?

And we both died a little bit that day, but we're still together two kids later.

So sometimes mortification brings you closer together.

Oh, honey.

Oh, God.

Do you know what that reminds me of?

What?

All right.

Sister, do you remember?

Of course you do, because it's probably etched in your soul forever.

But when Abby and I were falling in love and we were trying to do things methodically in terms of going a lot.

Okay, well,

you were trying to do things methodically.

Yes, guys.

We were nothing but just drunk in love.

I don't know why I did that.

I still to this day do not know why I did this, but we were were on like a tour together and I was in charge of all of these things.

And so my publisher sent me the bios for all the people who were going to be speaking at one of the nights.

You were going to be speaking at one of the nights.

So your bio was in the list of bios, okay?

I,

for some effing reason,

As a joke, I think you were there like with me or something at the computer, probably because we were like attached at the hip.

I took your your bio and took out half of the paragraph and added my own spin to it.

So it was like Abby Wampach, you know, FIFA world player of the year, Olympian, blah, blah, blah, hottest human in the universe.

I want to marry her.

I want to sleep with her.

I want blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, just this funny like thing.

And then showed it to you.

And then I fucking sent it to the publishing team.

You forgot to my entire publishing team.

I sent it.

Yeah.

So I'm,

I press send.

And then you find out.

Well, I freeze and I don't move.

I'm just staring at the computer like,

and then if you remember this, we were in the little office in that, my old house.

I just crumble to the ground.

I just lay on the floor.

And then the phone rings, okay, within seconds.

And it's sister.

And she's just like, what the absolute fuck?

Like, we are, we are, we have been working so hard to do this right.

And then you sent like a porn paragraph

to our entire team.

So then I couldn't, I had no words.

I just, I don't, I don't, I mean, so then I think we sent another email that was like, whatever you do, don't open the previous email.

That works well.

I know.

It's like everyone has disregarded your email until you send an email that says disregard prior email.

At which point, everyone goes back to look at the prior email.

Have we ever even talked?

Have we talked to Whitney about this?

I hope Whitney Whitney's my editor who's been through lo, so many things with me.

Actually, one more Whitney story.

Whitney Frick, I love you.

Whitney Frick has been with me since the very, very, very beginning.

On my first tour

for Carrion Warrior, you're fine.

For Carry-On Warrior, I went to New York City.

I didn't know what the fuck I was doing at all.

Okay.

Somebody said, just be camera ready.

Just be TV ready.

TV ready.

As if that meant anything to me.

I was watching a lot of real housewives back then, right?

That's what I did.

That was my TV.

So

to me, to be TV ready meant you had four pounds of Botox.

You had 60 pounds of makeup.

You had eyelashes out to your hair.

You had extensions in your hair.

You had huge boobs.

You had this.

I just made myself into a real housewife.

Okay.

Part of my real housewife outfit was these chicken cutlets that I used to stuff in my bra.

Okay.

They were not actual chicken cutlets, but you all know what we're talking about, those silicone little packets that look like chicken cutlets.

Right.

So I

went to New York City, did the Today Show, did an entire segment about how we should all show up as ourselves vulnerably and be real.

And I did that in my entire real housewife get up with my fake boobs and by real i mean real housewives like i could not move my face and i was like we need to embrace who we are

that's fine i can't even think about it then i flew to the next place and i forgot my chicken cutlet boobs in my drawer which i was like at the hotel which i was like how am i gonna be tv ready without my boobs so i had to call whitney who barely knew me at the time and i was like fancy new york editor, I just need you to go back to the hotel and just get my boobs.

And I just need you to send them to me at my next hotel.

So she, Whitney, as one of her very first acts of love, delivered my boobs to the next hotel.

Yes, she did.

She had to like overnight them to Chicago or something.

Okay, let's move on.

My name is G.

And I wanted to call about a prosthetic penis story.

Yeah, yeah.

So basically, I was in a house with me and my partner and two of our friends who were together.

And long story short, after we exed with our prosthetic penis, I went in the shower to wash it.

And

I don't know where my brain was, but I washed it and then I, you know, it could stick to the shower wall.

So I stuck it to the wall so I could wash myself.

And then I forgot that I had stuck it to the wall and I left the shower.

So a few minutes later,

our other friends went to take a shower and we're all hanging out in the living room and we heard a scream and she said, who left their kids in the shower?

And turns out she, you know, doesn't see very well in the shower and she went in and like, it hit her in the head.

And that was definitely a mortifying story

that thank god i was with my queer friends who understood you know the situation better but i thought you guys might enjoy that oh if i had a quarter for every time i got hit in the head with a dick in the shower

i would have more cents can we please please title this episode Who Left Their Dick in the Shower?

It was so good.

Gee,

Gee, you were right.

We did enjoy it up.

I just want to say it was amazing.

I didn't know that you could get a prosthetic penis or a dildo to stick on the shower wall.

Oh, for sure.

We're Googling that after this recording.

You definitely can.

