Transcript of Armchair Anonymous: Jail

Welcome, welcome, welcome to "Armchair Anonymous." I'm Dax Randall Shepard, and I'm joined by Monica Lily Padman.

Hi there.

We are lucky that we three don't have a story about this topic. This is—tell us about a time you ended up in jail.

Knock on wood.

Oh, I'm so glad I never got in jail. I can't believe I've never been in jail.

Listen, you have time.

All the people we talked to were nicer than me, and they ended up in jail.

It really was not fair.

Yes, yes. Please enjoy "Times You Ended Up in Jail."

Hard times come and go. Good times take 'em slow. My life, I had 'em both. But the one thing you gotta know, I'ma keep on shining.

He's dapper as hell if that's him.

Could be a magician.

Could you hear us?

Yes, and I appreciate that. I'm not wearing the same outfit.

Oh, yes. Sad.

Is that photo of you?

Those are some new headshots.

You're not a magician by chance, are you, Monica?

No.

Oh, okay.

No, no, I'm sorry. I'm not. But hey, real quick, let me address the elephant in the room. Last week I had an earache, and then of course that goes crazy, and it's migrated, and then here we got a little bit of this.

Palsy?

Yeah. How'd you know? They said it was super common.

Oh, yeah. Bells palsy. I've had a couple friends get Bells palsy. Is that what they said it was?

Yeah, not only is it that, but I was in the ER on Friday, and I'm hanging out waiting for the doc, and that's when I get the email, "Hey, welcome to the show. We're gonna have you on."

Well, Jordan, you're in great company because I often do the show with 65 scabs all over my face from my high fricator in 2000, so we let it rip here.

Yeah, we're fine.

Jordan, where are you in the country?

Beautiful, one-time beautiful Austin, Texas.

Oh, we love it there.

Oh, we sure do. And why do you have a sound booth?

I'm a professional. Profe- it's the P's S.

Sure.

Professional. This is why I'm not working. I told my agents, I'm like, "I'm not working. I'm a voice and on-camera actor."

Okay, great.

I have been in a film or two with Ben Affleck.

Oh, shit. He's my number one.

But he never had palsy, so.

I was hoping y'all would interview him when he did the movie "Hypnotic," and somebody would bring up the Armored Guard, but.

Oh, well, that's on him, not on us.

If we ever talk to him, we'll circle Armored Guard.

We would love to have him on.

Okay, so you have a going-to-jail story.

So yeah, I grew up here in Austin, and this took place early to mid-90s, I want to say. I was just going to college, and my best friend at the time, we'll call him Jimmy Greg, that's close enough to his real name so he can take credit, and his girlfriend Leanne. The three of us were like all best friends, and the next day he was leaving for the Navy, so it was a big night.

A send-off.

Oh, yeah. For both of us, because I'd never been to college before and couldn't even believe I'd made it.

Yeah.

We kind of had a little bit of a punk streak to us, you know, misfits and all that kind of stuff, combats, and you know, we were that kind of crowd. So we're out in Austin, and we decide to go off, like you said, the big send-off. We went out with the intent of just going to town, just destroying the world. So we hit Sixth Street. Again, a street where back then was much smaller, and you know, we grew up on Sixth Street, so we hit all the bars, and that's just what you did. You didn't call your friends. "Where are you gonna be tonight?" You just, "What night is it? Wednesday? Oh, that's gonna be Acropolis or Sanitarium or whatever."

Yeah.

So we all go out, everybody's freaking out, "You guys are leaving and college in Japan and the Navy and all that." So it was a big night, and we danced our little hearts out, and it was great.

Any drugs involved or just drinking?

No, not so much. Definitely in the scene, but you know, he had to go to the Navy the next night.

Sure, sure, sure. Yeah.

At some point, the music stops, the dancing stops, because in Austin, 2 o'clock's last call. But we were nowhere near done, of course, so the three of us go out, and somehow we get some Ever Clear and some Gatorade, which is an old skater trick. When we used to skate half pipes, that's what you would do when you had no money. So we got that. One of us is like, "Dude, to the rooftops." So we literally started Batmaning the night. We go up in all the buildings. And again, Austin's different in the 90s than it is today. It's 30% of the size it is now.

