Armchair Anonymous: Took the Fall

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous, I'm Buck Rogers and I'm joined by Starship Captain Monica Padman. Hello there, this is, in keeping with all the other episodes, this is something, I don't have that.

What were you going to say?

Something go wrong.

You can listen to this.

These are all about things that go wrong. This shows about times that things went wrong.

Pretty much. Well, not always. We've had some-.

Victory stories.

And in this case, this kind of is. This is-.

Well, this is both, right? It's both. It goes right.

It's both. Something went wrong for you, but somebody swooped in.

Yes. And enough flirting around in foreplay. Let's tell you what it is. This is an episode where someone took the fall for our guest.

Yeah.

Yeah. So someone has taken the fall. Why is this concept eluding me to describe? I don't know why you- Because I don't want you to think the caller took the fall for somebody. Yeah.

You'll know when you hear it.

In ten seconds of listening, it'll be crystal clear what this is.

Someone took the fall for you.

Yeah. For you. Informal.

Please enjoy-.

Took the fall. Hard times, come and go.

Good times, take them slow.

My life, I had them both.

Remember one thing, you gotta know. I'ma keep on shining.

Okay. Hey, Maggie, show me what you got, little mama. Show me what you got, little shorty. Go ahead and play and play.

Hi.

Maggie, you look very much like a very young Drew Barrymore.

Wow, high praise. Thank you.

Yeah, would you agree with that assessment, Monica?

I wouldn't have thought it, but I don't disagree.

Okay, who do you get told? you look like? Also, maybe Kate Winslet. They're coming in hot and fast now.

You look like my friend, Hillary.

You look like Hillary, too.

The person that I've gotten, and I unfortunately cannot remember her name, but she is the lady in Handmaid's Tale.

Elizabeth Moss, I can totally see that. I can totally see that.

Well, I know why, because you have just the tiniest hint of rabbit teeth. Yeah, it's so cute. And I say that with great affection, because my youngest has rabbit teeth.

Proud of it.

You know, it's like a thing that men are attracted to rabbit teeth.

Oh, it's a fetish?

No, it's like how people are attracted to symmetrical faces. Oh. They're attracted to that type of- Rabbit teeth? Rabbit teeth, yeah.

Oh, wow. So, congrats. Have you heard this, Maggie?

No, but I think that there probably is a little fetish for everything.

Well, sure.

Sure, yeah, I'm hoping someone has a fetish for missing knuckles.

That's my gray.

Okay, Maggie, you took the fall for somebody.

Somebody took the fall for me.

Oh, okay. That's right. Even better. I think that was the prompt. Was that the prompt?

Oh, my God, you're right. Tell us about a time. someone took the fall for you.

So, to set the scene, this story takes place when I was somewhere in the era of sixth, seventh grade.

Okay.

Hot time to be alive.

At the time, it was my parents and I and my brother that were living in our home. And I would get off the school bus, I'd go home, sometimes parents were there, sometimes they weren't. But this kind of era of my life, I found a real fixation with porn. Oh, wow. My middle school porn era.

Can you tell us how you discovered it?

Would love to. I was really dying for somebody to talk to me about sex and didn't have access to that in our family. Lived in a pretty conservative area that wasn't really talking about sex or sexual wellness.

What state were you in?

Connecticut.

Okay.

Oh, very bougie.

Oh, well.

That's a compliment, but it comes with some uptightness.

We all feel the same way about it.

Okay, good.

I one day just decided to go onto our family's singular shared desktop, go down into the basement, open up Google and said, watch sex.

Oh, okay. Very literal search.

This wonderful word P-O-R-N just popped up everywhere and I was like, I guess that's what watching sex is. So I became fixated on Googling, watch sex and find whatever the internet would give me.

And can I ask, was your reaction to it like scientific and curiosity, or was it making you horny?

I hadn't discovered masturbation at that point in my life. So I was just like wide-eyed and stoking it in. Okay.

Can you tell us what year this was-ish?

Probably like 04.

Okay, so there's a lot of options. The internet is proliferated with lots of content.

Yeah, it was amazing. I really found myself in this era.

But you didn't masturbate. It was so interesting. So you'd be just watching it and watching it. It'd be simmering and simmering.

