Armchair Anonymous: School Dance

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Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dax Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Patman. We do love these. Oh, don't we ever.

Of course, this is school dance disasters. Did you have one? Yeah, yeah. You pooped in the punch bowl? No, this is probably worse.

Eighth grade dance, big, big dance. That's the one where everyone dresses up, and no seventh graders or sixth graders. And I'm dating Randy Hamana, who's the prettiest girl in school. We take our two friends, we decide to all go together, and they had made an announcement that you could not rent limousines. Oh.

So my father at the time, who subleased cars, owned a limousine. By the way, Easter egg for this episode. So because my dad owned it, and my brother drove it, we're like, this will be no problem. We didn't rent a limousine. Uh-huh.

Yeah, that's fair. And we went, Randy and I and our two friends, and when we arrived, Bart Montani, my assistant principal, who loved me and couldn't stand dealing with me all at the same time. Oh, my God. He rooted for me and punished me regularly. A lot of people can relate.

He would not let us into the dance. Oh. We were not allowed to go to the dance. Yes, yes. And then so, so then my brother got involved, and he tried to bring us back in a different car.

It was a whole thing. So I ruined, basically. Oh, but you try and do something, so sweet. It's so sweet. I do remember the limo trying to get up and down Randy's driveway, which is in the woods, and we almost didn't make it just because of that.

Wow. Was Randy sad? I think everyone made the best of it. We told ourselves, well, this will be more memorable. It was still a very fun night.

We went out to eat in the limousine. That's fun. Yeah, but I felt, of course, terrible for everyone else. I'm sorry that happened. Of course, I instigated this.

I was trying to be a big shot, I guess. Sometimes you never learn your lessons. I know. Look, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. You're right.

So I guess I did have a school dance disaster. So please enjoy School Dance Disasters. 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.

Hi, is this Megan? This is. Our apologies. Our internet went out. Yeah.

Had to do a hard reset in the basement, but we're back. Oh, that's okay. No worries. Where are you at, Megan? I'm in Indiana.

In which glorious city of Indiana are you in? Indianapolis. Oh, Indy, proper. Heart of the city. Yeah, heart of the state.

I mean, heart of the state. Does your school dance disaster take place in Indiana? No, so, it actually is about my high school prom, and it takes place in Livonia, Michigan. No way! Did you go to Stevenson?

No, I went to Franklin. Franklin. Okay, well, my grandma Yola's taught at Stevenson. I didn't know that, but I've been a fan of this podcast forever. And so I've been listening since the very beginning, and my favorite episode's with your mom.

And she mentioned that she grew up right behind Wonderland Mall, and that's where I grew up. No kidding! I still live there, yeah. Oh, gosh, so we had the Arby's around the corner. Also, when we interviewed Sanjay Gupta, we talked about you had the Ponderosa and the Strip Mall by the Kmart.

So they got rid of the Kmart. Everything has changed a lot. So I don't think they have that anymore, but we are literally right behind. There's a Target and a Walmart, and we're right there. Oh, my God!

Did you say senior prom? It's my senior prom, yeah. Okay, walk us through what happened. Okay, so there's three high schools in Livonia, and I guess there's only two weekends that they can have prom on. So I was dating someone from Churchill, and they chose the same weekend for our proms to be on.

So we had to pick. And so I had some friends at Churchill, and I was like, I think it'll be okay. Let's just go to your prom. We're getting ready for the prom. Everything's going smoothly.

My mom comes out, and she says she has a surprise for me. I'm all dressed up. It was 2011,, so people are wearing huge, poofy princess gowns. We all look like flowers. Oh, beautiful.

My mom comes out, and she goes, oh, we have a surprise for you. My grandma had passed a year prior, and we were really close. I was named after her, and she brings out this box. She goes, I have your grandma's clutch that she took to her prom. It's this cute little bag, and it's bedazzled, and I'm so excited.

She says, just really be careful not to lose it. Don't let anything happen to it. So I'm like, okay, I won't. I promise. So we go to prom.

Actually, everything goes well. We're in a group of 20 people. We have a huge party bus that we rented. After prom, we have about an hour left in our party bus rental. So we decide to tell the driver to just drive around downtown Livonia.

We'll make the use of our time with the bus. So he's driving around the downtown four shops on the side of the road. We're being high school seniors. We're hanging out of the windows, yelling senior year and prom.

Everything's going great. We're having a great time. You're drinking a little bit? Has anyone snuck in some booze? Are people intoxicated?

No, honestly, I didn't really drink in high school. Wow, good job. We were very good. So there was one person in the group that one of the girls had brought him as a date. He was from a neighboring high school.

I can't remember which one. Walled Lake Central. Something like that. The real Dachshund.

And so he was a little sketchy, and I didn't really know if substances were on board. But finally we get back to the girl's house where all of our cars are at. We come in from inside the windows, and I'm looking for my grandma's bag. And I can't find it. I'm looking in the seats.

It's got my cell phone in it, my money, and my boyfriend's car keys. And so I tell him, I'm like, I can't find my bag. So he goes to the front of the bus and kind of blocks off the front. And he makes an announcement. And he's like, everyone, we need to start looking for Megan's bag.

And...

Wow,

you just bared witness to the biggest tech debacle we've had in Armchair history. And thank you for your patience. Wow, I feel honored.

Now, for the audience, our Wi-Fi went out. So now we switched to an iPad, which took a tremendous amount of time figuring out. Yeah, and then we moved to a different recorder. It's a whole thing. Yes, we had a bad cable that we were chasing down everything with.

