Transcript of Armchair Anonymous: Party Gone Wrong

Wndri Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join WNDRI Plus in the WNDRI app or on Apple podcast, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcast. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Rather, and I'm joined by Buck Rogers. Hi, it's me. I think when I say Buck Rogers, you should go like you should have a go-to.

Oh, a specific... Okay, well, I need to think about it.

Okay, work on it. Yeah. Workshop it. I will. Today, Today's Anonymous is Party Gone Wrong. Think triple... No, what was that movie? X, X. Think Hangover.

Oh, yeah. What's X, X?

Project X.

Oh, I don't know it.

It was a Todd Phillips-produced movie about a backyard party that goes insane.

Oh, boy. Okay.

These deliver.

They're really good.

We will definitely have to do a Party Gone Wrong part, too. Yeah. Yeah. Please enjoy Parties That Have Gone Wrong. All times, come and go. Good times, take them slow.

My life, I had them both.

But for one thing, you got to know, I'm going to keep them shiny. Is this Sandy? Hi. Yes, it's Sandy. We were just talking about the unisexuality. How do you say that? Unisexiness, unisex nature of Sandy.

It could go either way. There's a little bit of a with this story, so it'll be revealed.

Where are you?

I'm in the Pacific Northwest, but my story is in Montana, where I grew up.

Okay. In a rural area or in one of the cities?

In a small town.

A mountain town.

Small mountain town. Beautiful.

What a wonderful setting for a party gone wrong.

Yeah, this happened about 15, 20 years ago, my senior year of high school, graduation weekend. So it was a small Montana town where I grew up, and it's really beautiful there. So it tends to attract pretty big local blue-collar population. And then it attracts a lot of early retirees who are going there to build their lodge home, finish raising their kids, recreate that stuff.

And then do you have like, river raft people and snowboarders and all those, too?

The granola people who are in and out of college doing the guide life.

I like using recreate as a verb.

Yeah, that was cool. Sandy has a very good vocabulary.

I know. I'm going to use that.

It feels adjacent to conversate. Yeah, I like it. Okay, so 15 years ago, adorable little town, mostly blue collar. We got some snow... Oh, no, they're the opposite as snowbirds. Snowseekers.

The recreators. The recreators, yeah. High school, it was pretty small, just over 400 people in total. So my graduating class was maybe 100. So there was definitely some tense socioeconomic undertones at the high school. My car was a '77 Volvo, just old beater. And then there were kids with brand new SUVs, and there was just a little bit of that going on in the social dynamics. So it was grad weekend, and we were partying all weekend. And this particular party was a backwood bonfire. So everyone drove a little ways out of town, down a single lane, a little dirt road a couple of miles. And then there's a huge fire just out in the middle of nowhere. My best friend and I headed to the party, and we parked in a clearing a little ways up the road from where the bonfire was happening. That's where most people were parked. We were about a five-minute walk away. Get to the fire. There are a few cars there.

I'm imagining predates drop a pin. How the fuck are you finding this two-track?

Pretty sure I had a motor roll, a razor or something. No self-service. It was just like there's a party out in the woods behind so-and-so's house, and then you'd be like, Okay, well, Where's so-and-so house? And someone would know, and then you'd follow them, and you just get there eventually.

I just want to point out that that's a fun part of the adventure of being a hillbilly. Where I grew up, too, there were field parties, and same thing. It's like, wait, the two track road on the end of middle road or the one behind?

Just when you feel like you're not getting there, you're in the wrong place, you pull around a random corner and there's 50 people you know being dumb and running around.

You start the party with a big reward of accomplishment. It's a good foot to start out.

Yeah, you're like, We're here.

We did it. We found it.

We walked on this road. There are a few cars parked to the side, get to the fire and just join the crowd. Night goes on a couple of hours in. It's like party climax. Everyone's a little bit drunk. People are going off into the woods to hook up, going into cars to hook up, going out to pee, coming and going It's just mayhem. I was walking back to the fire along the road with my own hookup, who I'm going to call Danny for this little grease reference.

Did you guys choose the woods or a car?

A car. Started in the woods, moved to a car.

Oh, wow. Exciting. Multiple locations.

We'd hooked up a little a couple of times leading up to this and had sealed the deal, I guess. We're coming back down the road. We were immature. We were 18. It was just that awkward post-hookup feeling where you're like, Get away from me.

I don't know how to deal with this. You want to see your girlfriends and tell them what just happened. You don't want to talk to him.

The next time we get horny in a few weeks, then we'll talk.

Yes, exactly.