Yeah.

So you get away from Sixth Street, the whole town is just dead.

Oh, wow.

And this is probably a Tuesday or Wednesday night. So we had the whole city, and we're literally running around rooftops, and I don't spend a lot of time on rooftops at 2 in the morning, and it was very interesting. There's paint cans and tar buckets. Some of the views were unbelievable.

Thrilling.

So as we're running around the rooftops and stuff, a couple weird things happen. The first weird one, we go up some fire escape on a building we knew well, but never been to the top of it, and you know, I look over, and this is just one of the weird things. There's some like sliding glass doors, but it's not like in a wall. Like if an elevator shaft were to extend up onto the roof, and one of them is a sliding glass door. So my buddy kind of opens it, and it's unlocked, and so, you know, he goes over and sticks his head in. He's like, "Oh my gosh." And we're like, "What is it, an office building?" And he's like, "No, it's some dude's game room."

Oh.

Whoa. Okay, you're on a residential rooftop.

I guess, yeah. Again, this is all new to me. So we run in, and he's got a refrigerator. We don't want to, we're like, "Okay, let's not get crazy." But there was a couple of beers in there.

Okay.

It was a game room, you know? So we're kind of wrapping up, and we decide, you know, we got time for an energy, and our eyes are just open enough for maybe one more fire escape, one more rooftop. We get up to the top of this one. It's pretty nice. This one's not beat up and run down. This one's swanky-. It's got like a catwalk and stuff, and there's this giant air conditioning units, you know, those 70,000, they're the size of trucks.

Yes.

And so we're running around, and we're flipping switches, and it's like, you know, I'm like, "This can't be good." But that's what you're looking for is, you know, stupid adventures like that. And there's a skylight. The roof is that rubbery textured stuff, and I fall over, and I hit this skylight, you know, and bounce off, and my buddy, who's about to go, you know, Navy and all that, we're punks, and he's like, starts talking shit to the skylight. So of course the three of us start beating up the skylight.

Okay.

Whoa.

Okay, you've gone row.

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Full champ mode.

Yeah, we've crossed every line you can think of. We're attacking skylights. Anyway, I get up, and we've actually done a little damage, and one of us might have kicked it, and it might have shattered.

Oh, wow.

I remember at the time thinking, "I thought those would be a lot tougher. We get a lot of hail here in Texas." So it shatters, and I fall through it.

Oh.

Oh, boy.

Joe boy.

I caught myself in the corner of it, and I don't know how. I mean, I like fell towards the corner of this rectangular skylight and turned, and I just caught myself, and they were dying laughing, and I'm like laughing, and I look down, and I'm like, "I think I can see desktops and like copy machines, like an office."

Yeah, yeah.

Jimmy Greg says, "We gotta wrap it up." He's a bigger dude, and so he just reaches down and just kind of grabs my jacket and my shirt and just yanks me out, and he's like, "Now, let's get the fuck out of here. The sun's coming up." So we're all staggering down the catwalk, and we go down to the very bottom, and the sun is barely starting to come up, and we're just like, "I love you, man. Gonna miss you," and Leanne, "I love you too," and clearly the night's over. That's when we hear it, you know, "Freeze! Hands up!" The whole night goes. So we all, it's not the first time that's happened to us, but we're just like, "Keep walking."

Oh, that's bad advice.

Oh, it gets worse.

Oh, great.

And as we're taking off, I look over my left shoulder, and he's got his gun drawn, and he's ready to shoot. So we're running, we're running, and it's just one cop. So of course we know, you know, we gotta go our separate ways. Just split. When we get back at the car, I pull down this one alley, not too far from where it was, and I throw my hat in the trash. I had an overshirt on. I untucked my undershirt. I had my jeans tucked into my combat boots. I had a padlocked dock chain necklace. I did all that, threw it all away, anything I could do to change up my appearance. And then I run and I hide behind a dumpster, just hoping that he'll fly by me.

Oh.

Wow, wow.

Full life.

Yeah, wow.