Anyways, if it sounds a little bit different, that's what happened. I'm so sorry. You were at the point where you were trying to get off the bus and you discovered you did not have grandma's clutch. And your boyfriend was making an announcement. Perfect, I can start there.

Okay, so he gets to the front of the bus. And he basically stands there and blocks off the exit and says, we need to find Megan's purse. It's somewhere on the bus. Everyone start looking. And so as soon as he does that, the sketchy guy stands up, shoves him aside and, like, runs off the bus.

No. Oh, no. And so at this point, all of the guys just kind of like make eye contact and they're all just like, get him. They all just run off the bus. All 10 of us girls are on the bus freaking out.

The girl who brought him as a date is like, he didn't steal it. He doesn't have it. We just kind of let the guys handle it. So they all follow him out. He gets into his car.

The guys surround the car and are basically like yelling things at him, like give it back. We know you have it. But I don't know if he just got nervous or what. But all of a sudden, he just turns his car on and hits the gas straight into the side of the party bus. Oh, my God.

What? He just completely panicked because he's surrounded by this mob of kids. Oh, my goodness. And he thought that was going to get him out? He thought, you know, I've made a couple bad decisions.

It's time to make a great decision. I'm going to T-bone the party bus. I don't really know what the logic was, but that's what happened. And so, luckily, none of the guys got hurt. The bus was a tank, so we were fine.

But I looked out the window that I was hanging out of, and I just see the front of his car like crunched into the side of the bus. And then all of a sudden, I see him back up and take off. And so we all run out of the bus. now. At this point, I am like crying.

I'm like, that's my grandma's purse. And everyone's freaking out. The bus driver's, like, yelling stuff about insurance. And the guys are, like, all amped up. And then, like a movie, it just starts pouring down rain.

And so we're in the street, like, freaking out, trying to call the cops. And, you know, you can't really get that far in the suburbs, with significant front-end damage to your car. So they were actually able to find him pretty quickly. They were searching his car for the bag because we had told them that he stole our purse. They search him everywhere.

They can't find it. It turns out he had stuck it down the front of his pants. And it just fit perfectly. Dead grandma's purse right in his balls. Oh.

No.

Wow. Wow. We got it back. And we got all of our items back. But he ended up going to court because the police pressed charges.

And we were called to court. And my mom was kind of an angel. And she let him off with community service. Oh, my God. Wow.

And he just thought there was a ton of money in that purse? Or he wanted to steal for his grandma, maybe? Kids from Livonia. Like, we don't have a lot in our bags. I don't know.

But maybe because it was bejeweled, it looked expensive. He had maybe sussed you out to be a fancy rich girl. Well, thank God, that all happened at the end of the night. Because it sounds like you had a wonderful prom until then. It was okay before that.

But I'm like, oh, man, I had a disaster prom. Oh, I feel bad for the girl who went. Yes. Tell us about the aftermath with her. Well, so I didn't really know her that well.

But it's funny because when we called the cops, my mom was telling me that, I guess when this guy came to pick her up for the prom, her dad got a bad vibe as well. And he took down his license plate number before he drove her off to prom. And that's how we were able to find the car. Because we gave the police his license plate number. Oh, my Lord.

If you're a dad, you're like, I'm probably just overreacting and being overprotective. I can't really get in the way of this. But I'm going to lease right down this plate. Yep. My Lord, he was right.

He caught on the bad vibes. I wonder what happened to that young man. Did we ever find out years later? Did anyone keep tabs on him? I completely forgot his name.

And hopefully he turned his life around. He's doing okay. Let's hope he learned. Speaking of cars. So I actually have a funny connection with you and a 1979 Honda Accord.

So I called my mom to tell her I was doing this show. And she's like, oh, Dax Shepard. His dad sold me my first car. Oh. Wait, my dad, Dave Shepard, sold your mother her first car?

Yeah. She said it. I wrote it down. Tamaroff, Buick Honda. Oh, wow.

Yes, he worked there. Yeah. They had a mutual friend. And they told her to buy her car from him. And so she ordered her Honda Accord.

And then she went to go pick it up. And she realized she didn't know how to drive a stick shift. So he taught her how to drive stick shift in the parking lot. Oh, that's sweet. Oh, come on.

Well, this turned out to be a lovely surprise. Yeah. I'm so happy to hear that's how my dad behaved. Yeah. Did he take her out for a cocktail?

Yeah.

He's like, let me show you how to drive stick on the way up to Nifty Norman's. We'll grab a couple cocktails and see how you like this thing. Oh, that's nice. Oh, what an amazing coincidence. And then, yes, Livonia.

I mean, I spent all my summers, between five and six off of Merriman. We live right off of Middle Belt. Oh, perfect. Right next to it. Well, Megan, thanks so much for your patience.

That was crazy. That's the most we've ever put a guest through. And your attitude did not suffer at all. You're still all smiles and chipper, chipper. And we thank you for that.

Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. I'd like to give a shout out to my dad, if possible. It's his birthday today. Oh, yes.

Happy birthday, dad. He's in his upper 60s. And he's still working the night shift at the assembly line at Ford. So he's the hardest working person I know. He's just the best.

Oh, that's so sweet. That's also a ding, ding. ding to an episode coming up on Thursday. Yeah, well, we can tell you, yes, the CEO of Ford is on Thursday. Yeah.

Oh, nice. I wish I had known about your dad. I would have put in a good word for him. Well, happy birthday to your dad. What's his name?

Leonard. Leonard. Happy birthday, Leonard. Thanks for making those Fords so tough. And great meeting you, Megan.

Nice to meet you guys, too. Have a good one. Bye. Okay, take care. Hello.

