Armchair Anonymous: Babysitting
2023-11-03 00:56:45
Hi, I’m Dax Shepard, and I love talking to people. I am endlessly fascinated by the messiness of being human, and I find people who are vulnerable and honest about their struggles and shortcomings to be incredibly sexy. I invite you to join me as I explore other people’s stories. We will celebrate, above all, the challenges and setbacks that ultimately lead to growth and betterment. What qualifies me for such an endeavor? More than a decade of sobriety, a degree in Anthropology and four years of improv training. I will attempt to discover human “truths” without any laboratory work, clinical trials or data collection. I will be, in the great tradition of 16th-century scientists, an Armchair Expert.
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Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Doug Fairbanks, and I'm joined by Mae West. Hello. I'm Mae. Before we kick off this episode, I want to tell the listeners, the cherries, the prompts for next month.
Let's do it.
The prompts are as follows. This is by popular demand. It arose from the episode on Great Hospitality. And that is, tell us, your meet cute. And people were downright offended that I didn't think that was a ubiquitous term.
Yeah.
Yeah, they were. And it was your idea.
No one wanted to do it. People shut down... People, meaning you.
Me.
Shut down the idea of doing meet cute. And then the cherries spoke.
Yeah, so I hope this will be one example that I do listen, and that... To the cherries. Yes, and it is a democracy. I listen to you quite a bit as well. So it is still democratic in nature.
And so I've been overpowered, vetoed by the cherries. So tell us about your meet cute. Tell us about a crazy gym story, something that happened at the gym. Love gym stories. Everyone's pretty vulnerable at the gym.
They're in very thin clothes, and they're doing weird stuff in front of each other. Injuries, right for a crazy story. Third, tell us about a wild holiday vacation. Wild holiday vacation. It'd be great if it was Christmassy, as we are knocking on the door.
If it was a cold story.
And Saint Nick was involved.
Yeah, or a menorah. Menorah on fire. Like, I don't know, there are things.
Oh, grandma. Was that... That was Thanksgiving. Gammy. Oh, yeah.
Gammy. Gammy was fully engulfed in flames.
Yeah.
Anyway, there's lots of options.
I hate how many people. we've heard fire stories. A lot. We've had an inordinate amount of people that have been badly burned.
I know.
I know, I hate it. I hate it.
Because that's really scary.
So brutal. Okay, those are the prompts, but that is, alas, not today's episode. Today's episode is crazy babysitting experiences, slash stories.
You can listen to all these.
Oh, okay.
But, one is...
But, the last?
But, B-U-T-T. Great. Yeah.
They're all great, but one really will get you. If you're the boy in that story, and you're all grows up, and you want to tell us what happened.
Yeah.
Email us. He's an adult now.
I don't know, that guy wasn't that old. I don't know how old that guy was.
I don't know why. in my mind it was 09.. Maybe. I don't know.
I don't remember.
If you're an adult, and you want to talk about this. You want to share. We'd love to hear your side of it. Please enjoy crazy babysitting stories.
My life, I had them both. If ever one thing, you gotta know. I'ma keep on shining.
Hello. Hi.
Oh, wonderful. We can hear you. Can you hear us?
I can hear you perfectly, and you guys look great in those chairs. It's so fun to see you live.
Thank you. And, is your name Curry?
It is Curry.
This is incredible. How did your parents come across Curry?
It's a family last name. Okay. My mom's mom's last name was Curry, and she unfortunately passed while she was pregnant with me. So, she named me Curry as an honor to her.
Steph Curry. That's a Curry last name.
I think I'm older than Steph. So, I like to say I'm the OG.
We hate that.
Isn't that depressing?
It's really depressing.
I hate being older than these NBA players. I'm older than the coaches. now, Curry. Like, most of the coaches, are younger. Oh.
Well, you know who's older than you? Marie Curie.
She's long dead. That's true.
She's past and older than you.
Long gone.
Good job on another Curry.
Thank you.
So, Curry, you have a wild babysitting experience.
I do. Well, I'm so excited to talk to you guys today. And before I get started, I promised my fiancé, who helped me set up in the closet, that I would tell you, Jax, that he loved you as Frito in the criminally underrated film, Idiocracy.
Your husband sounds like a genius. Is he a bona fide genius?
He really is. That's why I'm marrying him.
Okay, wonderful.
Oh, fiancé.
I'm sorry, you said fiancé.
Well, almost husband. Fun.
When and where are you getting married?
Next September, back in Maine.
Oh, my God. Give us the address. We'll come.
Yep, we'll be there.
If you guys want to come to my wedding, I swear to God you are invited.
If we have to poop in the yard while everyone looks, that's a pre-negotiated fee, just so you know. That's fine.
That's going to cost some dollars.
Okay, where did this babysitting story happen? In Maine?
No, it took place in Boston. So I grew up just outside of Boston. Actually in the town where you got some great hospitality, in Wellesley, when you had the whole debacle with the airport.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. What a cute town. We walked the dogs in this insanely bucolic, beautiful park.
It's really gorgeous. But this was back in 2002.. I was about 15 years old, so born in 87, and have a dad that very much instilled hard work and financial savviness from an early age. So if I wanted to get my first car by my 16th birthday, I had to earn half of it. So I was babysitting every weekend, weeknights.
Dex, just so you know, that first car was a 1998 silver Saab 9-3 Turbo hatchback. It was sweet.