Exactly. I would be on the school bus riding home, thinking about what are we gonna find today? Oh, wow. I would be staying up late thinking about what am I gonna find tonight? Oh, wow.

This is exciting.

It was exhilarating. And having the little flair of it being the shared family desktop just added a little oomph to it.

Okay, so you were aware that this was a bit high-risk.

To some degree. Also wonderfully naive, which brings us to where things start getting iffy. So I find myself totally enthralled in porn and then the world of chat rooms and subscriptions start opening up.

Okay, sure, sure.

And what I knew was that I had to be a teen in order to really be entering these sites. So what I would do in this kind of sixth grade, seventh grade mindset is that I was going to lie to get access, but I knew I needed to protect myself to some degree. So, instead of saying Maggie with my last name, I had the bright idea of just changing one letter and being Maddie. And you needed an email, but I didn't have an email in middle school, so I used my mom's. Oh!

Okay, big tactical blunder here.

And you kept your last name?

Sure, did. Yeah, yeah.

Well, she changes it to Maddie. I mean, totally safe. So it's so different.

I was a different person.

So this is Maddie. now we're talking to.

Oh, boy.

So I would put in my new first name, my last name, my mom's email address, I'd make up a random birthday, and I was off to the races. A whole new level opened itself up.

And were you participating? Were you like talking dirty? What happens?

I was a quiet observer.

An anthropologist.

Exactly, I was doing my research on human behavior.

Wow, okay.

This continues for months. I would sneak down into the basement, turn the volume off, type in porn, because I was learning more. I didn't have to say watch sex anymore. Yeah. Until one day I got off the bus, nobody was home.

This was so standard in 2004.

Virus.

This was before they had a block pop-up windows option on your browser.

There was no incognito that I knew of. It was an amateur hour. And I got totally stuck. I couldn't get myself to X out of any of the windows. And I knew that the clock was ticking, that my family would be coming home from work, my brother would be coming home from sports, was starting to sweat.

Okay.

And my dad was like, sweetheart, I know exactly what happened, don't worry about it.

Can I ask really quickly, how old is your brother?

He is in high school at this point.

Perfect fall guy.

Yeah, easy.

He's a fucking pervert, all these high school boys are.

So I had some comfort that my dad was gonna somehow find a solution. Of course, in the back of my mind, I'm like, I just wanna make sure I'm gonna be able to watch porn again.

Oh, wow, so this wasn't even like, I'm done.

This was a speed bump.

So Connecticut. Yeah, so Connecticut.

My parents call in my brother, I watch him walk to the trouble chair.

Oh, no.

He starts getting attacked. My parents are going in on, how could you subject your sister to this?

Oh.

How could you, he's so irresponsible, going in on like sexual health concerns. And he's sitting there and denying it. And he was like, I didn't do this. And every time he denies, they double down.

Now you're a liar. Oh, geez, yeah.

And then the next day, my dad asked if I want to run an errand with him. And he goes downstairs to the basement, he unplugs the family desktop, puts it into his car. We drive off to, what was at that point, like the makeshift Apple store to fix the computer. My dad puts the clunky desktop up on the counter and the guy was like, all right, well, what's the problem? And he said, my son is addicted to porn and has fried the family computer.

He went really far.

Geez, did he even know about porn addiction back then?

He was sort of ahead of the game.

Since then, my brother and I have never discussed the event. My parents have never spoken of it since. Not to much of my own surprise, I became a therapist and specialize in talking about sex with people.

Wow, this is great.

Wow, wow, wow.

And you've never told them, even after becoming a therapist?

I gladly let him take that from me.

I'm gonna make a couple suggestions, and I don't wanna tinker with your story because it works perfectly, but your brother was watching porn on that computer.

I'm sure, for sure.

And I hate to say this, but dad might've been peeking at porn every now and again, too, on that computer.

Well, that's what I thought when you called him, I thought maybe he was like, oh shit. Don't worry, because he knew, because he had done it.

In reality, it was the least suspected one.

Did the email address ever become an issue?

I'm glad you asked about that. At some point in middle school, I somehow got my mom's email address password. So I would go into her email and I would do my best to clear away all the porn spam. Hold on. I would still say like, she's getting spam, that's inappropriate.