Ben, can you hear us? Nod, if you can hear us. No. I can hear you. Oh, we can hear you now.

And now we can hear you. Perfect. How you doing? So? sorry for our delay.

We've had tremendous technical difficulties. And now we're talking to you on an iPad, over cellular. You're forgiven. Oh, thank you so much. It's awesome to meet you guys.

You too, Ben. Where are you in the country? I'm in upstate New York, small town near Syracuse. How far from Niagara Falls? Like a couple hours.

I'm actually for the unifials. I'm in Ithaca, New York, Cornell University. Very fancy. Yes. So you had a crazy school dance experience?

Yeah, I did. So this particular school dance was a Halloween dance. It was my senior year of high school. And I'm a pretty introverted guy, not super comfortable in social situations. So I wasn't planning on going.

As sensitive as I am to social situations, I'm also pretty willing to succumb to social pressures. Oh, no. Great. I hadn't planned on going all day. And at the end of the day, I get calls from a couple of friends.

One friend in particular, Kyle, convinced me to go. But it's last minute and it's a Halloween dance. So I do not have a costume. So I'm raiding closets in my parents' house. I end up with an amalgam of random things that I'm throwing on.

The first of which is a long, black, curly wig reminiscent of Slash, Guns N' Roses. I coupled that with a really cool Buffalo Bills jersey, a practice jersey. It was one of those ones that ends at your belly button and is mostly see-through. A midriff neck. Yeah.

Oh, beautiful. I top it off with some cut-off jean shorts that I fashioned that night before the dance. It was my first attempt as a seamstress. And the last, when I put them on, I realized I had gone a little bit too far. Not much left to the imagination.

with these shorts. Daisy Dukes, proper short shorts? Exactly. I was probably breaking some school dress codes. But that got overlooked due to some of the other things that were about to take place.

I get it all together and we head to my sister's apartment. She was a college student at the time, living locally. A few minutes from the high school. So we head over to her house and convince her to procure some social lubricant. Sure.

Yes, you're going to need it. You're an introvert. What else can you do? Absolutely. I think.

in my response to the prompt, I said that it was King Vladimir. It was a lateral move. It was actually Barton's. My sister wanted to make sure that was clear. I don't know if you know Barton's Vodka.

No. It's a $10 plastic handle. Good stuff. You're getting a full liter for $10 or you're getting a full half gallon for $10?. It's like the huge handle.

I'm really not sure, but it's plastic. So, indicative of the quality. It's effective. That's what they're known for. So I take three or four shots.

We're in her kitchen. Kyle takes three or four shots. You know, not peak tolerance as a senior in high school. As we're leaving, I decide, yeah, that was not enough. And I turn on my heels as we're walking out the door and I bolt to the kitchen alone.

And I grab the handle. and I don't bother with a glass. this time. I take one disastrous pull from this thing. It sealed my fate for the rest of the night.

Yeah, Barton's. It was disgusting. And it's not 30 seconds before I've realized I've completely overshot the landing on this one. You're messy. Yeah.

Oh, it's messy. very quickly. I'm getting out of the car and I vividly remember having the thought. This is definitely the drunkest I've ever been. And in fact, that thought a few minutes after that drink is the last thing I remember for the night.

Oh, wow. Right into the blackout. Yeah, right into it. So everything from here on out is eyewitness accounts.

And I've talked to a few friends and gotten some clarity on a few things over the past couple of days. But I walk into the dance. It's immediately apparent to everyone who's paying attention that I am hammered. I'm very excited to be there. I get through checkpoint one, getting in and saying hello to a few people.

It's so obvious how drunk I am that a kid that didn't even know me pulls out his picture phone from 06 and starts snapping pictures of me for posterity. He knows he'll be telling the story later, so he wants a little photographic evidence. Exactly. So. I walk into the gym and just get right down to it.

I'm putting on a show with some air guitar, a lot of air humping. Oh, wow. You know, it's a school dance, so it had just started and most people haven't gotten comfortable yet with the dancing. So I'm one of just a few and I'm getting a circle gathering around me. Oh, wonderful.

Yeah, so it culminates in me getting down on the floor on my side doing the classic air guitar move. Where you spin in a circle like Michael J. Fox. Running in circles. Yes, back to the future style.

Exactly, right. So at this point, one of my friends has the wherewithal to think we need to get Ben out of this situation. This is not going to end well. So he does what he can to get me to a bathroom. Unfortunately, there's only one bathroom.

It's the main one off of the gym that everyone's going to be going in and out of. He gets me in there. I immediately get sick. All that spinning in your guitar. move on the ground.

Yeah, exactly. People are shuffling in and out and there's no hiding what's going on in there. So, lo and behold, the last visitor into the bathroom while I'm in there is our principal. Yes. My friend is standing behind me, steadying me, trying to keep me upright.

And our principal walks in and he grabs my friend by the shoulder and pulls him back. And one of the off-quoted statements from this event, he pulls him back and he says, You're out. I'm in. Oh, I like that. Like tagging him out as a big time wrestler.

The principal drags me to his office, starts making some phone calls. He calls my parents, obviously. I don't know if he alerted the authorities, but he called for an ambulance. An ambulance? That seems extreme.

It was clear it had reached a point where I needed medical attention. Oh, no. Oh, no. That must have been an enormous pull. you took out of the plastic handle.

It was a lot. Yeah. I at least doubled what I had taken before that. That's my guess, anyway. But I'm sitting in his office.