Great car, but a little high on the maintenance side. Did it break a lot?
Yeah, it was a complete lemon. I ended up selling it for a CR-V.
I had a CR-V.
That was Monica who came to LA in a CR-V.
Perfect. Yeah, I had a white CR-V. It was just too expensive to keep up with the Saab. But I had a lot of fun driving in and out of Boston way too fast for a 16-year-old. So a new family moved in a few streets over from us and got my name from one of my regulars and asked if I could babysit on a weeknight for their 6-year-old daughter and year-and-a-half-old son.
I, of course, said yes, wanted a new family on my roster. So I showed up to their house the following week, and the mom and dad kind of walked me through the rules and guidelines of the house. No dessert, no TV on weeknights. Here's where the games are, emergency numbers, the usual. I told them I had it covered, and they went off for their gala date night.
And I feel like at this point, I need that narrator to come in and be like, she did not have it covered.
Were you at all anxious about having a one-and-a-half-year-old and a toddler or whatever?
Six.
Not really, because I was babysitting for a family that had a one-year-old, a four-year-old, and a 10-year-old at the time. So this kind of seemed like a piece of cake.
Incredible that we just go like, yeah, 14-year-old. You've never had any children, but you can definitely juggle three. I know.
I had really good recommendations. I mean, I started like mothers helping when I was nine, because I just thought babies were really cute. So by that time, I had had like six years of experience.
Right, I guess you got more than the parents.
Yeah, exactly. So quickly after leaving, the six-year-old daughter started telling me that all of her other babysitters would let her watch TV and have desserts. And so I also needed to, and her parents wouldn't be mad. And I nicely told her that. her parents told me that she was in fact not allowed to have either of those things, but we could read or play games or do anything else she wanted to do.
She was not having it and was getting more and more frustrated with me. So somehow I finally convinced her to go to the basement playroom to play with some Barbies and some blocks with her brother. And I should add at this point that the year-and-a-half-year-old was in a little bit of a no-walking-and-crawling phase. So I had to carry him everywhere.
Sounds like a boy.
Yep.
He was not skipping dessert and was a very healthy 30 pounds. So quite a big boy to carry around.
Rotund child.
Very beautifully chunky. Loved him. The basement playroom was down a very narrow, very low staircase. And you can't tell from me sitting like this, but even at 15, I was already almost six feet tall. Wow.
Oh my gosh.
Wow. Congratulations.
Thank you. Yes. But you know the struggle, Dax, it's like you're walking down a staircase and you have to duck. Yep. And I'm also finagling this little baby while ducking.
Slash bowling ball.
Yeah. Squirmy little thing. So we got down to the basement. Everything's fine. for the first 10 to 15 minutes.
I'm patting myself on the back that I got this girl off the let's break the rules train. Or so I thought. And then suddenly, without warning, I was just sitting on the floor playing with her and her brother. She shot up and bolted up the stairs, turning every single light off on her way up. So I'm literally and figuratively in the dark as to what just happened.
Sitting there next to a screaming year and a half year old now, because he's terrified. And this was pre-cell phone flashlights and in a new house for me. So I had no way to see where I was, or where the lights were, or where the stairs were. Not a good situation. So I finally find the little boy, pick him up and just start, kind of like shuffling towards what I think is the staircase.
And I find it and I very slowly start making my way up with this screaming, writhing little boy in one arm. Clutching the railing on the other, and just like convincing myself not to fall backwards and kill a baby on my first time with this new family.
This is so stressful.
So I finally get to the top, feel a sense of relief, only to reach for the door, and a new wave of panic washes over me because the door is locked.
This girl's good. I want to hire her. Like. this is who you need.
She's in jail now.
She's probably running a Fortune 500..
Or on the Olympic track team, because I swear to God, I've never seen someone run so fast like to this day, as she did up the stairs.
She had athletic prowess.
She really did. I hope she made the track team. So I think maybe at first, okay, it's an old house. So I try to just kind of nudge into the door. Maybe the handle just doesn't turn, doesn't budge.
It's at this point that I hear the little girl maniacally laughing on the other side of the door.
Wow.
That's turning into a horror movie. I don't watch horror movies with children to this day.
That's my thing too.
That's your trigger.
Yeah.
I'm trying to remain calm and kind of telling her through the door, you know, you need to let us out now. She says, no, not, unless you agree that I can watch TV and have my dessert. I'm like, okay, I got to try a different angle. So I tell her her brother's really scared. She doesn't give a shit, as most older siblings don't.
Yeah.
And I don't negotiate. I just tell her that I'll do whatever she wants. Just let me out of the basement.
Yeah, sure. And you can go back on your word. This bitch already double-crossed you.
I'm 15.. I'm not a parent. I've tried to enforce the rules at this point very well. So I tell her I'll do it. And she finally unlocks the door and lets me out.
But not before telling me that if I go back on my word that she's going to tell mommy and daddy that I hit her. And so I have to make sure that I let her do this.
She's clever.
I was like, all right. So I have to do this because I can't let other families in the neighborhood hear about this. if she tells her parents and lose out on my business and my sob. So I'm like, okay, get her her Oreos. She runs over to the TV all gleefully, won that round, was so excited.
Luckily, after this, she goes to bed pretty easily because she got what she wanted. And I set up waiting, mostly fuming, for the parents to come home. And obviously eat all the good snacks, like every single Gushers in the house. And when they come home, I'm really expecting them to be like, we're so sorry. Here's an extra tip.