Yeah, 100%. And I'm like, "I'm just trying to get back home, man. I don't know what's going on. I mean, they roughed me up pretty bad, and I had my shirt untucked, and I'd been partying on it. I look pretty roughed up." And so then he's staring at me for a second, and he's got his gun drawn, and then at the last second he puts his gun away, and he's like, "All right, yeah, we're looking for their asses too. Are you okay?" And I'm like, "Yeah, I think so." So I take off running. I go around the corner, and I'm just skipping, and I'm like, "This is gonna make this already crazy story even that much more exciting." I couldn't wait to tell them when I get back to the car what just happened.

Yes.

So I get back to the car. I'm euphoric that it worked. They're not there yet, but it is what it is. But of course I have to pee, beer, Ever Clear, whatever. I go around the corner to pee in the bushes real quick, and as I come back, cop car, everything, they're all standing there, and one of the cops has got his hand in his gun, and he knows my name and everything, and they just cuff me up, throws me in the back of the cop car. Leanne's already in the back of the cop car.

Oh, okay. She's saying like a bird.

Well, he threw them under the bus.

Well, but he didn't give any names.

That's true.

Yeah.

And she says that Jimmy and I saw you get busted, and we were up in a parking garage. They were fine.

Oh.

They were like, "We came down because we didn't want you to have to go through this by yourself."

Oh.

Oh.

Sweet.

That's kind. That's kind.

That's what I said. We all get booked, and we get locked up separately. Jimmy had a really, really wealthy stepfather who was very excited about him leaving for the Navy the next day. So there was no way that guy was not gonna bring in the top attorneys and get his kid out of there, stepkid. So I never saw him again, I mean, that night.

Oh, he was successful at getting out.

He got out.

Okay, great.

He got out the next day, and so I didn't ever get a chance to say goodbye or anything like that. Years later, of course, we did, but that night, no. And then there's Leanne, because they walked her past me too, and I'm like, "You're making it out?" And she's like, "Yeah." Her old man, she also came from some old money. I think he's a scientist in Motorola or something. So he sprung her pretty quick, and I was happy that two of the three of us were out. And then there I am, kind of hanging out, and a lot more time goes by, and I'm like, "What? Why is mine? Guard, you know, we don't know." So I found out later on that the skylight that basically I took the credit, it turns out that that skylight wasn't over an office building.

Oh, boy.

Oh, no.

Yeah. So not only did they try to pin attempted bank robbery on us.

Oh, boy. Ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But if I would have let go, I would have fallen to my death for sure.

Yes.

So old Jimmy Greg saved my life that day.

Wow. And what'd you end up getting? Did they charge you with anything at the end of the day?

Yeah, that was the end of summer, because I was getting ready to go to school. All that summer, I had gotten a job, because my father wanted to teach me about mutual fund investments, and so he's like, "Spend this summer, raise some money," and I'd raised a couple thousand dollars. He's like, "We'll invest it while you're in college, and then you can get whatever you want, you know, as a graduation present." I was saving up and investing to get myself a Harley for when I graduated. Well, that night, obviously, all that money was cashed out, given to my parents, and I still owed them like 700 bucks, but miraculously, and I was still 17, I think, all charges were dropped.

Well, you got lucky.

Yeah, very.

And you didn't have to replace the two beers either. They didn't come after you for the two beers.

That's funny, because when I got this confirmed with you guys, I was writing my notes down, and I was like, "Now we have Google Earth." So I went and tried to find it. It's still there, that weird sliding glass window thing.

Oh, wow.

One of these days I might go in the building and be like, "What is all this?"

Sure.

Go check it out.

I'm like just coming through the front door for once.

Well, Jordan, be well. I wish you a speedy recovery.

Me too.

And you actually made our day by having this condition. It'll be very memorable.

Remember, if anybody listening gets, what's it called again?

Palsy.

Bells palsy.

Bells palsy.

It's only temporary. Hang in there.

Yeah.

Yeah, stay the course.

And I'm gonna be just fine.

All right, brother. Great meeting you.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Hello?

Hello.

Hello.

Can you hear us?

I can hear you guys. Can you hear me?

We can hear you, but we can't see you.

Okay.

Oh, there you are.

Oh, okay. I'm here.

What a shame it would have been not to see you.

Yes.

You're so cute.

That's true.

Look who's talking.