He's making phone calls. We're waiting for people to arrive to take me. For whatever reason, I decide I'm going to stand up with authority and I lean over his desk. Palms down on the desk like I'm going to say something to the principal, but I don't say anything. I then puke again all over his desk.

Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, my God. Oh, boy. The principal was not happy, obviously.

And then I continue to puke, this time in a blue recycling bin. He keeps me somewhat in order until the ambulance gets there. Oh, Jesus. At the school stand. And you look like a bozo.

You're in a mid-driven jean shorts. Are these your wigs still on? You had to have lost the wig by now, is my guess, though. I'm guessing I took that off. There's no way.

that thing made it through all that. So the ambulance gets there. I'm feeling there's an injustice happening. Why am I being targeted? I'm sure other people here have had eight shots of Barton's Vodka before getting here.

I get a little bit uncooperative as they're getting me into a stretcher. I'm becoming violent. I'm swatting at the paramedics. They're just trying to get me into this ambulance. It takes quite a while.

Eventually, they apply handcuffs to get me from taking someone out. As I'm on my way to the hospital and the ambulance, my dad and sister are also on their way. My sister is in a lot of trouble, obviously. The older sister and booze supplier. I get to the hospital and they do some diagnostics.

Make sure I haven't hit my head or anything like that. They give me a catheter. And I am then later told that the catheter was given by a close church friend of my oldest sister. Oh, great. So the church friend saw your penis.

Handled. it, actually. Got all up in there. And I have to see her all the time after this. So every time I see her, it's extremely painful.

So they give me the catheter. Probably the most shameful thing I did during this night was when the attending physician came in, I'm talking to him and I realize that he's the father of one of my classmates who I'm not friends with. He's a very nice kid, but he's a devout member of the goth community. And I say to the doctor, are you so-and-so's dad? And he says, yes, I am.

And I respond, why is your son such a fucking weirdo? Oh, no. I feel absolutely terrible about that. I hesitated to even include that in the story, but it happened. Listen, we applaud your honesty, especially when, being this tasteful.

Look, Monica stole some cookies. She might have been racist to a classmate. God knows what I've done. We appreciate it. Yeah.

Oh, no. What'd he say? I didn't get that part of the account of what happened. I think he was pretty nice about it. Oh, I found out that my BAC was 0.29..

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Yeah, 0.08 is legally drunk behind the wheel. You 3X'd that. Did they have to pump your stomach?

They didn't have to go that far. Luckily, I got rid of most of it before getting in the hospital. They just kept things moving along with the catheter. That was that for the hospital visit. Afterward, I'm in the car on my way home with my dad and my sister.

And an important detail of the story is that my dad is a deeply religious guy and very conservative and, in fact, has never had a drop of alcohol in his life. He's never been drunk. Whoa, whoa. Like Jehovah's Witness type. Yeah, a lot of fire and brimstone in his youth.

And he was under the impression you drink alcohol and you're done. That's sealing your fate. Well, he kind of was a little bit right in this situation, unfortunately. Right. So he's trying to relate to me, to a person he can't possibly relate to in that moment, and trying to talk some sense.

and, you know, why'd you do this? And I'm not hearing any of it. My wits are not about me at all still at this point. And the only thing I can seem to come up with in response to what he's saying is over and over again in front of my sister and to my dad, I just keep saying, Dad, I want to fuck bitches. Oh my God!

Oh, my God. You're like in a fucking 90s comedy at this point. You're in that Project X or something. Oh. I just keep repeating it.

He keeps just confirming, okay, that's what you want to do. Really, son, do you? And that's pretty much it. until the next morning we get home. I wake up, zero memory.

I don't know what's going on. I'm in my family's living room, on the couch, with a big comforter over me. And I think, well, maybe I just got home and fell asleep on the couch. Maybe nothing terrible happened. And I look down and on my wrist is the hospital bracelet.

Oh.

The wave of anxiety was intense. It was horrible. I can feel it every time I think about it. And I was suspended for a week. Obviously, I had to deal with the disappointment of my parents, which was the worst piece of it.

My friend Kyle, at some point during the night, I think, when I was in my principal's office, was trying to convince the principal, everything's fine, don't worry about it. Trying to save the day, this is going to blow over. Let's get past this. And in so doing, got himself into trouble. Oh, boy.

We call this a grand slam. You did it all. You left nothing unwrapped. There was one more detail. We got barred from trying out for basketball that winter.

Oh, no. That's a dumb punishment. You don't need less involvement. Right, more structure. Let's give this guy more free time to drink after school.

The cherry on top, though, actually was I contracted epididymitis from the catheter. What the fuck is epididymitis? What's that? I don't know the specifics exactly, but I do know that, sorry to be graphic, but my scrotum weighed what felt like a couple of pounds. Just super infected.

Oh. Oh, my lord. Terrible, terrible pain for a few days. Oh. Were they swollen?

They were extremely swollen. I want to say like three to four times their normal size. Grapefruit territory? Getting close. It was weird.

Was there any auto-erotic part of you that enjoyed how big they looked? Be honest. It was kind of fun. I mean, I don't want to do it again, but it was kind of fun. Yeah, I just feel like I wouldn't mind.

If there was no pain associated with it, I wouldn't mind having grapefruit balls for a day or two. Feel like a chimpanzee. Wow. Oh, my goodness, Ben. You really did it.

You left no stone unturned. You got to think about what it's like to be a principal of a high school. You got 500 kids showing up to a dance. And you just know like, yeah, percentage-wise, I will be dealing with someone in a blackout in a couple hours. It didn't occur to me until much later that that puke had to be cleaned off his entire desk by someone.

I feel terrible about that. I bet there were papers. We lost some paperwork, for sure. We definitely did.