They don't believe me. And they accuse me of lying. No. And say there's no way that their daughter did this. And because of that lie, refused to pay me my full rate.
No. 20 bucks for this six hour nightmare. What?
Oh, my Lord.
Oh.
What assholes.
That makes me feel like I have PTSD. Letigious? I hate this story so much.
Because you've been a babysitter.
I know. And that parents think their kids are so perfect.
My parents certainly didn't think I'm perfect.
Exactly.
No, she was another breed. I've never had another one like it.
If that whole thing had happened and my mom had come home and you told her that, she would go, yeah, yeah, of course. That's what they did. Sorry to deal with that.
Even if I had shown zero inclination to have ever done something like that, if someone told my parents, they'd be like, oh, she did. Like, they would never think that someone was lying to them.
I know. It was so crazy. I never heard from them again, obviously. Nor did I reach out. They did not make the roster for my babysitting empire that I had going.
It didn't taint your reputation in the neighborhood?
Thankfully, no. But I did actually hear from one of the other families and kind of confirmed this story, obviously, before to make sure I wasn't being a dramatic 15-year-old memory. This happened again to other babies that are after me. So hopefully they believed her. I mean, I'm sure it wasn't her first time.
She was very savvy.
What year did you say this was?
I think like end of 2002, early 2003.. I'm a Capricorn, like you, Dax. My birthday is towards the end of the year.
Are you a control freak like me?
Absolutely.
Yes, good. We come by it honestly.
I mean, do you see my organization in the closet? Not the shoes. That's kind of my fiance's. But the color coordination and bells and stuff. I figured Monica would like it too as a bird now.
Well, this little gal is now a 24-year-old woman. And I am sincerely dying to know how she turned out. Same. Because she might be amazing now.
Sorry to say, but I don't know about with those parents. It's not her fault. But if they're that...
Blindly.
Yes, that's not great for her.
My guess is she continued to get in trouble growing up. And they were the type of parents that always blamed the friend. Well, you can't be with that friend. Then they're in trouble with another friend.
Or the teacher. Yeah.
Now I'm triggered. Because I was the scapegoat kid a lot. A lot of parents didn't let their kids hang out with me. And their kids were worse than me.
It's always the scapegoat, because it's not as bad. It's the ones that fly under the radar.
That's right. They're the real sociopaths.
Well, I hope this didn't taint galas for you.
No, no. I went to a couple that were really fun. And, to be honest, this story is no longer bitter to me. Because I got to talk to you guys. Which is better than any payment.
I've been an armchair since day one. You have? Yeah.
We're coming up on six years together.
I know. It's the longest relationship I've ever had.
Do you think one day I'll be 90.. Monica will be 77.. And you'll be 77.. And we'll all be doing this still?
I certainly hope so.
I hope so too.
And the fact check will solely be about how recently I shit my pants. And peed my pants.
It will probably happen during the fact check.
It will definitely happen during the fact check.
You can just create a little thing next to your chair. To handle that.
I might just have what I had in Idiocracy. Which is a toilet lazy boy.
I just hope you can remember me then.
I will. I'm going to have a good memory until I'm dead.
You think so?
I do. I feel strongly about that. Well, Currie, it's so nice meeting you.
It was so nice meeting you guys too. I just want to say thank you so much for always making us laugh. And having the tough conversations. And, Monica, specifically for you. Thank you so much for Race to 35..
I didn't meet my fiancé until I was 34. And so I spent a lot of my early 30s kind of waffling on if I wanted to have kids. And what I wanted to do there. And through your podcast. And also a lot of therapy.
I did what I want versus what society tells us to want. And I'm very happy with a dink relationship. Dual income, no kid. With my future husband. I credit a lot of that to the honest convos that you had.
That's wonderful. Thank you.
Take care and good luck on your wedding.
Thank you guys so much. Have a great day. Bye.
There's a fly in here.
Is that from you? No!
I'm not on my flies right now.
Are you sure?
I guess I can't be positive.
There's flies and they're not from me.
They are from you!
Hello! Is your name Tasma?
My name is Tasma.
Is it an abbreviated version of Tasmania? No, it's not.
I need to come up with a better reason for my name. My dad was a teacher. All of the normal names were probably ruled out. By naughty children. Sure.
Are you in Australia?
I'm in New Zealand.
I probably just offended you so much.
I'm reigning in the offense.
It's so cute to us. That Aussies and Kiwis. Can't stand being confused. It's like Canadians and Americans. No shit, we're the same thing.
I guess it's kind of like a sibling rivalry.
What city are you in?
At the moment I'm in Auckland. I've come here for a course. I've just told them I just need to pop out for a few minutes.
That's wonderful. Where do you live normally?
I live in Whangārei.
That's David's town. He says that a lot because I never know how to say it.
Have you ever seen David Ferrier in real life?
No. I do keep my eye out, but no.
Okay, you have a crazy babysitting story. And you're playing hooky right now. So let's not take up too much of your time.
This happened 20 years ago. Actually, I was talking to the people involved. Just to make sure that I had the story straight.
Sorry to interrupt you. What's insane is, I was there. Because I was in New Zealand for three months. Exactly 20 years ago. I think I went in November.