Right, but you were in there pruning, but you're right, you kind of see that stuff and you don't necessarily think, oh, this is because it's someone who's linked to my, and you're like, they email everybody.

But they did have Natty.

Oh.

But you wouldn't open it. So you might not ever see that, because you'd be afraid to open up the email.

A girl can dream.

I like to think mom was down there too, sniffing around a little bit. She could have been. The whole family was secret.

Do you think your brother knew it was you?

If he did, he would never say anything. Oh, that's nice.

Yeah, I wonder what I would do.

I'd be so quick.

It's Neil, he's a pervert. That was definitely Neil. He's a porn addict.

Well, I mean, developmentally, I think it's totally typical that kids are interested and young adults are interested about sex and porn and wanting to feel some connection. What I wish, if I could reverse time, that we had, like a really open, transparent conversation about what it was that I was curious about,

what I was learning,

if I still had questions left over.

Do you feel like you paid any price or was damaging in any way? I think there is a big moral panic surrounding porn, and I think there are porn addicts. And then I also think there's probably a very healthy version of exploring your curiosities.

I think that porn can teach people to be performative in a way that takes them out of their body and into their brain, and not really experiencing what's happening in reality, but rather trying to replay something that you saw or you were taught in this way. So I think that that's an edge of porn that can get tricky, but I mean, I also think that there's really interesting ways that it brings people into communities that aren't shameful and that they can access something that feels authentically pleasurable to them. So if I were to do it again, I would still do it.

Right, okay, okay, there we go. Yeah, great. Well, Maggie, that was wonderful.

Yeah, thank you. And thanks to your brother taking that fall.

Yeah, good boy, or not. Maybe he was guilty and he just denied it.

Maybe. Yeah.

I'm sure he was finding his own way around it.

Maggie, why are you in the computer? And don't you need to go over to Becky's house for two hours?

I know, he's so mad.

You're just on the computer all day. Porning it. He's like, that's mine. Well, thank you so much for that story. That was great.

Thanks, guys. It was nice to meet you both. Take good care. All right, bye-bye.

I like when people say take good care. Yeah. I think my therapist says that.

Really?

It must be a therapy thing.

Was that your therapist?

I wasn't gonna say.

Wouldn't that be insane if your therapist for mine had submitted, tell us about your worst patient? I mean, our own therapist.

Or the worst story that your patient told you. Oh.

Violate. Hi, this is Daniel.

Hey, yes, it is. Nice to meet you both.

Yeah, nice to meet you. Where are you at?

I'm in Chicago, Illinois.

Oh, Robbie, go ahead. What a place. But wait, you gotta ask specifically, so you'll know.

Where in Chicago?

I'm in the South Side, not too far from Guaranteed Rate.

Where the White Sox play. Oh, cool.

Oh. So, Daniel, you're calling us from Chicago. Someone took the fall for you.

Yes, very much so.

Very much so, that's a good start.

Yeah, we like that.

They're in prison currently.

The story took place in 2008.

And lucky.

This one particular Saturday night, I was at the bar drinking. Beeman Diets, was my drink of choice back then.

Good choice.

And I struck up a conversation with a nice young lady. She seemed fairly interested. That was big for me, because I wasn't exactly killing it with the ladies back then. So we hit it off and we decided, well, you know what, rather than walk the whole 100 yards back to my apartment, why don't we just sneak off to the cooler at this bar?

Yes, wonderful.

What's the cooler, a bathroom?

Where they keep all the beer, the big walk-in fridge.

Yeah, so real classy. I spent all my free time, and this is basically like my rec room, this bar. So I knew all the bartenders. I knew all the cooks. Me and this young lady walked past the kitchen staff into the cooler.

Oh, wow.

You really were the king of the castle there.

Oh, good etiquette. This is the kind of bar I drank at in Michigan, by the way.

A real classy establishment. Quickly into it, we both realized this wasn't very fun. Being surrounded by coolers and kegs and 40 degrees kind of took the romance out of it. We both kind of came to our wits and we're like, let's just leave it here and not take this any further. So we both leave the cooler and I sit back at the bar, of course, and proceed to drink the rest of the night.

Well, hold on, Daniel. Not obviously to me.