Well, Ben, that's a barn burner. I'm glad you didn't sustain any more injuries other than the elephantitis of the testicles. I think you got out probably pretty unscathed, considering the condition we know you're in. Well, basketball, that's bad. Oh, yeah, that's bad.

You could have played for the Knicks. And just the guilt of getting my friend in trouble, who was relatively responsible in trying to save the day, and he was actually an athlete and really would have liked the chance to try out for a senior year basketball. Oh, no. And you took your sister down, too. There was some carnage.

Yeah, a lot to learn. Did you ever end up drinking responsibly, or did it turn out you had a problem? Not right. after that. I had a few more events.

I still do drink, but I've learned to do so responsibly. This was half a lifetime ago. I'm 34 today, 17 that day. So it took a couple years, but I got there. I'm glad you got through.

Figured it out. Well, Ben, it's great to meet you. Thank you so much for telling us that story. Thank you guys, so much. Bye!

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What an experience. The introvert of it all is interesting, isn't it? That's common. Yeah. I do remember high school parties where the shy person would be all of a sudden at an 11..

I didn't even know they had it in them. It's a coping mechanism, so that's why they over drink. Also, he looked exactly like my 8th grade teacher, who then became a school principal. Oh, my ding ding dingles. It did remind me of, I have a very similar story from high school.

Colleen, who I'm in love with, comes over with her friend, a snowboarder. Maybe I'm trying to impress them. We're drinking vodka, same thing, and I drink probably 8 or 10 ounces of it. It occurs to me that I'm too drunk as I fall down the staircase into my basement. Oh, no.

Which was a very, very long staircase. And as I was plumping around, I thought, oh, I really can't walk right now. Oh, God. Did you throw up? I threw up.

She kind of tucked me in, and then she drove her friend back in Barton's minivan and then returned and took care of everything. Thank you, Colleen. That was nice.

Hi. Can you hear us?

Is this thing on? Now we can hear you. Can you hear us? I sure can. Oh, wonderful.

Is it Amanda? Yes. We're not anonymous today. Okay, wonderful. Where are you at?

I'm in North Carolina. What town in North Carolina are you in? It's not exciting. It's Cary. It's a suburb of Raleigh.

Does your school dance disaster take place in this town? It sure does. I do want to give a shout-out to two armchairs, may I? Yes, please. Kerrigan and Meredith have been armchairs with me from day one.

I just had to give them a shout-out. I cannot forget to say their names before I bid you guys adieu. Kerrigan? What a cool name. Not that Meredith is not a cool name, but Kerrigan?

Yes, it is. Beautiful. Are they involved in this story? They are not. The story takes place in North Carolina and there's some context.

The dance was a middle school dance. I was hoping for one. Those were my favorite ones. They're the worst. Or the best, if you love junior high, like I did.

We didn't all thrive. A little awkward, probably, at that age, for a dance. Some background. My family moved to North Carolina right before I started middle school. The story takes place in the 7th grade, but, just to give some context, in the 6th grade, as I'm trying to hit my stride, find my friends, I had my first day of school, the chair pulled out from underneath me.

Full ass on the floor. That's what we're working with.

We get to 7th grade. I've hit my growth spurt, both in height and weight. Self-confidence at this point in life was not good. There's meat on my bones. At that age, Monica, I'm sure you remember, some girls are this thin, other girls are maturing.

It's very awkward, but I had insisted because I have some meat on my bones, I need a woman's bra. I need that underwire. I need the cup. I'm not going to negotiate. It's time for the bra.

But I don't have any boobs. You don't actually need the support. I don't have boobs, but because I'm filling out in other areas, I'm like, let me just try to feel not so chubby and awkward, but I'm womanly. So I forced a solution that I did not need. You were like, I'm going to embrace being voluptuous.

Yeah, I'm going to fake it until I make it. The problem that arose from wearing a real bra without actual boobs is that any tight top I wore, I had crater nipples. The shirt just concaved at the nipple where there should be boob to fill the cup out. Oh no, I see. Were.

they padded, the bras? That thin little pad looks horrible, but I committed to it. I don't quit. I'm like, I have to wear this bra. I made a big deal out of it.

So that brings me to the end of year dance. It's very exclusive. It's only for the 7th and 8th graders. So I'm very excited. Never been to a school dance, never gotten dressed up, never done my makeup.

So I got ready with one of my best friends at the time, Grace. And she's the perfect friend in middle school. you want to get ready for a school dance with. She gets Teen Bop. She reads Seventeen Magazine.

Sometimes her mom lets her read Cosmo. So she knows fashion. She knows how to use a hair straightener. And I'm feeling good, but I just hated the dress that I picked out. So I looked through her closet, and thankfully she let me wear this light yellow V-neck dress, and I am just loving it.

It's the cutest thing ever. The problem is, with a light colored dress, you're seeing crater nipple. Uh huh, sure. So we're like, okay, I love this dress. I want to wear it.

What can we do? We try to put on a hot pink tank top underneath, thinking more fabric. Are you being honest with your friend about the bra situation? Oh, yeah. Okay, great.

She's like, Amanda, all the girls stuff their bras. Let's just go ahead and do that. Yeah. In a matter of seconds, I have like half a box of tissue just jammed in there. And I look in the mirror, and I'm like, I'm a woman.

I'm feeling so phenomenal. And so I feel so good about myself that I'm like, let's take a photo shoot in your backyard. And I sent in Wabi Wab, a picture of like me sitting on her play set, like wind in my hair. I'm like, this is going to modeling scouts. Let me take a look.