Wow. I couldn't tell you which month. I was living in a different city. I was moving to Auckland. And I didn't have accommodation sorted.
And my new boss said, you should come and stay with my family and I. There was her and her husband. And two young children. Ants was two, turning three. And Bella was turning five.
What was going to be a stay for a couple of weeks, I ended up staying for the year. I also still hang out with them in the summertime when they go camping. I've inserted myself into this family. One day a week, I would often help out by looking after the children. While my boss, she was doing athletics training.
She was doing hammer throw. And I got on really well with the kids. Basically like a big sister. And on this particular day, the house that we were living in was three separate stories. And I was sort of in the kitchen preparing dinner.
And Bella called out and said, oh, Tassie, there's a guinea pig on the stairs with a fat tail.
I'm like, oh wow.
Okay. And I went down. Oh no, it seems to have gone now. It must have gone home. And as we were coming back up the stairs, we heard this almighty thump.
And then screaming. And so her brother was somewhere in the house. So we had to go looking for him. I thought it was from the other stairwell, going to the upstairs of the house. And I opened the door and I was hit with a wave of the smell of shit.
Oh, wow.
On the ground at the bottom of the stairs was this two-year-old. Sort of the back half of him was covered in poop. And the front half was covered in blood. He was screaming, holding his head. What?
He had split his head open.
Oh, my god. Really quick, you're like, what do I attend to? first? The blood or the poop?
That's right. I scooped up this stinking little boy who was really upset. And we went in the bathroom. And it was a bath over a shower. So I'm standing there washing him down, cleaning him up.
And you know how head wounds are. They make a huge mess. It looked like some kind of nightmare. Dealt with the worst of it. And Bella comes in.
She said, I'm going to jump in the shower too. And then, as she got in, she goes, oh look, there's the guinea pig. And I felt something on my leg. And climbing up my leg was this big rat.
What?
Rat shit in blood.
I know, it was like the trifecta of fun in that house that day. I got a fright and did a big karate, kick the rat off my leg and it bit me as it was going.
What's happening in this house? It's like a poltergeist or something.
So I scooped these children out, wet children out of the shower, run through the room that I just kicked this rat into, slammed the door shut, get everyone dried and try and staunch the bleeding of this head wound. And luckily the mother had just come home. so I took the child, once he had some clothes on, out to her and was explaining what had happened. And we looked up to the window of the bathroom where we were, and along the windowsill was this rat just sitting, knowing we were talking about it. It was so revolting.
It wasn't the last time that I babysat for that family because I was living with them. I don't think it put them off me. But this story comes up every year when we go camping.
Really quick, was the injured head? here's what I've immediately imagined. Little boy's playing, big spooky rat, he runs from it, he falls down some stairs, hits his head, shits his pants. What do we think was the order of events? Was the rat involved at all with the head injury?
And lastly, were there any stitches?
Right, so this little boy, I don't know if your children did this, Dax, but mine certainly did. When they got to that age, where they knew that they could go to the toilet, but they often chose not to, he was one of those children and he happened to be naked at the time, and his preferred spot was by the stairs.
He would shit on the floor?
Well, I don't think it was on the floor, he'd usually have a nappy on. But he just happened to be naked that day. And I think he must have heard us exclaiming and been coming down, and I imagined in my head it looked like he had slipped in the shit.
Oh, Jesus.
He's kind of the victim of his own filth, I guess. Yes, yes.
Oh, wow.
It was sort of above his eyebrow. They took him down to the after hours place and they glued it together.
So there was no fracture of the frontal bone or anything?
No.
Because, okay, now back to the order of events, because I come upon this, part of me might think, I gotta get the poop away from him because he's got an open wound. I might even think priority number one's the poop.
Oh, because you don't want to get the bacteria in there.
You don't want the bacteria in that wound. But I don't know that that would be the right move. You'd want to stop that bleeding fast.
That's why we went straight to the shower to sort that shit out.
Yes, yes. So if that was 20 years ago, he's now a 23-year-old?
He's actually at university in the States.
Surely he'll be back camping with a girlfriend soon, or a boyfriend, and I pray that you...
Oh, every year. Absolutely. This comes out. When he was a teenager, it was always Here we go again.
Here, Tasma goes again with this never gonna. let me live this down. It was three, what do you want me to do? It wasn't even three, I was just about to turn three. Well, Tasma, what a great and terrible story.
I so appreciate you telling us that.
Thanks for the opportunity. So great to meet you.
Yeah, right back at you. I hope we bump into you in New Zealand.
Come to Whangarei with David and you can come camping out at our farm.
Sounds great.
Bye.
I hate rats.
That's what your takeaway is? Rats?
I mean, that was a big part of that.
It is interesting. It was a big part of it, but at the same time it was completely separate, which is so shocking. That's too many things going on at once. A rat in the house you're gonna remember for life.
That's a national lampoon.
The shit you'd remember for the rest of your life. And then the head wound.
All of it.
Feels very unsafe in here, all the rattling. The whole building shaking. I'm sure, too, if they accidentally backed that thing up into the garage, the whole thing could collapse.
Don't say that.
I think that would be possible. We'd be fine, though. We would just slide six feet down, though. No, we wouldn't. We would die.
And we'd catch on fire because of the candle. It would just collapse this way, and then we would slide down.
Behind this corner, I think.
You're very safe. You might not even be involved. You and I are gonna slide in the lazy ways.