Listen, it's a shame we can't use your real name, because it's a very cool name.

We're not going to.

Do you want to see, Monica? Isn't that a great name?

It's a very good name, yeah.

Yeah, okay, so what fake name would you like?

Please choose for me.

Okay. I'm gonna go with Brandon.

I was gonna say.

Alex?

Nope. Although Alex kind of, I was gonna say Chris, so we're going with Chris.

All right, we're going with Chris. Chris, where are you?

I am in the Southwest. I'll keep it a little vague.

Nice.

Sure, as you should.

Great. I mean, these are jail stories. We should accept the anonymity.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not everyone's dying to get those stories out.

Oh, my gosh.

Like I would be.

Oh, you guys should get a shirt.

Oh, yes, you have a cute shirt on.

Oh, you have an armchair shirt.

I'm wearing the swag. I couldn't get into a closet, so I had to show up with some merch.

Oh, it looks so good.

Well, we want to come find you in the Southwest. You're so cute, and you're in merch. Okay, Chris, you had a jail experience. And for the listener, like on first glance, judge a book by its cover, not what I'm expecting, right?

I would agree.

It looks clean-cut and responsible.

But you just never know who's gonna end up in that jail.

Who's naughty, yeah.

It can happen to any of us. Mine takes place in New York City, July 2018. I am a fresh college grad, just graduated that May, and I am going out in Manhattan with my three best friends.

Dreamy.

Did you go to college there, or you've gone there on a trip?

I went to college on the East Coast, and my job is in the city. All of our jobs are in the city.

Oh, nice.

Okay.

So we've moved into apartments now, and we're starting our life in New York.

How fun.

I love this.

We're 21, 22, and as any 21 or 22-year-olds would do in New York, we go to the Lower East Side, to all of the staple bars where 22 to 25-year-olds drink, which is Hair of the Dog, pianos, but we end up at Mr. Purple. And if you don't know, Mr. Purple is a rooftop bar. It's on the 14th story of a beautiful Lower East Side building, and it's got great views of the North and South Side of Manhattan.

Oh, sign me up. Monica was just there.

Oh, I was just there. I didn't know about Mr. Purple's.

You gotta get over to Mr. Purple's.

Yeah.

Although it sounds a little young, like a younger crowd.

I can't go.

Okay.

No, it's not your vibe. We're having a great time. Three of us are. And I see my fourth buddy. We're gonna call him Patrick. He's in the corner behind the outdoor bar, so the bartenders can't see him. The bouncers can't see him. It's pretty secluded. I make eyes with him, though, and I bring over four beers, two coors lights for me, two coors lights for him. I ask him what's going on, and he's upset about a girl that he likes that doesn't like him. And they're married now, so I have to leave him for Patrick.

Oh, wow.

Oh, good job, Patrick.

But he hammers the first beer, like in record time, and he takes the bottle, and he winds up, and he throws it across the street. The block is about 30 yards, I'd say, but the building across from us is probably nine stories, and so the bottle lands safely on the building across from us, shatters.

What a blessing.

Out of solidarity, I obviously had to do the same thing.

Sure.

Round up, landed successfully. All is good.

Listen, had I not been kicked out of the Milford Plaza Hotel at 10 years old for throwing shit out the window, I would be judgmental. But I am not in a place to judge.

Everyone was drinking, but it is still just.

It's very dangerous.

Very dangerous.

We can judge. We can judge. I've told the story many times, and I've omitted the fact that I also threw that bottle.

Oh, goodness.

Yeah, well, good. We're not judging you.

We applaud your honesty.

I judge myself. So Patrick hammers the second beer, and he winds up doing the same thing, but he slips, and the bottle goes straight 14 stories down towards a busy block in Manhattan.

Oh, no.

Oh, boy.

Oh, boy.

It lands about five feet from the bouncer at the bar across the street. We're looking down at this guy. We're 14 stories away, but in my memory, it's like I could see his face, and he can't idea us, but he sprints across the street right to Mr. Purple.

He asks for Mr. Purple.

I need to speak to Mr. Purple immediately.

Not Mrs. Purple. I need Mr. Purple right now.