There's like, there's all kinds of structures, right?

But you just, but do you hook it on the wall?

No,

you're section cups situation.

I see.

I see.

I see.

Oh my God.

I just effing remember something.

Oh, my God.

Okay.

Do you remember, Abby Woman Bach, when we, when I was doing a speech in Kansas City

and there was

so many people in the audience and it was at a church.

Oh yes, I know what you're gonna say.

And I was in the middle of an impassioned plea.

I was trying

to get everybody like galvanized and fired up.

And so I was trying to say, what we all do

is we

continue to put our fists in the air or something.

I don't remember this.

But you will in a minute.

But what I said to the entire audience was, what we do is we continue fisting.

Oh, yeah.

And then I launched my fist

into the air.

We continue fisting.

And

the entire crowd went silent.

It was in a church, too.

In a church.

And then burst into tears, laughing.

And the most embarrassing part was I had no idea what they were laughing at because I didn't know what fisting was

because I was so new.

Do you remember that?

Yeah.

Okay, sorry.

Carry on.

How about Jocelyn?

Hey, my name is Jocelyn, and I'm just responding to the podcast.

Literally, a small girl coming out with my mom and aunt from Chuck E.

Cheese.

We get into the car.

We're all ready to go.

My mom is having trouble getting the car started, and my aunt Fran, Godlover, is eating peanuts off the dashboard.

She suddenly goes,

I remember these peanuts being here.

I'm on my mom and my aunt.

They have now put all of the children in the wrong car.

Everybody starts screaming, trying to get out of the car really quickly.

And

all your stories today brought that story back to me.

And I just remember my aunt Fanna, I don't remember these peanuts on the dashboard.

You know what?

I really appreciate Aunt Fran.

I love someone who sees a bunch of peanuts on a dashboard and is like, yum,

peanuts on the dashboard and begins eating them and then later says, huh, I don't remember these peanuts on the dashboard or else I would have eaten them on the way to Chuck E.

Cheese.

Do you remember when

mom was following grandma, grandma, Alice in the car

and she pulled up and they were trying to get into a parking lot.

And you know how the parking lots have those like rails?

When you get close enough, they open, but you can't like

it.

So like they're entrances.

The arms arms go up right the arms go down right yeah

so

my grandma

saw the sign on the rails that said pull up

pull up and so my mom found my grandma her car was parked in front of the rails and she was standing trying to pull up

the gate

pull up

the rails yeah she was pulling the arm up because she thought that's what it meant Yeah, and then you could be like, pull it up.

And then it would be, yes, that's right.

Pull up to poor grandma and her car.

Remember how she would drive, like, she lived in the same town for 50 years.

Okay.

She would go to four places to church,

to

the mall, to the bowling alley, and to the golf course.

Right.

Okay.

Notice there was no grocery store in there.

No.

Please see aforementioned bologna and tomatoes.

But she would go church, mall, golf course, bowling alley.

So one day she has to go to the mall and we're getting in the car and she gets like, the mall's probably 25 minutes away.

We get like

10 minutes on the road and she's like, damn it, I made the wrong turn.

So she turns around and drives all the way back to the house.

And then she pulls in.

And she pulls out again.

And we're like, grandma, what?

And she's like, oh, I only know how to get from the house to the mall.

mall.

If I make a wrong turn, I have to go back to the house and start over.

Do you understand how much I just, I feel so seen by that story?

So much just feels genetic.

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Okay, so how about let's hear from Hannah?

This is Hannah.

So I was in high school at the time and I was at a Mexican restaurant.

And you know how you don't really want to be the person that's like butchering a word that's not in English.

You know, you like try to be a little respectful, you know, give it your best effort.

And so so I was like really gearing up to be like, I'm going to say the Spanish word.

I'm going to try.

And so when the waiter came, I said, I would like a taco plate.

And then he said, do you mean a taco plate?

And that's when I realized that it wasn't in Spanish.

It was just plate.

And plate isn't correct either.

So

I had to say, yes, a taco plate.

But at this point, my brother and my sister had heard and were just dying laughing.

and it was just mortifying um

and i mean i probably thought about this for like once a week for the last 15 years yeah a taco plate of course remember when you walked into the department store in florida and very fancied said to the lady behind the desk

we're looking for the brand frome do you have any

from fra

and she pointed and she goes do you mean frame fee i was like yeah that's exactly what i mean frame

Let's hear from Sing.

Hi, friends.

My name is Singh.

This is a story about, I was a teenager.

I grew up in Denver, Colorado.

I don't know, about 15 of my closest friends and I all went to Red Rocks to see a concert.

It was amazing, and shirts are off, and the sun is out, and my friend is sitting in front of me.

And he, I can tell, has one of the most satisfying back peels from a sunburn you have ever seen.

I can't help myself and eventually an impulse comes to me and I reach over and I grab it and I remember it was from his left shoulder and I started, I think I only have one hand on this point, but the most satisfying sheet of skin came off in my hand.