We are supported by BetterHelp. It's easy to look at someone else and think, gosh, I wish I had their life. But, you know, comparing your life to others never ends. well. The truth is, their life probably isn't nearly as glamorous or put together as you'd think.
So stop focusing on them, and focus on you. If you need a little help with that, I recommend therapy. I'm a big fan of the saying, I don't compare myself to other people. I only compare myself to earlier versions of myself.
Yeah, I like that. Have you heard? the one, comparison is the thief of joy?
Yes.
That's a good one, too. It is.
If you want to give therapy a chance, start with BetterHelp. It's entirely online and designed to be convenient. To get started, all you have to do is fill out a brief questionnaire, and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist. So stop comparing and start focusing with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Dax today to get 10% off your first month.
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Oh, is it working?
I am the smartest girl alive. Yes, you are. Let me put my mic on. that I stole from someone at work. Okay,
great. Where do you work? I mean, you don't have to give us the name of the place, but what kind of job do you have?
I think you'll appreciate where I work. I obviously am American, but I studied abroad while I was in uni and came to Perth.
and ended up.
in a sexology class. Wow. And on the first day of sexology class, got into a fight with the cute boy next to me about circumcision, and now I'm marrying him. Oh, me cute.
And was he, he was pro-circumcision and you were anti-circumcision?
Opposite. Oh.
I actually
like that. I'm Jewish, and that was just what I grew up knowing. And throughout this sexology class, I learned a lot. But over here in Australia, everyone's just rocking the turtleneck.
Fuck yeah. I'm so jealous. I very much wish I had my foreskin. You do. Absolutely.
Well, first of all, you're supposed to have it. You're not born with extra parts that need to.
get cut off. Yeah, exactly.
That's really true. I mean, there's the whole humanitarian bodily rights side of it. Very interesting. And thank God we had that fight, because now I'm marrying my best friend in February. I'm so excited.
You could have submitted to meet cute.
Since you were in a sexology class. No, I'm not going to tell you this. Monica will be mad.
Now you have to. Okay, I think.
what's interesting, if you have a foreskin, you basically can masturbate and you have lubrication. Like, the whole thing slides. That's what seems really fascinating about having that. Does that make sense?
That's why you want it? Yes. Okay, great.
Not for anyone else.
Well, yeah, for sure. Okay, thanks for.
bearing with that. Okay. Okay, this has to do with children.
This has to do with children and not penises.
Switching gears. Thank you for being.
an attempt and if you bump into, Daniel Ricardo, say hi from us, since you're in.
Perth. I promised my mom that I would invite you all to the wedding in February. We are getting married over here. There will be seats for the entire crew, Wobby Bob included, and Emma, Monty, of course.
Even Emma got one.
That's nice. That's really nice. And Danny,
of course. Oh, Daniel.
Ricardo. Yes, that's his hometown.
Of course. Can't have a wedding in Perth without Danny there. No. But yes, so my story, I saw the prompt and was talking about it and trying to think, oh, you know, if I'm ever going to write in, it's going to be for this one. I started babysitting when I was really young.
What state? I grew up in? Arizona. Oh, okay, great. Started babysitting there, but the story takes place in New Orleans while I was a sophomore at Tulane.
To backtrack a little bit, I met this family actually two years prior. This would have been 2012 in Costa Rica. The mom and the dad were artists and we were there on a high school exchange trip where you go to Costa Rica for a month and you do community service projects and you travel around a bit. They were there helping us paint murals, and I'm learning from them, they have this beautiful one-year-old boy, Vance. Cut to.
two years later, they live down the street from me while I'm at Tulane and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, this is perfect. Easy money. They know me already. I can get in the door pretty quickly and start babysitting for them. And by then, they've had another beautiful daughter, Vera.
I am called over one night. I've babysat for them a couple of times at this point. They're easy. kids. Vance is, I think, three or four at this point and Vera would have been maybe ten months.
Okay, baby. Anyone that's babysat before knows that that age difference can either be really easy because the four-year-old is independent enough to take care of themselves and the ten-month-old isn't really enough independent to cause a problem.
Right, right. They're generally not walking.
yet. She was not. Or it can be an absolute terror, and I ended up getting the terror evening. Okay. It starts out pretty easy.
Vance is just so excited to show me all of his toys. We're playing with blocks. We're painting. We're doing arts and crafts. We're going outside.
We're playing. I've got Vera attached to my hip most of the night just because she's ten months old. And eventually, we start to play dress-up and Vance decides to put on his tuxedo. Cumberbun, pants, full suit jacket. This boy is dressed to the nines.
Wow!
He already owns a tux. What a smart young man. And he.
is looking fly and he knows it. So, Vance is all dressed up. We keep on playing. It's getting closer to bedtime, so I'm thinking, alright, I'm going to start to put Vera in the bath. I'll chuck on a movie for Vance and he'll be fine, because four-year-olds can watch a movie on their own and be fine.
Yeah. And as I'm bathing her, I'm realizing it's really quiet. Uh-oh. Like, this is so nice.
It didn't feel eerie. You felt grateful.
I was like, oh, this is going really.
well. Yeah. So, I grab.