Yeah, because it seems like you were allowed to kind of.

I mean, also, like a bar owner in Indiana, a little hole in the wall bar, he finds some underwear. I think he might be in a good mood over it, but okay, I accept that he was upset.

Considering the other things that went on in that bar, it was pretty tame in comparison, but Bill's on the warpath and he wants to know who was up to these shenanigans. This was like an existential crisis for me because, like I said, this was like my rec room. I spent five nights a week here and I had heard that if he found out it was a customer, they were going to be banned from the bar.

Right.

That was bad news for me. So I muster up the courage. that night. I'm going to walk in and admit to my indiscretions. When I walk in, one of the bartenders, Joe, who I reached out to before this, said it was okay to tell the story.

Sure.

He got into some trouble. I think he lost maybe a shift or two at work, but I was allowed to continue there, causing various disturbances from time to time.

Couple things, could have been financially motivated. Also, he might've been very happy for you that you got some action. He could be rooting for you.

That's a great way to look at it. Like I said, I wasn't exactly killing it. My opportunities were few and far between.

Well, let's be honest. All the bartenders crush. That's what bartenders do. Then you got a guy that's always there and he finally gets a little lucky. Sure.

Yeah, and he also just might be like, the punishment for you would be so much more than whatever the punishment is going to be for him, unless he thought he was going to get fired.

He's a star bartender. What if he just said, those are mine?

And now I'm really uncomfortable.

You know, I wear those underwear and now you're in trouble, owner of the bar. I would've flipped the whole script on him. Are you now in recovery? I get a sense. you're now in recovery.

Yeah.

Yeah, it does feel like a tone of this was of a time.

Yeah, this has addict-y story written all over it.

Well, there's a bleakness to the whole tableau that I relate to deeply. Also, if you'd gotten banned from there, like I'm not being too light on this. If you don't live in walking distance to a bar, now, we're ratcheting up a whole other side of likely death and imprisonment and bodily harm to other people.

Because you'd be driving.

Yeah, you'd have to drive. You weren't going to quit drinking. You were just going to have to drive somewhere to drink.

Yeah, that was not my bottom, unfortunately. So I was going to keep going full steam ahead at that point.

Yeah.

So how long have you been sober?

Six years. Goddamn.

Oh, congratulations.

Daniel, that's fucking awesome.

Listening to your podcast was a big impetus for that. I was still pretty much actively out there until I started listening. I'm a day one cherry. Oh my God.

How sweet.

Fuck, yes. And is life better?

Way better. I'm married, now. We have a son.

Oh, this is such a happy story.

Goddamn it.

When I told my wife I was going to tell this story, she just kind of rolled her eyes because she's heard all these shenanigans. Sure. Listening to the podcast gave me the courage to go to AA and go to therapy.

Oh, man. Daniel, you just made my month. Thank you for sharing that. That's so great. Well, Daniel, great meeting you.

You as well. It was a real pleasure. Thank you so much.

All right, take care.

Good thing that guy took the fall.

Truly, he could have been a dick.

Because it could have changed the whole trajectory.

He could have. He could have been driving around. If you are an active addict, do you try to live in walking distance of a bar?

That's true. You know? I do.

We got a cool name coming up, Rylan. Ooh, cool. Have you ever seen such a name?

No. That's a cool name.

Rob, has anyone taken the fall for you?

My brother has once.

Oh, he has.

Are you comfortable sharing the story?

Yeah, it was when I was like seven or eight. My grandpa had got me a Michael Jordan watch and I was playing basketball in the basement and I did a slam dunk and broke it. Uh-oh. Shattered the glass on it and I stuck it under the couch, pretending like I didn't do it. Sure, of course.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, I found it.

My grandpa got me a new one.

But did he say, I did it?

He was a troublemaker and he didn't really talk yet.

That's not really taking the fall so much, as you blamed him.

I blamed him. I mean, he copped up to it, which I didn't understand. why. Oh, God. Because I put a little one of his toy hammers by it as well.

Oh, wow, this is a very meticulous plot.

Well, unless you're someone who, just like, constantly broke stuff or didn't take care of their things.

Yeah, and then you smack Rob across the face. Stop breaking your things.

You're a bad kid.

Value your stuff, you entitled little shit.