I look at Patrick. I'm like, it's time to mobilize. We find our two other friends within like a minute, but by the time we were heading towards the door, the bouncer is waiting for us, the biggest bouncer I've ever seen, and he's grabbing Patrick by the collar, and now he is escorting us to the sidewalk. When we get down there, it's him, it's the bouncer from across the street, and then there's two undercover cops that showed up. They're all really cops that are off duty or on duty in the bouncer scene in this area. And they're huddled, and they're talking about what to do with Patrick.

Guys, why are you guys always doing this?

Listen, again, I can't judge. I've done some running.

Guys, no. And this is Anthony too running from. Why do people run?

You gotta get out of there. You're in denial. If I just vanish, this didn't happen.

Oh, my God, okay.

They all nod their heads, and I say, one, two, three, and we disperse. And at the end of the block, I get to the end of the block, I look back, and all of us are dispersed except for Patrick. He's so hammered that he really hasn't moved a muscle. He's just standing in place. He's really upset about the girl.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's still dealing with that.

Oh, Patrick.

Kind of wants to be in jail to suffer, maybe. Yeah.

So I start walking back. I'm not gonna abandon Patrick.

Oh, nice.

While I'm walking back, one of the undercover cops just tackles me to the ground.

Oh, wow.

I hit the pavement pretty hard, and then he rips me up by, I had a beautiful blue polo that I loved, and just ripped it in half, right off my body, basically.

Oh, Jesus.

Took me by my hands and started escorting me back to where Patrick is. He takes one look at Patrick when we get there, and he says, let that one go, we're taking this one, and he throws me in the back of his car.

Oh, my God.

Oh, wow. Okay.

Do you think he looks like liked your shirtless body? Like, he wanted to see you shirtless?

He wants to spend more time with you.

So he's like, oh, yeah, I like this one.

Well, let's rip his off too, and then send him on his way away.

Just like that.

Yeah. So now we are in an undercover cop car, and we're on our way to what I find out is a booking unit. It's a single cell, and they take my phone, my wallet, my keys, my inhaler. Those are the four things I always have on me. They throw me in the cell. I'm alone, just kind of in my own thoughts, thinking about how I just jeopardized my career. I'm like doing push-ups intermittently for some reason.

You've seen that on TV.

Are you shirtless at this point?

I'm shirtless. They take my mug shot. 30 minutes go by, and two new cops, actually uniformed, come, and they're like, hey, we're going to escort you to a new facility, the Manhattan Criminal Court, and that's where you'll spend the night. So they put me in their car. I'm handcuffed again in the back of their vehicle.

I'm so sorry to beat a dead horse, but have they given you a shirt?

No shirt.

Dumping you into Gen Pop is dangerous, but continue.

Oh, no.

They throw me in the back. We're pulling out of the parking lot, and onto what I could only imagine is like the East Side Highway of New York and Lower Manhattan, and we hear this, and we look behind us, and something falls off the back of the car. And the cops pull over to the side of the road, and they get out and start picking up something. I'm like in my handcuffs, looking back and forth. I can't really see them. And they come back with my phone, my wallet, my keys. My phone is shattered.

Oh, no.

My keys are fine, but my inhaler, I have asthma, has been run over.

Oh, no.

And it is now unusable.

Oh, no.

Oh, does that give you an immediate asthma attack, just knowing you don't have it? I feel like that would.

The anxiety of it, yeah, it does inspire me, but I'm fine at this point. But they ask, do you need an inhaler? And I say, yes. I don't know where we're going, but if anybody has a cat or a dog, I'm gonna be in bad shape. So they drive now. We're deviating towards a hospital. We go into the back of a Manhattan hospital where there's a bunch of other detainees or inmates. Everybody's chained to some sort of apparatus, these like bars on hospital walls. There's no folks that aren't.

Wow.

Detained in this section, yes. They get my inhaler. They throw me back in their car, and they're kind of huddled up, just chatting amongst themselves, I think talking about how they're gonna tell this story to their boss about the deviation that we had to take. And they come to open the door, and it's locked on the passenger side. And then they come around to the driver's side, and it's locked. And they've locked themselves all out of the cop car.

And you're in the back.

And I'm in the back.

This is a real Keystone Cop situation.

These guys are bumbling.

They do not know what they're doing.