Vera out of the bath. I'm dressing her, get her into her pajamas and I can hear the movie in the background, but it's going from calm and quiet to eww. I don't love the sound of this silence. With Vera all dressed, I wander into the living room and my jaw hits the floor. When I see Vance standing in front of a wall, I don't know if it was his mom's or his dad's painting, standing in front of the painting, tuxedo pants down around his ankles, diaper in his hand like a paint palette, and he has taken his poop, taken his medium of choice and has added embellishments to the painting on the wall.
This is a nice painting.
Splattered. Not just the painting. He's added embellishments to the television. All over the.
television. All over the couch.
All over the carpet. It is a shit tsunami.
He's gone full chimpanzee. He has.
gone full chimp. All over their living room. And I... You can't... What do you do?
Where do you start? And I say, Vance, what's going on? What happened here? And his only words were, I wanted to paint like daddy and mommy.
No. No. That didn't get you.
That did not get me at all.
Impervious to that. That sounds very manipulative. Oh, you think he was in on it. This will sound endearing. Yep.
Is that how mommy and daddy are painting, I guess, is the follow-up question.
My mind is going a mile a minute. They're due home in an hour. Their entire living room stinks to the high heavens. Ew! Absolutely covered in Call of Duty, as you would say.
And it is just absolutely horrific. So, I have to prioritize, right? One, still need to get Vance cleaned up. I've got the baby, so I put her down first. She goes in her crib.
She is not happy. I grab Vance, literally, up under the armpits and just travel him across to the bathtub, where I'm stripping off the tuxedo, which is just absolutely ridiculous. Can you just imagine a four-year-old pantsless in a tuxedo suit? That's wonderful. Just slinging shit.
at the wall. Like a really, really classy chimpanzee. Ah! It really makes sense. You know, sometimes they would dress those chimps up for people's amusement.
Put them on a bicycle or whatever. You can imagine them putting a suit coat on a chimp.
I am scrubbing poop off of this boy, because now it's like traveled down his legs. It's all over his arms. It's all over me. Which is part of, you know, the dangers of babysitting sometimes, but this is another level. How does a four-year-old produce so much excrement?
It's one.
of the great mysteries of being a parent. I have that famous story about Delta, where she took a dump. It was so enormous. I'm like, where on earth did that come from? Flush.
it, put her in bed, go into the living room, and I hear, Daddy,
I farted. It's diarrhea. She's like singing it, and I go and get her, and she's in a diaper, but it's fucking everywhere. I'm like,
not possible. Where did all this?
come from? Well, when it's liquid,
I think it's...
It's like half their body came out. Ugh, yuck.
Wild. So, he's now cleaned off. I get him into bed, and, by some miracle, both of them go to sleep. So, I'm able to take the last 30 minutes to try to start tackling this living room. I mean, it's not my house.
I have no idea where their stuff is, right? Yeah. So, I'm tearing this house apart, trying to find any cleaning supplies. How do you get paint off of a painting? I mean, sorry, not paint, poop.
How do you get poop off of a painting? Right. Yeah. I have no idea what to do. I don't want to ruin their artwork.
I would have maybe tackled the room. Couches. And then I would have said, I didn't want to touch, I don't know if you're going to need to take that to a place, but obviously your painting is covered in feces.
I'm in a state of panic. I'm not thinking straight. Right. So, I'm thinking about the painting. I'm trying to figure out what to do there.
Eventually, I do decide to give up. I try to tackle the TV, but it's just like smearing in. at this point. It's not going well. I try to start tackling the carpet, but that's also just smearing in deeper and deeper.
Oh, my God. You're making everything worse. It's getting worse. So, eventually, I just say, you know what? I'm done.
Yeah. The parents come home, and it's just draws again on the floor. What the hell happened here? And I have to say, listen, I put Vance in front of the TV for 30 minutes while I gave Vera a bath, and I walked back to the louvre, but shit. Like, just covered in poop.
Vance's Picasso. Poopcasso, if you will, I suppose. They were so generous and kind about it. We're still friends. Every time we're home in the States, I go to New Orleans, and I get to see them, and I remind Vance of this story.
Yeah, that's your duty now.
My call of duty has been fulfilled. He's my poopy Vance.
Did the parents say this is not new?
Oh, no. This was new behavior. I think he saw his opportunity, and he ran with it. I also think.
it sounds like he was trying to impress you. He was like, check out my shit. Here's all my toys. I'm pretty stacked. Let me throw on this tux for you.
I'm handsome as fuck. Then, check me out. I'm artistic, and I paint. I think that's what was happening. He was like, he was showing you all of his skills.
I'm the man.
of your dreams. Yes!
Look at this. You didn't know I was artistic, did you, girl? What were you doing, washing my sister? Cool, cool, cool.
Another meet cute. That's kind of.
But yes, it was misadventures in babysitting. I've had so many of them. There was the time I babysat a family. The next day, I had to go to the ER for some hijinks with my flies, and the dad was the one that had to do the ... Oh, fuck.
You never know what you're walking into, and I love it.
Well, Mel, thank you for sharing that horrific story. So happy to.
share it. If anyone learns anything from my mistakes, it's you can never trust a four-year-old alone, so just don't.
take your eyes off them. Oh, real. Half hours.
too long to turn your back on a four-year-old in a tux. Definitely learned my.
lesson. I love you guys so much. Thank you so much for the opportunity to do this. It is so cool. I told my mom I would try to grab her really quick, if that's okay.
Sure, get her in here.
Oh, my God! Is this for real?
My mom is.
visiting from the States. Hello!