Hi.

Hello.

I'm freaking out, you guys.

Have a freak out, we're here for it. Oh, okay. I'm very intrigued by your background.

Okay, do you wanna guess first?

Well, you're at work.

Unfortunately.

It looks school teacher-y to me. I was about to say,

it feels like a classroom of sorts.

I work at a university, but I'm obviously not a professor, just a staff member.

Okay, but I wouldn't have said you're not obviously a professor.

Oh, okay, thank you.

Or you're just too young to be a professor.

A little too young. I'm sure there's professors my age out there.

I can't tell.

Well, I had a hot young professor, so yes, there are.

I've also had a few. Yeah, I know.

They're a dime a dozen.

Do you think there's more hot male professors? Why do I keep hearing this seems to be very gendered? I'm not hearing a lot of dudes that I know that had us smoking hot. Well, A, let's just start with, do we think the ratio is a little skewed? Do you think it's 50-50??

There's probably just more male professors out there, or depending on the classes you're taking, too.

You should be a professor. That was smart, what you just said.

You're now a professor.

Thank you, thank you.

I had a female geology professor, and I was in love with her. She was only like 30..

Oh, okay. And geology, good for her. I know, right? And what state are you in?

I'm in Santa Barbara, so I'm in California.

Okay, so someone took the fall for you.

Yes, thank you for bringing that up. I'd love to talk about it.

Yes, we wanna hear.

Story starts early January of 2020.

Oh, great name.

A fake name, but thank you.

Oh, okay.

And my ex-boyfriend, who I had not seen in like a year and a half. He had just slowly, through friends, got into this friend group. So he was invited on the trip. I'm cool, I'm chill, it's fine.

You guys had an AMI couple breakup?

Enough, it was fine. He also brought his new girlfriend, who at the time he'd been dating for like a week. So it was like all of our first time dating her. So we go to set up our tents right when we get there. So we're actually camping on BLM.

Yeah, Bureau of Land Management, federal land. You can shoot guns.

You can do anything. So we camped there, and somehow me and my boyfriend's tent, and my ex-boyfriend and his girlfriend's tent got right next to each other. Oopsies. In our little semi-circle, like facing the campfire. And then on the other circle was like all the cars, facing the campfire as well.

Is anyone doing mushrooms? There's a very big mushrooms destination.

Absolutely.

Okay, great. A lot of mushrooms, a lot of weed, a lot of wine bags. Mm-hmm. And it's just good vibes. I'm hanging out with him and her, and everyone's in a great mood.

Yeah, that's chilly up there.

So I'm wearing like my flannel pants, and then sweatpants, and then those big, comfy blanket sweaters. Do you guys know what those are?

Not as snoozy.

Snoo is kind of like a snuggie, but it's essentially just a giant sweatshirt, but it's blanket material. Like it's huge.

Ooh, okay, this sounds nice.

And I wake up in the middle of the night, and it's pitch black. And I'm like, oh, I'm gonna throw up. So I'm like trying to get out of the tent, but I have so many layers of clothes on me, and I can't find the tent zipper. And so I'm like waking up, Alfred. Yeah.

Oh, God.

So I get out, and I like run behind the tent, and I just let it rip. Like so much vomit. I don't even know how that was in my body.

Do we think it's from over-imbibing, or the food in town?

Great question. Who truly knows? I stop, drink some water. Alfred's standing there. He offers me his water, wet wipes.

Okay, so probably the food in town.

Food in town.

We just got a verdict.

Yeah, that feels like a food poisoning situation.

I'm so glad there's a shit in the pants story mixed with all this.

So I'm like trying to remove three layers of pants.

Oh, God.

I also like lift up my sweatshirt, that's all the way to the floor, so I like finally get just my little bum out, just so I have enough room, and like just shit so much.

Oh, my God, and your boyfriend's there?

The boyfriend's there watching me. Oh!

Well, forget that also. I'm presuming you're quite close to the camping area.

Yeah, I'm literally like three feet from my tent, five feet from my ex-boyfriend's tent.

Oh, my God.

This is a nightmare.

You can hear it. It's like someone has like dumped out their water bottle.

It's just going.

Fire hose, yeah.

I'm pooping, and then I.