Oh, yeah. I gotta see this. Okay, it doesn't look that stuffed. You did a good job. Yeah, this is great.

Because I'm so flat. The fact that half a box of tissues is stuffed in there. The half box, didn't get you to even a B cup. probably. No, regardless.

My confidence is through the roof. So that takes us to the dance itself. It fits every stereotype of a middle school dance. It's held in an auditorium that has little to no air conditioning. The cheapest DJ that Cary, North Carolina can find.

I'm dancing my ass off. The problem was the dreaded slow dance was not something, emotionally I was prepared for. So my strategy was let me go outside where the PTA moms have, like the light refreshments. Like, I'm going to cool off, be cool. I refuse to be stuck in the dance floor, not being asked to dance in a slow song.

Go outside and all of a sudden I hear my name. I turn my head and it is my crush walking towards me. To this day, I can still feel my heart simultaneously in my throat and my butt. Like, I am on cloud nine. And he's like, why don't you come in and slow dance with me?

Oh, wow. Oh my goodness. So we go in and, like I said, very stereotypical middle school dance. You are stiff arm lengths away. God forbid you make eye contact with whomever you're dancing with.

It's way too intimate. Can't look at each other. We're doing the stiff arm thing, like looking at him. Like, is he looking at me? Oh, my gosh.

We get more comfortable. The slow song progresses. We start looking at each other and I notice he is digging what I've put on my body tonight. He's looking at my dress. He's like, this is so phenomenal.

I can just feel it. Like, he is loving it. Until he gets this funny look on his face and he kind of awkwardly smiles and he's like, so what's that thing in your shirt? Oh, fuck. And I look down and it becomes apparent at that moment in time.

Because he was so much taller than me, my biceps were like at my ears, which meant his vantage point had completely unobstructed view down to... Oh, the tissue. the end of my bra. Oh, wow. He just sees a mountain of tissue in there.

I quickly run to the bathroom to assess the situation. I hold myself up in a stall and I look down and I see what once was voluptuous, fluffy tissue has now congealed itself into like a wet wad sitting at the bottom of my bra. Oh, you had gotten a little sweaty throughout the dance and it wicked up. Very hot in North Carolina. Not only had it formed itself into this wet wad, because I had been moving so much, it started to like disintegrate into like little pieces.

So I had like white speckled tissue all over my boob. Like, I looked diseased. Oh, boy. Not what you want. This is not what you want.

Trying to clean myself up. I've just gone from feeling like I'm going to get scouted by modeling scouts. I'm feeling myself. Now I have a boyfriend too. My life is over.

I can never talk to this guy again. And I vowed in that bathroom. I'm never going to make eye contact. I'm never going to talk to this kid ever again. And I was successful in that mission.

I avoided him like the plague. Very small school. And I did not talk to him for the remainder of six years that we went to school together. Oh, my goodness. Oh, wow.

Moral of the story is, I mean, there's a lot. One, we can't all have fat natchies and we just have to be grateful for what we have. The more important moral of the story is I went to a really small school, like I mentioned. Not once did I hear a rumor about me from him, spreading it that he was talking badly about me. So I don't know how many.

I don't do fast math like Dex. But all these years later, I am so proud of that kid and that kid's parents. Yeah. You should have dated him. He was a good person.

Yeah, he probably didn't care. That's the thing. Like, I know at that age, for me, I was certainly mature enough that I would have just felt bad for you and I would have been happy to ignore it and keep it moving. I mean, most of the dudes that are being assholes don't have attention from gals. That's true.

Yeah, maybe he might have been the one. Are you married? I am married very happily. And I actually, before I go, I wanted just to say, the second I got the email that I was allowed on this show, I could not keep it a secret from my friends, because they know how much I love the podcast. But there is a secret that I have not told them yet.

What better way to tell them this secret than on this show? Oh, I can guess. And that secret is that I'm pregnant. Yay! Oh, my God!

Well, congratulations! Now you're going to have huge fat natchies. I am finally going to get to my fat natchies era and I am thrilled. Oh, that's so exciting. Congratulations.

And that's never happened on here. I love that. Yes. Do you think there'll ever be a marriage proposal on here? It seems like that could happen.

I would love that. Yeah. We've now had a baby announcement. Wow. Now you'll know if they really listen or if they're just pretending to be armchairs.

That's true. Yes. We'll find out. Wow. Well, Amanda, congratulations.

And I'm so sorry you had that experience. You must have thought your entire life was over. It's such a precarious age, isn't it, 12 years old? Oh, boy. Not great, but it's so fabulous to meet you both.

Dax, you're my celebrity hall pass. I got a confirmation from my husband that I could say that. He's like, I guess. And I was like, he's going to be creeped out. I was like, I don't care.

I have to say it. I'm not creeped out. I'm flattered. So many people have Monica as their hall pass that once in a while I get one, and I am very grateful for it. Well, I'm happy to say Monica, happy belated birthday.

Thank you. I'm not mad at you about the blue crew neck Aris sweatshirt. Oh, thank God. I'm actually mad at myself for not thinking about it, for being honest with ourselves. I appreciate it.

I appreciate your generosity. Amanda, so nice meeting you. Thank you for telling that story to us, and congratulations. I'm so happy for you. Yes.

Thank you so much. Bye. Bye. Take care. Bye.

Hello. Scott, can you hear us? Hey, I can. How you doing? We're so sorry about our tardiness.

We had a full Wi-Fi meltdown. We're now on cellular, and we're on an iPad. So, forgive us, please. No problem. Hope this works out okay.