Hi, Mom. I have to tell you,
you're part of the fabric of our lives.
I am not kidding.
Part of the thread that weaves through the quilt of the Greenbergs. That's so.
sweet. Thank you. I.
just love you. Did she invite you to the wedding?
Yes. Yeah, February. February. And we're free to bring Daniel Riccardo. We.
extend invitations to all of the people who are part of the quilt. Oh,
how kind.
Seriously, you two have changed our lives significantly. We've been listening to you forever. You fill our hearts. You make us smarter. And just give us giggles.
Thank you so much. We love Mel's story. Isn't that hysterical? Yes, yes. And horrifying.
All right, hang on. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time. Yes,
thank you. Of course. Take care, you guys. You're lovely. Have a good one.
Oh, my God, that was so cute. That was our first multi-generational... Oh, I think it's happened before. Babies, too. Okay, babysitting.
is so hard. I was just remembering. I'm sure you have a lot.
of PTSD. As you recall, most of my babysitting was with a child my age, who I was pretending to be older than, so. it wasn't that problematic. I just remember.
I'm not just saying this to you, because I'm happy to not try to placate you.
I don't think anyone would accuse you of trying to placate.
me. Exactly. But your kids were the first ones that this didn't happen to me. And I loved a lot of the kids I babysat for, but time goes at a molasses pace when you're babysitting. It would only be like four hours, and I would pick them up from school, and then it was like, how do I get through this?
Yes, okay, so we're going to go to the library, and then we're going to... And I'm just like staring at the clock at the library. Can I get them to get more books here? Okay, I guess we'll go to the park.
Only been 45 minutes since we.
left school. It's crazy.
But that didn't happen with my kids? It really didn't.
I think part of the reason why is because Carly was there. There was an adult to talk to. It helped so much.
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
It's rough out there. Hello!
Hello! Oh, Matt,
you're one of very few people that have their audio set up correctly. This is such a gift. Oh, really? Yeah, normally we would go through seven or eight minutes of troubleshooting to get your mic to work. I'm in tech,
so I'm used to this. I do it on a daily.
basis. Perfect. Where are you at?
I'm in Henderson, Nevada, about 20-30 minutes outside of Las Vegas.
My father-in-law lives in Hendersonville.
Very nice. I'm originally from Southern California. Where? Orange County. Oh!
Okay. And Dax, you and I have actually met each other. I'm surprised you don't recognize me. I totally.
recognize you. Let me tell everyone how we met. On a horseback riding trail in Phoenix, we crossed. Wow! How romantic.
Now, where did we meet? Well, you're very
close, but it was at a Laker game in LA.
Oh! Wait, were you sitting in front of me? No,
we were both going through security at the same time. You were with Tom Arnold, who I actually recognized first. Of course. And then I saw this tall, handsome, actor-looking fellow standing right next to him. I was like, oh my gosh, that's Dax Shepard.
So how long have you been in Nevada?
Wife and I have lived here for two years. Before that, we were in California, and then, before that, we actually, between 2015 and 2018,, were in Las Vegas as well. So we came back. Now we're in the process of moving to Arizona. Oh!
Wow! Okay.
You guys love the desert lifestyle.
With my fair, red-headed skin, we like to live life dangerously. Yes, yes.
Okay, so you have a babysitting story that I presume takes place in Orange County?
Exactly. In 2005, I was about 14 years old. I used to babysit a couple of my neighborhood families that were in our exact facility. This family, that was directly next door to us, had two young boys, a 6-year-old named Anthony and a 9-year-old named Nick. And for this story's sake, I have changed their names.
Nice, nice.
So, Anthony and Nick. To give you some.
additional context on the family, they were really kind. Religious, church-every-Sunday type, they had super high Christian moral values, to the point where they wouldn't allow Nick and Anthony to watch certain movies like.
Harry Potter. That branch, yeah.
But really nice, super respectful kids would never disobey, would go to bed on time with no fuss. Really super easy to babysit. Which is probably why they allowed a 14-year-old kid to babysit because they probably just needed somebody.
that could call the police if necessary.
Which might be a little foreshadowed.
Okay, okay. Here we go, here we go.
So this night in particular was kind of like any other Saturday night that I would have babysat for them. Their parents were only going to be gone for a couple of hours. We had pizza, watched a movie that wasn't Harry Potter. Got them in bed with no fuss. I was hanging out downstairs half asleep waiting for their parents to come home when suddenly I heard just like a gut-wrenching scream come from upstairs from one of the boys.
Of course, like my first reaction, I think, is very similar to your face, Monica. It's just like one of the boys are dead, or there goes my babysitting career. I run upstairs. Once I'm upstairs, I notice that the boys' lights in their bedroom are off, but the bathroom light underneath the door was on. So I go up to the bathroom.
I knock and ask if everything is okay. I don't hear a response. I then put my ear up to the door and I can hear that one of the boys is crying inside of the bathroom. Once I hear that, of course, I try to open the door, but it's locked. Due to the commotion, the younger brother has now come out of his room, so I start pounding harder on the door, like, Nick, open up.
I don't know if he's bleeding out. I don't know if he's pooped his bed. I really am unsure of what's going on. I just want to make sure that he's okay. Most homes, the bathroom key is usually kept on the doorframe.
I check and see if there is a key up on the doorframe. There isn't any.