And then my friend turned around.

And it was not my friend.

It was just some guy

looking at the woman who peeled his back.

And the only thing that I could think of to tell him was, I'm sorry.

I thought you were killing me.

Oh, my God.

Imagine like, and it was not my friend peeling the skin off of someone stranger's back.

And what is this?

What is this?

Some people are so into this stuff with other people's bodies.

Abby and I have a major,

I have to call marriage on it.

Like, she wants me to pop her zits.

Oh, my God.

I can't believe you don't want to pop people's zits.

It's irresistible.

I do.

Especially the ones I get on the back from where my sports bra

and it's sweaty.

No.

And I get them and I can't reach.

No.

And I'm like, I just need your help.

And she's like, no.

It's a bounty.

It's a bounty for me.

I say to her, I need you to help me.

I need you to help me not be completely grossed out.

All right, let's hear from Jeannie.

Hello, lovelies.

My name is Jeannie.

I am a French teacher at an elementary school here in Canada.

And in my 50s, I seem to no longer be able to hold my tea very long.

So I went into the bathroom and thought I had locked the door and was doing my business sitting on the toilet when I heard the kindergartens coming through in the hallway, all 30 of them.

And you know how kindergartens touch everything.

So they must have touched the little handle that says open.

And the door slowly

opens every single day.

She's still on the toilet.

And I can now, I'm in full view as it opens to all the kindergartens coming through, sitting on the toilet.

I don't know what to do because I can't get up, close the door, and I decide I can just sit there and be kind and wave.

I wave to all of them coming by ever so slowly as they all said, bonjour, madame, bonjour, madame, bonjour, madame.

And the sweetest part is that these three and four-year-olds are so untainted that they did not think it a big deal whatsoever.

It was just a teacher sitting on a toilet and an opportunity to say bourgeois.

I love

that she just thought so quickly it was like, well, out of all of my options, my best friend is just

wave to the children walking by.

Punch.

Because she's stuck.

She can't get up because she's in mid-P and it's impossible to stop mid-stream.

But that's so great because the kids don't even know yet that that's a big mortifying moment.

Yeah.

You know, maybe she made peeing a little less of a future mortifying moment.

If anybody ever walks into me while I'm on the toilet for the rest of my life, I will just say, Bonjour, Madame.

Bon, Madame.

Bonjour, Madame.

Bonjour, Madame.

Bonjour, Madame is our new prosthetic penis.

Yes, bonjour, madame, may have a taco plate.

And who put a dick in the shower?

Bonem.

Zaha.

So, what I would like to say to the pod squad is: thank you for spending this hour with us.

Yeah.

Don't forget this week, before we meet again, that when things get hard, we can do hard things.

Yes.

And

we want to do a holiday edition of embarrassing stories.

Let's do that.

So, maybe embarrassing stories, maybe beautiful stories, your best holiday stories, send them.

They can be also your worst holiday stories, but anything brutal, beautiful, brutal, as G-Bird says, or hilarious, send it to us.

Call us and tell us about it at

747-200-5307.

That's 7407.

I'm excited about this.

Oh, sorry, say the numbers again.

Say the boring numbers.

Okay, 747-200-5307.

Okay,

so

you know how like really good holidays are a good holiday and then like really bad holidays are are a good story.

It's like that.

So just think of the moment

that you have with your family that you remember the most.

It can be because it sucked or it can be because it was beautiful and send them our way.

We're just going to get through the holidays this year by

sharing the stories that makes that make us pee in our pants a little bit.

and feel less alone.

Well, everything makes me pee in our pants.

Everything makes me pee children.

Just call and sneeze, and that'll make me pee my kids.

Also, please try to get it in

about under two minutes so that we can actually play it.

We listen to all of them.

Yes.

But we only play the ones that aren't 35 minutes long.

You all, you just call us and then you just leave the phone on all evening.

You just talk to us for hours.

It's so nice.

It's our favorite to listen to those voicemails.

It's our favorite.

But for these two minutes, please.

Two minutes, please.

Okay, we love you.

Pod squad, we'll see you next time.

Bye.

Bye.

I give you Tish Milton and Brandy Carlisle.

I walked through fire.

I came out the other side.

I chased desire.

I made sure

I got what's mine

and I continue

to believe

that I'm the one for me.

And because I'm mine,

I walk the line

because we're adventurers and heartbreaks on the map.

A final destination.

We've stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do a hard thing.

I hit rock bottom, it felt like a brand new start.

I'm not the problem,

sometimes things fall apart,

and I continue

to believe

the best

people are free.

And it took some time,

but I'm finally fine.

Cause we're adventurers, and heartbreaks on that.

A final destination

lack.

We've stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives bring,

we can do hard things.

Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks on that.

We might get lost, but we're okay with that.

We've stopped asking directions

in some places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to belong.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives bring.

We can do hard things.

Yeah, we can do hard things.

Yeah, we

can do hard

things.

We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios.

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