Yes, Scott, where are you? I'm in Florida. We just moved here from Kansas not too long ago. Oh. Monica, I'm not a Florida gator.

Oh, good. Thank God. So, you're a saver. Yeah. Okay.

So, you're going to tell us, though, about a school dance that took place in Kansas. Correct. I'm going to go way back to October of 1998.. Oh, beautiful. It's my senior year in high school.

We had about 1,200 people that went to our school, and drinking was pretty rampant at our school, like, I think, most high schools. We would, of course, attend pre-parties before the dance, but this was shaping up to be a little bit different. So, about a week out, rumors started swirling that school administration was going to have breathalyzers at the dance as people went in. You know, this really started putting a damper on people's plans. Can I quickly ask, what kind of dance was it?

Was it homecoming or prom or something different? Sorry, it was a homecoming dance. Okay, great. So, we're getting into fall. It's getting dark early.

Cider season. Let's go. You got it. So, that week of the dance, I'm studying with one of my buddies, Carl, and we're at his house, and just sort of out of the blue, he's like, Scott, I can't be sober at the dance. And I'm like, I know.

I know. Me too, right? It's a non-negotiable. We really need some liquid courage to help us dance, right? Yeah.

So, we started to hatch a plan. And we figured that if we couldn't drink before the dance, we would just drink inside the dance. Yep. Yep. Great call.

Our first step was to figure out how to get it into the dance. So, Carl and I were both on student council. We were model students, as you can tell by this story. Well, you were studying with Paul. I can't tell you.

I had a lot of study dates in my senior year of high school. Yeah. As student council, we went to decorate before the dance. That was our responsibility. So, on Saturday morning, we would go decorate for the dance.

It would give us plenty of time to hide booze there. Inside job. Inside job. Yeah. Like a bank job.

Yeah, exactly. So, Carl and I needed to figure out also how to conceal the booze because we had purchased a pint of gin for the occasion. But we felt it was too risky to just hide a bottle of gin in the dance. And so, we needed another method. In retrospect, putting it into a water bottle seemed really smart, but we weren't quite that smart.

So, we picked the next best option, which was putting it into PVC pipes. Very interesting choice. Wait, what? Yes. Very, very interesting choice.

Okay. You know what that is, right, Monica? That white pipe, you see, it's plastic. Yeah. Yeah, that's PVC.

But, like, isn't it open-ended? It is. You must have had to cap it. Yeah. So, we went to the hardware store and we bought PVC pipe.

just that, yeah, standard white three-quarter inch PVC pipe, and then in caps, to cap the end of it. And we brought it home and we cut it into four sections. We had two longer sections, two shorter sections. The longer sections held about four shots of gin. The two smaller ones held two shots of gin.

And we made sure, you know, they were watertight when we capped them and everything like that. It was a great plan. Are you an engineer now? No, I'm not. Oh.

Major, Ken Kennedy vibes. This is something Ken Kennedy would do for sure. This is great. Yeah, we love it. So, Saturday morning, we go to the school to decorate for the dance.

It's a great opportunity. Very few people are there. Coast is clear. We can come and go as we please. So, we carry these tubes of gin into the boys' bathroom by the cafeteria.

And in a school bathroom, there's not many places to hide things. But there were three sinks. So, we took three of the pipes and we just duct-taped them up underneath the sink. Did it cross your mind to put it in the tank of the toilet? Or it probably didn't have a tank.

It was tankless, right? Oh, okay, okay. But there were only three sinks. And so, we took the fourth tube and we duct-taped it behind the toilet, the very back. And it was a great hiding spot, completely concealed.

And we left. That night, we arrive at the dance. And were they really actually doing breathalyzers? or was that a scare tactic? No breathalyzers.

Yeah. So, we hang out for a little bit. Then we make a beeline for the bathroom. And we each take one of the longer tubes with four shots of gin in it. We pop the top off of it.

We just sort of have this moment where we're both looking at each other and we're like, okay, one, two, three. You know, put it to our lips and tilt it all the way back. And that's likely where this story started going sideways. Oh, sure. The one thing that we had never done in all of our planning and preparation was we had never drank out of the tubes before.

Oh. And there was some weird back pressure thing. that happened. And the gin just shot straight out of the tube, straight down our throats. Four shots of gin, boom, straight down the hatch.

Mainline, mainline. It happened to both of us. And Carl and I look at each other with big eyes. And as we're trying to swallow and gut this gin. And I'm just thinking to myself, like, oh, shit, I messed up.

I had drank before, but I'm a very inexperienced drinker. Oh, no. I'm a one beer tipsy type of guy. And I'm not a shots guy. And certainly not a four shots at once.

guy. Four for one guy. You know, Scott, he's a four for one guy. We take the tubes, we hide them in the trash. We're like, hey, we're out on these other ones.

Like, we need to just be done here. We could be in deep, deep trouble. Carl, is he panicked? Yeah, he's panicked too. This was just a little too much for us.

Oh, you guys are so sweet. You're in student council. You did all this preparation and it breaks my heart.

So another guy walks in to the bathroom and we tell him the story and we're like, hey, if you want these other two tubes, you can have them. Just drink them and then, when you're done, just put them into the trash. He's like, yeah, yeah, I got it. This is awesome. We're like, all right, just don't forget, right?

Put them in the trash. Yeah, yeah, I got it. So we walk out. We head back to the dance. This great buzz starts to kick in.

We manage it okay, the whole time. We end up having this great night. Wow. That's really where I hoped that the story would end. But this is where the disaster begins.

Uh-oh. Fast forward. It's Monday morning. For some reason, I didn't have a first hour class. I came at second period, which was about nine o'clock.