Really quick, Matt, I hate to interrupt or put a speed bump in your story, but I don't think that's commonplace. Oh, is it not? I think in your house they have that. I have them. You did too.
I still do. I stand corrected.
So you have a four. It looks like a little wrench. My house, maybe it was a safe place to keep. it was like up on the doorframe. It's very.
clever. I'm mad at myself. I've never thought.
of this. So at this point I'm panicking, and what does anybody do when they're panicking? is they call their mom. So I immediately get out my flip phone, call my mom. Unfortunately, my mom doesn't answer and then it dawns on me like, duh, I should probably call the parents of the kids that I'm babysitting.
I call them. Nick let out this huge scream. He has barricaded himself into the bathroom. They tell me that they're almost home. They're right around the corner.
They get home really quickly. They rush upstairs. Of course, the dad knows where the key to the bathroom is and is able to get inside, but because of the way that the parents both rushed into the bathroom at the same time, I didn't really get a good vantage point of Nick. All I could see was that Nick was in the fetal position on the ground. On his side, his legs were facing the door and his pajama pants were like out of ankles.
Okay. The mother immediately begins to console Nick, like asking him questions, while the father immediately turns around and goes. okay, Matt, thanks for all your help. Let's get you on your way. So, of course, my initial response is like concerned for Nick.
Is he okay?
Yeah. What has happened under my watch?
Yeah. Exactly. The dad was really adamant about ushering me downstairs, getting me paid, and sending me on my way. So at this point I think it's just like a family matter. I don't really necessarily think there's much.
wrong with Nick. Sounds like magic gone bad to me. Laughter.
Their worst fear, dark magic.
I go home and since I live next door, it's just a quick walk. No less than like 30-45 minutes later, I hear ambulance sirens and I see like bright ambulance lights. So of course this catches my family's attention and myself's, and we go outside and we can see that Nick is being carried by paramedics in a blanket, is put into the ambulance, and is like swiftly taken away. Which is like.
super confusing. Yeah, if I were you, I would have interpreted Nick's dad's like oh, Nick does something weird the family knows about. He likes to put Tonka trucks up his ass or something that's happened before. that's embarrassing to the family and they just want you out of there, right?
So the next morning, we go to the house to check to see if Nick is okay and at this point the entire neighborhood like thought something was up and the mother tells us, verbatim, that Nick was jumping on his bed and he fell on a drumstick and the drumstick was lodged up his butt. No! No!
No!
No!
How do you even, how does the drumstick get in a position to go up?
I called my mom before this and I confirmed those were the exact words that the mom told us. Hold on, Nick was.
jumping on his bed, fell and a drumstick went up his butt.
Guys.
Guys, guys, guys. Nick was just putting a drumstick up his butt.
Obviously, obviously.
Maybe it is magic that the drumstick's defying.
the law. Harry's wand went up.
his ass. Oh my god.
None of it makes sense, because if he was jumping on the bed, I would have heard it. He's not the rambunctious type.
Wow.
He was just testing some stuff out.
Yeah, why not? You've got a hole, here's a thing that would go in your hole.
We luckily were told that nothing seriously happened to Nick, but, you know, they rushed to the hospital to have the drumstick removed.
Really quick. also, there's so much wrong with this story. Matt, I know you're telling me the truth, but pull the drumstick out of the ass.
No, but maybe they were afraid. Maybe it was so far up, like, maybe it was hitting organs and stuff.
Unless it was a splintery drumstick, which there's no way it was. He wasn't a drummer. He didn't turn this thing into... Maybe they called the.
doctor and they said, take him to the emergency.
room. The doctor said, no more jumping on the bed, this is why. Monkeys. I'm sorry, but if I go in there and there's a drumstick hanging out of my kid's ass, I'd pull the drumstick out.
I know you would, but I've heard things like that. If you pull it out, then all the organs.
get dislodged. Well, I think what we've heard is, we've heard these stories. The one I know is someone hit a golf club against a tree, it broke, it went into their neck, and then they pulled it out, and then they immediately bled to death, and they said, had you come in, they would have been able to tend to it.
Right, I'm just being safe and sorry, but you said the Tonka trucks as a joke, and then it was.
that. It was virtually that.
Oh, my God. Yeah, very strange.
Wow. Did it just end with that? Here's what happened, he's jumping on the bed, he fell, somehow. the drumstick was sitting vertical, and he, unluckily, landed perfectly on it. His pants had fallen off as he was jumping.
I don't know if this was a story that was made up by Nick, and that the parents bought, or perhaps that the parents were just telling us this. I think.
the headline, Matt, is that, thank God you weren't implicated in any of this. Exactly. The only thing I would think is, I don't want anything to do with anything anal happening to a child while I'm babysitting. Gotta get me out of that situation.
Also, what would you have done if he had opened the door? Then you?
would have had to deal with it. Yeah, the parents would have came in, you'd be sitting there with a drumstick up the son's ass. My goodness. I'd be like, what the fuck is going on here, Matt? We leave for two hours to do Saturday Night Mass, come on, there's a fucking instrument, my son.
Of course, when it's retelling the story to my wife and my friends, that's the immediate knee-jerk reaction that they go to. And it's so weird that the father's first reaction, if it was me, would have been turned around and been like, why is there a drumstick in my son's ass? And to kind of be like, oh, well, there goes, Nick again, let's get.
you home, Matt. We've been here before.
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