Yeah, it's a bunch of rookies or something.

So I'm handcuffed, and a light bulb goes off. I see my moment to get out of this whole thing. I am like, if I can unlock this car and get these guys out of trouble, I am like so free. And so I am handcuffed. I take my shoe off with my other foot. Between me and the front seat, there's plexiglass and a little square opening.

Yes.

I maneuver my body to get my right leg through that opening.

Oh, my God.

And with my big toe, I'm able to reach and flip the lock of the door.

Oh, my gosh. You're like a trained gymnast or something.

Not at all. Just the will of the moment. The cops get in, they're ecstatic. I'm like, all right, fellas, let's lose the handcuffs.

Yeah.

Oh, you did. You started went into sales mode.

Right. Let's get on a first name basis here.

Yeah.

That didn't work.

Oh. Was it Glenn? No, I don't know where'd you got that name. It's Sergeant Riley.

So we carry on. They take me to the next location, which is the Manhattan Criminal Court. Below the court is something that's called the tombs. It's where all of the cellmates, inmates for the evening, reside as they wait for the judge to show up in the morning. And it's really early still, probably like 10:30. I'm the fifth person there. I am still shirtless. They never shirted me up, and it's very cold, it's about 47 degrees, so that nothing grows, no bacteria.

Oh, my gosh.

And then.

They're falling out.

There's an older gentleman who is like a pro. Every cop knows his name. He's clearly been in there like every weekend for the past 10 years. So it's us five to start, and I'm thinking this isn't so bad.

Oh, my God.

The old guy pulls out some weed from his coat pocket.

Get out of here. Wow.

What? The three guys take that from him forcefully, pretty quickly. They smash out the light above us, and they start trying to smoke it. It's not coming to fruition in any form or fashion, but that was the start, and I thought, this isn't gonna be so bad, but soon realized that more folks were coming in. And in about two hours, we had about 200 guys down there.

Oh, Lord.

Stop.

Wow. So it's just a revolving door of bozos coming in.

It's a revolving door that goes one way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nobody's going out. I am shirtless. I quickly pick up the name Ken Doll. Then a few events transpired throughout the evening. I was okay for the most part. Dax, I think you'd appreciate this. One of the rambunctious cellmates of mine kept trying to fight one of the correctional officers.

Oh.

That was really letting them have it. And the correctional officer at one point, I thought this was kind of a Dax move, took off his gun, put it down, opened the cell door, and said, if you want it so bad, come and get it.

Let's party, yeah. It's party time.

The guy just put his head down, and he sat down.

Perfect.

And the other things that happened were, they handed out food, which I didn't get. Everybody just started taking advantage of me right away. But they took my sandwich and my apple.

Oh, no.

Oh, now Monica wants to protect you.

It's just so sad.

Still shirtless.

You're doing things.

I hope you keep remembering he's shirtless, though.

You, I know.

I want you to also keep remembering.

But wow, that's just unfair. You didn't even do anything. Well, you did run. I wish you hadn't done that.

Wow.

So they take the sandwich. They use it as a pillow. The apple is actually kind of innovative. They used it to pass quarters back and forth between the cells. You stick the quarters in the apple, and you can send like 15 from one cell to the next so that other guys can make calls.

Oh, that's nice.

You can also get your credit card, though, to make calls. So I asked for mine, which was apprehended from me quickly by another cellmate, and about 20 guys used my credit card to make calls. I waited in line.

You got bullied. You got bullied.

By the time that I did get to the phone, I remembered three numbers, my mom and my dad, and my ex-girlfriend. So I called them in that order. My mom and my dad did not answer. My ex-girlfriend did. She took a collect call from New York State, and I pleaded with her to just get in touch with my family to, I don't know even what to do, try to get me out of this.

Yeah.

And because she's an angel, she did that, and I got in touch with my uncle later that night because of the calls that she made. The next day, they chain-gained us up to the judge. I was the first in, or one of the first five. I was the last out.

Oh.

And he sentenced me to six months probation, non-reporting, and I didn't break it, so it's all off my record.

Oh, wow.

You just had to plead guilty in that moment? Is that what you had to do?

They give you a lawyer about five minutes before you see the judge.