It was that vibe, not my boyfriend. As we're walking by, we can see the fire, and all of a sudden, there's a huge explosion. All the woods are lit up. It's like broad daylight. You can see everyone all of a sudden, and everyone just freezes, and then it's dark again. One of the other grads had been gifted a brand new SUV for her graduation, and it was full of flames. There was just like, flames inside of it between me and the fire. Pretty quickly, the car was engulfed in flames, and the trees around it were starting to catch on fire. Oh, my God. People are just running around. Chaos. A few people who could reach their cars got in their cars. But then before anyone could really leave, we could hear sirens. I'm assuming someone at the party or maybe a neighbor or someone heard this and called. I can't make it back to my car, a five-minute walk away and out this road. That's a single-lane dirt road for a few miles, and we're all drunk. Danny and I, we grab hands, just run away from the road, away from the fire, down this hill until we reach a marshy area and we can't keep running.

We just hunker down under a pine tree in the bushes. We can still see and hear what's going on on the road, but we're out of view.

That was, I'm assuming, to make sure that you don't see any cops when they arrive?

Yeah, of course, we all hear sirens, and none of us were like, Hey, let's do something about this fire. We're just running away, trying not to get in trouble, because now we're 18, and that felt scary, and all of a sudden, we're legal adults. So we're just trying to hide, and everyone else is dispersed. People who had gotten in their cars just drove further off into the woods to avoid the whole situation. The firefighters arrive fairly quickly. They start doing their stuff. And late June, Montana, it's still in the '40s at night. And I was in my early 2000s a couple of layered tank tops, some skinny jeans ready to just be hanging out by a fire and then go home. So after a while, Danny and I are sitting there. We're both full body convulsing. We're so cold. So we end up, we're facing each other and I'm straddling him so that we can get really close together and just hold on for dear life. His chin and head are on my shoulder and vice versa. We're just like that for hours. The firefighters were there until after dawn.

Oh, my God.

Well, to A whole night.

Yeah. They were there putting the car fire out and then also dealing with a minor forest fire. Okay.

In a highly flammable, combustible area.

Yeah. One tree connecting to the next.

Can I ask a quick question? Was there no talk of trying to make your way through the woods without going onto the road but getting yourself back to your car, or would that have just been impenetrable?

We would have had to cross the road, and for some reason that seemed... I don't remember what the logic was, but it was like, We have to stay here.

And did you guys start Are you kissing again at any point?

Yeah, that's just my question, especially because you're nuzzling.

I mean, it felt like we were survivors together. The eroticism was pretty low.

For you. A roaring forest fire behind you is very romantic.

I know. I bet for him, he was hard. Yeah.

Yeah, maybe. At one point, because his head was right here and we were trying to be quiet, he whisper and he was like, I'm so sorry, I just can't hold it anymore. And he let out the biggest stinkiest ear fart.

Oh, wow. Okay, so no wonder you guys didn't start this. Yeah, so it dried up any future.

What was going to maybe be a summer fling. This took a big turn.

Yeah, what a plot point.

We're just soaking in this fart We're waiting for the lead. Finally, after dawn, the firefighters left. We pulled an all-nighter in there. Everyone just slowly starts emerging from the woods back to where the fire was. We can walk back up to our cars, and all of the trees around the fire were just burnt. Everything was smoking. The car, I don't know if the firefighters have taken parts of it with them, but it was literally just two axles and a ball of melted glass laying on the ground. There was nothing else left. It looked like a crater. It's amazing somebody didn't die or get hurt. Like, no one was in the car or close enough to it. So we walked back to where my car is parked and his car is in that area. He was like, Oh, thanks for that. Oh, no. Walked away. It was It was very awkward.

Have you heard him fart six more times? He had been trying all in the rest.

Yeah, he was trying. Yeah, it was just the one big one and then silence.

This is 20 years ago, and I can tell you still know the smell. You remember it so vividly.

Oh, my God. Yeah, the feeling in my body of just, I'm leaving this place now. Well, so then I got back to my car, and my best friend had thought of sneaky through the woods and getting back to the cars, and I just hadn't showed up to drive us back home. So she was curled up in my back seat, and one of her feet was just a bear bloody stump because she had been wearing flip flops. One had flown off when she was running through the woods, and her foot just got mangled because in her panic, she just kept running. Oh. Wow. We drove back home, woke my parents up when we got in because it was basically time to wake up anyway. They just looked at us and we're like, You're not in a lot of trouble because at least you didn't drive in the middle of the night, and you're 18, so we want you to tell us about this stuff, but go to bed. Yeah.

Now, did we ever find out how the fuck the SUV caught on fire and exploded? It was just that close to the bonfire, or did one of these jealous low-income kids-Oh, my God, a Dax type.

In Montana, you can just freely buy fireworks, and it was two weeks before fourth of July. A group of kids had bought a bunch of fireworks and made a homemade sparkler bomb, and apparently they thought it would just go off, make a hole in one of the seats, but they'd gone way overboard and built this huge bomb and slipped it in through the cracked window. They just slipped it in the car, kept on walking by, and then 10 seconds later, it exploded.