And I pull into the parking lot and immediately knew something was wrong. There's about ten cop cars in the parking lot. Uh-oh. And, you know, this is late 90s. This is before security officers at schools and this kind of thing.

One police officer was too much to see at school, let alone ten cop cars, right? Oof. I'm a little concerned. Keep driving through the parking lot. And by the cafeteria, there's this giant black truck.

And the best way to describe it is, imagine a 26-foot U-Haul truck, completely black. It's like a semi on the front and a box truck on the back. It has police lights on top. The back of it is wide open. And there's a man in camouflage army fatigues that's dressing in a shiny silver suit.

Uh-oh. It just hit me what happened. Okay, continue. I go inside and the first friend I see, I'm like, hey, what happened? What's all this police commotion outside?

And he's like, I guess a janitor was cleaning this morning and found a pipe bomb in the bathroom. Yep, yep, yep. And so I started having this, of course, sinking feeling. I'm like, which bathroom? Like that would matter.

The one by the cafeteria. And I was like, oh no, my life's over. Oh god. Come to find out the buddy that we gave it to, he drank one of them, left the other one behind the toilet. The janitor had come in in the morning and found that.

Taped up, he thought it was a pipe bomb. He contacted, you know, the principal. The principal contacted the police. And naturally, I guess, the police just called the local army bomb squad to come.

Oh, my god. Oh, my lord. Carl and I were quite panicked about this. We were good kids and so our first instinct was let's just come clean. Let's go down to the principal's office, just come clean, tell him, hey, big misunderstanding.

We thought about that for a few minutes and decided that was an awful idea. Good, good, good. There's no reason for you to own up to this. Instead, we decided to cover our tracks and deny, deny, deny until this day. Wow, you never got caught.

What? Wow. Good. I think that's because of your good karma points, because you were a good kid. You were a good boy, yeah.

I was very nervous that you were going to go. turn yourself in because there's zero proof. How on earth did they conclude? who? Well, the other boy, though.

I'd be worried about that other boy. Loose lips, sink ships. Yeah. They were fingerprinting the pipes and we were trying to cover our tracks. So where we bought the pipe?

at the hardware store, we had a buddy, Andrew, who worked there. Andrew told us, hey, I have access to the security room. So he went in and he switched the security tapes. Oh my. So the tape got overwritten.

Oh. We felt really good about that. Wow. Yes. This is a full, like.

It's a real inside job, as I said. Yes. It's a shame, you guys, you didn't get into a life of crime. Heist. Yeah.

It could have been successful. Right, right. Wait, what do you do? I'm in the dental business. Oh.

Okay. The dental hustle. Wow. I'm so impressed. Yeah, this is great.

I think you did the right thing. From beginning to end, I think you did the right thing. Yeah. I like every part of it. Well, thanks.

Well, hopefully, the statute of limitations has run out and, you know, if it hasn't, please just keep this between us and your listeners. Yes, we'll do. There's only three or four of us, so nothing to worry about. Well, Scott, we wish you tons of luck on your move to Florida and we enjoyed that story. so much.

Thank you. Hey, thanks. And I just have one more request. So today is my wife's birthday. Get her in.

She's a huge farm sherry. Let's go. Jane. Oh, here comes Jane. Hi, guys.

Hi, Jane. Nice to meet you. Happy belated birthday, Monica. Oh, thank you. No shit that you guys are in the dental racket.

Look at these smiles. I know. I know. I thought that even during. I know.

I want to keep my lips over my teeth. right now. Both of us. Stop it. Well, it's so nice to meet you.

Yeah, thanks for being an arm cherry. Diehard, arm chair since day one. Oh, my God. Day one. So nice to meet you guys.

So nice to meet you. We love Scott. Oh, I'm glad you had fun. He's much more, but well behaved now. Yeah.

He seemed kind of well behaved then. Yeah. He's a good kid now. Yeah. Good boy.

Good boy. Take care. Thank you so much. Bye. Bye.

Those were fun. Those were really fun. It makes me want to go back to my junior high dances. so bad. Did you have junior high dances?

Yeah. We had, well, eighth grade. Everyone was invited. Six, seven, eight. Actually, I'm wrong.

We had multiple. You had multiple. Yeah. We had one or two a year, I think, in junior high. And what was great is, for the people that didn't want to dance, like me, the gym was open and they would play dodgeball.

Oh. Right? You didn't want to dance? No, no. I was dancing, but for the other boys who were afraid to dance.

Oh, I see. No, I didn't get off the dance floor. But the way you said it, it sounded like... And Aaron was so confused by this behavior. He just couldn't fathom wanting to dance.

Oh, he didn't want to. God, no. He never danced. None of the boys I hung out with really danced. They were more the tough kids.

I could see Aaron wanting to dance. As we got older and we would go to punk shows all the time, he would dance in there, which is a little bit different kind of dancing. Is that more like banging in your head? More his speed, kind of mashing into people. Wow.

Rough and tumby. I only had one date to a dance. It was my senior prom and he was from another school. And what was his name? His name was Nithin.

Nithin? Okay. Shout out to Nithin. Yeah, he's doing really well. Yeah, you hear updates?

Is he on a tech company or something? Yeah. He does. Perfect, perfect, perfect. Alright.

Well, I love you. That was so much fun. Love you. Do you want to sing a tune or something? We don't have a theme song.

Oh. Okay, great. We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go. We're gonna ask some random questions and, with the help of arm cherries, we'll get some suggestions. On the fly rhyme dish, on the fly rhyme dish, enjoy.

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