Yeah.

Are you shirtless when you're in front of the judge?

They gave me a shirt.

Thank God.

To go see the judge.

Dignity.

That would piss me off. It's like, you had this shirt the whole time, and you had to wait till I saw the judge. Just six months probation and no record.

Six months probation, no record.

What did your buddy buy you to thank you for taking the fucking rap for him?

He was at home in bed, kind of curled up in a ball.

Thinking about his girlfriend.

Because nothing could take his mind off of that girl.

The funniest part, or maybe the most cosmetic, is that girlfriend that I called, who was an ex, we rekindled after, and we've now been married a year. We got married last September.

Everyone got what they wanted. I got jail, you got me cute.

This is lovely. I could tell by the way you were talking about her she's still around.

You could.

Yeah, that angel.

Great to meet you.

Yes. Great job, Chris.

Thanks for letting me tell my story.

Yes. It was a pleasure. Take care.

Bye. I love it when men wear our shirts. Men, wear our shirts. Wear our shirts.

Where are our shirts?

Can't find our shirts.

It's got ripped.

Oh, yeah. Wow, yeah.

Kept him shirtless. That was a real dangerous move.

Yeah, they shouldn't have done. They should not. And people were sleeping on his sandwich. They made it a pillow.

That feels like a real fuck you, because it's not like that's really helping out.

They didn't even eat it.

Yeah, and it's not really cushioning your head. New York City jail sandwich. I bet it was a piece of cheese. Cheese sandwich.

I'm sure it was.

Yeah.

Hello.

Hello, can you hear us?

I can, hello.

How are you? Is this Erica?

This is, yeah.

Where are you?

I'm in Denver.

Okay. And are you from Denver, or did you relocate there?

Originally, I'm from Oregon.

Oh, okay.

Moved to Denver in first grade, so I guess I'm kind of from here.

Yeah, yeah, first grade.

That counts.

That's quick in.

Definitely.

And was that what year you got arrested, first grade?

Yep. No. I was 21 when I got arrested.

Oh, good age for that.

Oh, perfect age. Tell us all about it.

Okay, so I just want to preface this with the fact that I'm a sober alcoholic.

Congratulations.

I've been sober for. Thank you. On November 29th, it'll be 16 years.

Yay!

16 years. Get it, girl.

Good job.

Yeah. On the day this happened, I had been drinking an excessive amount. When I say excessive, I probably had a pint of Bocardio, a six-pack of beer, and two Red Bull vodkas.

Wow.

Oh, okay. That's a good base.

Yeah, that's a fair amount.

It was a lot.

Yeah. And you were 21.

And it was the 4th of July.

Oh. Yeah, we're asking for it.

So some of my sorority sisters and I were living in an off-campus house at our school because we were all up there working for the summer. And during the day, we had been to the pool. I mean, we had done undergrad activities. That night, we decided it would be a really good time to shoot mortars off.

The firework type of mortars?

Yeah. We had driven to Wyoming to get fireworks because they're not illegal there.

Yeah, they have the good stuff there.

Yeah. So we had a bunch of mortars. We were lighting them off. And I'm sure this attracted police attention to our area. So it was about 2:00, 3:00 in the morning. Myself and five of my friends decided we were all going to light off Roman candles at the same time.

Okay. Yeah.

We all get together, put our wicks in the center, flick the lighter, and mine is the only one that lit.

Okay. And it's pointed directly at your friend because you've put them in a circle.

Well, correct.

Yeah.

So everyone bailed out of the circle.

Yeah.

And I'm like, firing these fireworks off everywhere. The end of the alley, there's a side street. It was one of the main side streets in our town. And Fort Collins, Colorado, by the way, is where I was. I was at CSU. So our alleyway backed up to this main side street, and I was shooting it down into the street, this Roman candle. And a police car slowly rolls by, and one of the projectiles tanks off the driver's side window.

Uh-oh. That could put you into like felony territory, I think.

Yeah, we just escalated.

Yeah, yes.

Yeah. So all of a sudden, there are five police officers surrounding me. I have no idea where they came from. Like I said, I think we were attracting police attention because we were being idiots and blowing mortars off around like really old wooden buildings too.