What ass Have you ever seen one of those go off? Uh-uh. They're crazy. They're scary big, these sparkler bombs.

Did they go to jail?

Those specific people were never outed.

And what about the poor girl? Was she so sad? She was upset. Did you the sparkler bomb? Sandy, was it you? I was just thinking that. Sandy.

It wasn't me.

But you know who it was.

I know you know who it was. We know she knows, yeah. And that's okay. You keep that till your grave. It's okay. Or till statue of Limitation.

I mean, it's been this long, and the car was eventually replaced by insurance. So there was that, luckily. But very dramatic start to adulthood.

Wow. If I were the girl, boy, my feelings would be quite hurt.

I would take it so personally.

Yeah. You're unable to recognize that there's some financial jealousy happening.

Yeah, or just like, they hate me.

They blew up my new car.

Yeah. I mean, just the same way that the undertones in the school. This isn't our lack of or amount of money. This is our parents.

Yeah. Everyone's born in.

That vibe was very alive in my town, too.

The haves and the have nots.

Yeah. The greasers and the soches.

Lots of good people all around, just young and dumb and not really having a bigger picture of the world, I think.

I would argue a little bit more Old West justice is happening still in the rural areas.

Kids look, their brains literally are not developed. They don't even have frontal lobes, and yet they're drinking and doing crazy stuff.

If I were that guy, I would have said, Sandy, I'm so sorry. I know you're freezing, and I am too, but I do need to go walk over there for five seconds.

You break the huddle.

It's going to be miserable while I'm gone. But you're going to be so happy you don't smell what's coming out. Then when I return, relative to how cold you were, we're going to feel warm again. So could you just grant me this five?

It would have been graceful. For some reason, it felt like we had to cling for dear life.

Would you have said, No, I don't care about the fart. I'll be too cold. Just fart. Because you might have said that.

Honestly, I wasn't wildly offended by the fart. I was like, I get it. We're here. But also the hotness is gone.

You can't come back from that.

Well, Sandy, thank you for telling us that. Thank you so much. All right. Bye-bye. Hello. Can you hear us, Steven?

I can I can hear you. Can you hear me all right?

I can hear you great. It's very rare that I get to speak with a Steven P-H-E-N. I'm going to make you answer for this. Tell me how we get a V out of P-H. What is the origin of this?

I'm commonly called Stefan. I'm commonly spelled with an A. I think since Stefan Curry has become more popular, that's almost the default now.

Yeah.

Is that how he spells it?

Yeah. How does he spell it?

I thought it was with an F.

Oh, no. It's definitely P-H, but is it A? Oh, an A. Is it Stefan? I'm Stefan.

I can give you the quick. It's my grandpa was Stefan. My uncle Stefan. I'm Steven.

Oh, love that. So it did start that way. Yeah. Steph is Ian. Steph Curry is? Yeah. Oh, okay.

And is it an F?

It's a PH. It's definitely a PH. Okay, so Stefan, Steven, where are you calling from?

Right outside New York City. So just across the river, New Jersey.

Oh, okay. Wonderful. And do you have a view of New York City? Can you see it from your area?

Yeah, just not from my exact apartment.

Part of me thinks, and I would have not been privy to this had I not stayed in Brooklyn on one trip, recognizing it's almost more fun to be looking at it than it is to be in it for your living quarters.

Totally. When you're in Brooklyn next, maybe you try Red Hook Taverns burger instead of Emily burger. Oh, really? Both really good, but that deserves some love next time.

Red Hook. Rob, will you write that down? Yeah, I've been there.

You've been? Yeah, it's really good.

Where do you rank it with Emily? Different but equal? Yeah, different but equal. Wow. Is it more conventional, like just burger bun, Sitch?

Burger bun, cheese, raw onion on the bottom.

And it should say on the menu, it should say, Burger bun, cheese, fuck you. Really go for it.

No caramelized onions.

Caramelized. Okay, so you were at a party gone wrong. And again, I'm going to stereotype, but I have to imagine a lot of Jersey parties go wrong. Did the party take place in Jersey?

I think it's just your average drinking. But yeah, a ton of parties. So it was 2010. So it was my freshman year of college, and it was like a first break back from college. So everyone's still in that high school party mode. It's successful if there's not a drinking party every single night of the week.

Sure. You've just been training for three months, right? Exactly. You've been drinking completely unsupervised for three months, so you're almost ready to come back for a big fight.