Rylan just looked over her shoulder in a panic, as if a boss walked in, right as she said, I'm pooping.

I know, I'm so scared right now, you guys. Okay, so I'm pooping, and then I start puking again. Sharp, sharp. So I'm like trying to get the puke off of my jacket while also not pooping on any of my things.

Oh, this is so awful.

Are you virtually nude at this point, outside, or no?

I still have all my clothes on.

Okay, okay.

So eventually I stop, and I'm cleaning up, and then I'm like, okay, I have like five minutes before this is happening again. Yeah. I need to get as far away from the tents as possible. I need to get past the cars. I have to walk through the campsite.

Right.

So I'm like, okay, you get the keys, I'm walking to the car. And so I'm walking there. I don't get more than five feet before. I like buckle over and have to, just like, keep pooping.

Oh, my God.

Ah!

Oh my God. You are massacring this camping area.

Where everyone is like living this weekend.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, you are 100% poisoned by this local. Did you eat seafood?

No, I had an avocado bacon burger.

Hmm, that should not have.

But it did. But it did.

But it did. Okay, maybe the lettuce on the burger and the styria all over it. Anyways. Oh, no. Okay, so you're trying to get to a car, round four hits.

Yeah, by the time I get to the car and we have the keys, there's at least like four or five piles. Wow. Just like every, like six or seven feet. God.

And they're not nice little piles.

Yeah, splashy.

Yeah, it's everywhere.

It's quite terrible. So at that point, I know, like there's nothing else I could possibly release from my body, like. that's it. And I'm like, okay, well, we have to do something about this, but it's liquid, I can't like, pick it up like a gum bag. Right, right.

Did you think about kicking sand over it?

Right, like the cat. Like a kitty.

That maybe could have been an option, but it's a dry lake bed, so it's like hard.

Oh God, so it's so visible.

Very visible, highly visible.

Yes, thank you for bringing that up.

There's no missing this.

So we go to bed, wake up the next morning, and I'm just laying there with my eyes open, just like not moving. And then I just hear one of my friends go,

oh my God.

I was hoping a raccoon maybe came and ate it in the night.

Sure, sure, sure, wildlife.

And then they're like, guys, get out of here. So everyone's out there.

This is like, I feel itchy.

This is your biggest, I don't even think snake in your butt is worse than this.

I would kill myself.

You would have walked directly out into the desert until you died.

I should have done that. I hear them discovering more and more piles. They're like, there's one over here.

Oh God!

I think there was multiple people.

They're like, was this a wild animal? And they're like, no, no, this had to be a grown man.

Oh, we always get the blame.

Yeah, you do. Yeah.

And they're like, this had to be like a big guy.

Was there a big boy in your group?

So, okay.

Yeah, he's getting his protein. So, he could theoretically produce something.

of this caliber. I look at him and I'm like, please. You have to tell everyone it's you. Like, you have to. And he's like, no fucking way.

Like, please, you have to.

Can I ask, how long were you and Alfred together at this point?

At this point, like a little over a year. Okay. Yeah, so with him, I felt very comfortable. Wasn't worried about that at all.

I mean, I'm shocked. There's not a person on earth that I would feel okay with. Seeing that, which is sad. That's sad for me.

It is, yeah.

Yeah, I'm saying it's sad. Let's hope.

Many people would love you right through all that.

I would take credit for your poop. Oh, thanks. But so, he's like, no, I'm not doing it. So, I guess I can't stay in the tent forever.

That makes you obvious. I was even thinking when you were telling the story, the move is, if anyone does this, is, be first one up. Yeah. And then be a part of the curiosity. What?

Sure. Oh, bro.

Ugh, what big, big man did this?

Yeah.

You can lead the investigation a little bit.

I should've set a timer and been the first one up.

Whoever shows up last probably did it.

Yes, because I was just waiting it out. I don't know what I was hoping would happen. Maybe a bomb would fall on us. I don't know.

Right.

But eventually I was like, okay, I have to get out of this tent. So, I walk out and it has frozen overnight.

That's helpful. If it's frozen, it doesn't stink as much. If it was a hot morning.

But they're now just like pucks and people are playing with it. Oh my God.

They're all a bunch of dirty climber boys.