In a dry climate, yeah.

Oh, God.

And fireworks completely illegal. I think the only thing you could do that year were sparklers because it was so dry and the fire angle was so high.

Yeah.

The little projectile out of the Roman candle tanks off the driver's side window of this police car, and I just freeze, pretty stunned as to what just happened. There's five police officers all of a sudden coming at my back, and they're screaming at me to drop the firework.

Oh, wow.

Meanwhile, there's a police officer coming toward me from the front, and I was gonna hit him if I dropped the firework.

Oh.

I decide to throw it.

Oh, okay.

I throw it, it hits him.

Oh, my goodness.

No!

Oh, my God. Really, now it looks like you are attacking the police.

Yeah.

It spirals out and just starts wildly shooting Roman candles. So now everyone's on the ground.

Oh.

The police officers, myself, the 25 people that were back in the alley partying with us, we're all on the ground. No one was injured, thank God. But I was arrested, and I was trying to reason with the police officer that it was the 4th of July.

Sure, sure, sure.

But what do you expect?

There's an exemption on 4th of July. Also, like you are the definition of getting caught red-handed.

Oh, wow.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm trying to reason with him, telling him it's the 4th, and he's like, it's 3:00 a.m., it's the 5th.

Oh.

He put me in the back of the police car. I sat in jail overnight, was bailed out by my mom the next day, who could not quite wrap her head around what I had done.

Was she used to you getting in trouble at this point, or was this new?

This was new. I had never been in trouble. I'm a lawyer.

Oh, okay, great.

It was a nightmare. I was arrested for reckless endangerment, endangerment of a police officer.

Oh.

The endangerment of a police officer was dropped, and I just had to go to a bunch of classes.

Like don't drink classes?

Yeah, like don't drink and don't shoot off fireworks classes.

You can say I don't vent one.

That feels like a one-hour course, Max.

Can anyone teach a course on fireworks in here?

And then they dropped the reckless endangerment off my record, which, thank God, because my husband and I have an adopted son, and we want to be able to do that.

Because wouldn't that have been a felony, I imagine?

Yeah, and not a good one to have on your record either.

Oh.

No, it's not when you're trying to pass the bar and do all that.

And I get a baby.

Yeah. So, you know, when I told my in-laws that I was going on this podcast, they were laughing, and they were like, you could troll anyone in our family, and we'd all have stories.

Well, we're good. You're in good company. You've landed in the right family.

Yeah, I landed in a family filled with sober alcoholics.

Oh, great.

Sure, we've all had.

There'll be some stories.

Some dustups, yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

Oh, wow.

Well, Erica, it's a delight to meet you on. I'm always so happy when I see that someone who shouldn't have made it made it.

Yeah, and thank you for talking about addiction and alcoholism openly.

Oh, you're welcome.

It makes it less shameful for the rest of us.

Well, thanks for chatting with us.

Yeah.

Oh, thank you for having me. By the way, Dax, you met my husband once, and you called him hot, and that really made his day.

Oh, good.

He asked you a question at the live podcast when Monica was a guest.

Oh, Denver, Denver.

Yes, yes. When she was a little tipsy on stage.

Well, I was doing great.

You didn't get arrested that night, so.

That's true.

Yeah, and he had this really drunk lady dancing on him, and he was trying to ask a question.

I don't remember this. Oh, my gosh.

You called him hot, and that really made his day.

Oh, God. I stand by it. I stand by it.

Yeah, he's obviously hot.

Well, tell him we say hello.

Okay, will do.

All right, take care.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Be careful out there.

Don't go to jail. It did not. One of the stories sounded fun.

Yeah.

Can you even believe I've never spent the night in jail? The amount of luck I have is insane.

It is shocking.

Yeah.

Oh, these people have been in jail?

No, every one of these people didn't deserve to go. Well, maybe Erica. They need to get her off the streets.

Well, for a second.

That was God knows what else was coming after the mortars. They might have got her just in time before she set a building on fire.

I mean, I also think our first guy, he was wreaking some havoc, you know.

Yeah, he was. He's naughty. He deserved it.

Some moments there.

Yeah, yeah.

All right. Love you.

Do you want to sing a tune or something? We know 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 going to 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.