Like, they don't care.

And so, they're like, Alfred, Alfred, get out of here.

We know you did this.

And I look at him and he comes out and we're just looking at each other. And I swear, this moment of us staring at each other felt like 30 minutes. And it was just 30 seconds. And I was like, what is he going to do? And they're like, Alfred.

Oh, he shrugged his shoulders.

And he never, never once said, okay, it was me, but he never denied it. And they just kept making jokes and kept saying stuff. And he just would kind of giggle.

What if you were like, honey, that's so gross. Stop doing that. He does this all the time at home.

Oh my God. He was up all night. It was so disgusting.

I told him to go farther away from camp. I feel like you should have married him in that moment. That's quite a bit of integrity.

That was nice.

We did break up.

Well, sure.

Sure.

We broke up two years ago. I moved away. I haven't spoken to any of them. And I wonder if he's told them. The moment we broke up, I would have sent an email.

Absolutely. Yeah, me too. Clear your name. Although, I'll tell you what could happen. It would backfire, perhaps the way it's backfired, when Kristen has farted in an elevator and then we've gotten out as people are getting in.

Well, if anyone's listening, I take credit for it.

I apologize.

Oh my God. I wonder if it was sort of obvious, though, because I'm sure you looked ill the next day. Like there's no way you could have gone through that.

That's why I don't know if it was food poisoning, because the next day I felt so good.

Whoa.

Better than ever.

Better than Alfred probably did.

I will say I've been on four or five of those very similar camping trips you're describing to Joshua Tree. And every one of them has had an event. There's the one, I told you, where the guy brought a gorilla suit and he followed the guys out that were hiking and he chased them back and we all thought there was an actual Sasquatch.

Yep.

That was a disaster. I climbed up the rocks, tried to go down another way. It was stuck there. Scotty and I were on shrooms and got lost. One morning someone just walked out of the desert.

Joshua Tree's a weird place.

It is. It's kind of spooky. Yeah, and everyone's on drugs. I mean, that's part of why. Yeah.

If it had to happen anywhere, I'm glad it happened there.

Yeah. Me too.

Oh, well, Rylan, this was a-.

Thanks for that story.

What a dynamite story. I did not see that coming. I always like when it turns to unauthorized evacuations.

Right? I thought you guys might enjoy that part.

Quite a bit. All right, well, wonderful meeting you, Rylan. Okay, have a great day. Bye. All right, take care.

Bye.

Ah, Cameron? Cameron. probably. It looks like it's seven syllables right here.

The E added Cameron.

What if it was Cameron?

It might be Cameron.

Oh, Cameron.

Because the E is in that placement.

Let's find out.

Oh shit, I just remembered.

Did you just Cameron? Yeah.

I just remembered. I didn't finish my connections.

Oh.

I need to do that.

Before the fact check. Maybe I'll do it too. You show me how to do it.

It's a hard one.

If you pooped everywhere, I would definitely take the blame.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

I think some people in my life would take the blame, which is very sweet, but it's more like the idea of anyone being around when that was happening.

Yeah, that's scary for you.

Oh, my God. Hello.

Hey, how's it going?

We've had a great debate over here, whether it's Cameron, because you could make the argument it's Cam-ron.

Or Cam-ron.

It's just a regular old Cameron. Okay.

And your parents, why did they want to throw that E in there? Did they ever explain that to you?

Oh, I've never seen it without the E. Really?

You've never seen Cameron without the E? Cameron is spelled C-A-M-R-O-N.

Oh, or maybe is it C-A-M-E-R-O-N?

No, is it? I think it's usually with a C, but with the E as well.

Oh, you would know better than me. You know, we seemingly have matching sleeves and you're a drummer. I mean, this is pretty ding, ding, dingy.

Yeah. I'm starting off on drums. I've been a guitar player for like 20 something years, but drumming for like six months.

What brought you to drums?

Just seems to be the only other instrument that I've been able to keep up with practice. I've always just been tapping on stuff my whole life. So I figured, you know, now's the time.

Yeah. So Cameron, I'm embarrassed that all Camerons have an E now. I was so definitive. Well, now we know. Now we know, but you taught us.

We love learning.

We love learning. Where are you at in the country?

I am in Connecticut currently.