So this one girl from high school is having a party. It's at her mom's house when she's away for work. It's three towns away, so a lot of small towns in New Jersey, but it's only about three miles or so. We were excited because her mom lived in this really cool, modern house. It had an elevator in it, a bunch of cool art in different areas. It wasn't cookie cutter Jersey suburbia. So We get to the party, and it's taking place over all different parts of the house. People playing drinking games in the kitchen. There's parties upstairs. People are taking the elevator up and down to different areas. We're all drinking, playing a bunch of different games. Then me and my one friend venture off, and we find this door that leads to the roof. It's a roof that's meant to be on at certain points. There's an Adirondack chair that looks out over the backyard, but really only space for three people. It's just the two of us up there. We're like, Oh, it'd be cool if people come up and we could play drinking games up here. Wasn't enough space, obviously. No one's coming up.

And then on our way down, we see that there's this skylight, and we're like, Okay, the skylight looks over the kitchen, and if you're playing beer pong up there, what if we stand on the skylight and people look up and notice, Oh, there's this whole area upstairs that someone found?

Hold on one second before we get to you getting on the skylight.

This is hard.

Neither of you are like, I wonder if this thing will break if we get it. Obviously, Our head went there pretty quickly after.

You think it was an actual glass that you could stand on.

By the way, it's not there. There's no such thing. Bulletproof glass, maybe. Or like, separating glass in a prisoner.

Not like fragile glass. Well, that's true.

I'm sure it has a high temperance.

That's the point of glass.

As you would expect, it's challenging to get on because it's also pretty bulbous.

Oh, it's like a dome one?

Yeah, it's domed on top.

Well, that makes a little more sense, Steven, because I can imagine you guys thought you were going to lean over and knock on it and have them be excited?

Oh, you now see why it would be fun.

Well, I'm picturing the most modern house in the world with a dead flat roof and a dead flat skylight, and they think they're going to stand on that, whereas this It was more like, Yeah, we'll both lean on it.

We both take our steps on it. It takes a second to get on. Then it's small, so we're holding each other's shoulders. And once we get on, it's pretty quickly understood. It's going to give away.

Oh, no.

Before we can do anything, my one friend jumps off feeling it. Then as soon as he gets off, the weight redistributes, and my leg just goes shooting through the sky. I'm 12 feet above the party. My leg is dangling through.

Can you imagine being at that party and then a leg pops out?

I get my body out of the picture so no one could see that it's me. My friend's like, Pull your leg out and jump off the roof. We'll run. We'll find a way to get out of here. But you can start hearing the chatter of the party. Who is that? Grab his shoes, make sure he doesn't get out of here. Because I think I did some damage to this house that they want this person to be accountable for.

And you did.

Yeah. Reality, sex in, assessment sets in, embarrassment sets in, and then realize I have to pull my leg out of this. I don't know if it was cut when it went through or cut when it came out, but it's a small hole that I made with shards of glass. I just yank my leg out. That was the adrenaline, probably. I don't remember feeling the pain at that point, but I stand up and I know I have to go down and face the host of the party.

Because you're a good boy. You're going to take responsibility.

Yeah, there's the only option at that point.

I imagine you jumping off the roof and them just following the trail of blood.

I know. It will also Are you jumping off the roof after that injury.

I mean, none of this was smart, right? But walk downstairs, and just to give you an idea of what this cut looks like, it's probably about like a eight-inch gash right in the center of my shin. It split pretty considerably. I don't know if it was thin skin or pressure.

Steven, I've had that injury. It's so close to your shinbone. You're seeing bone immediately, right?

Yeah, and the outsides are pretty cut. Not that it's integral the story, but when it's healing, it took three months to heal. It's graphic. It was a cut on my leg and starts to expand. I mean, it looked like there was a vagina on my leg.

Yes. An elephant vagina.

The different stages of healing reveal different stages. Yeah, it was pretty gnarly. So go downstairs. I I realized I probably need stitches. But the host of the party greets me, and instead of kicking me out, she's super sweet. She brings me into a room away from the party. People are annoyed that this happened. There's a hole in the roof. Bandages me up, says, not a problem. I'll take care of it. I'll find a way.

Is she your wife now?

Because this better be a meet cute. Exactly.

I knew you were going to go there.

We're so predictable.

I'll save that for the end. Okay. Don't get too excited about it. She bandages me up. Super nice. I decided to leave the party. It's like a three-mile walk home. So now I have to walk home on this leg. I know I need stitches. I know I can't drive myself there because we've been drinking. So walk three miles, get home, probably somewhere between 11: 00 and 1: 00, I would say. It was a while ago. It was later at night. Knock on my parents' door because I know that I need to get taken to the emergency room or get it stitched up. No answer. Open my parents' door and then immediately met with what no child wants to see.

Oh, wow. There's sex.

Oh, my God. Add insult to What a night you're having.

She's rustling. I mean, I closed the door embarrassed in pain, bleeding. I mean, at this point, there's blood in my sock and my shoe. It's pretty significant.

Oh, fuck. You're like, I just want to die now.

That's the feeling for sure. She comes out, gives it one look. We both don't want to look at each other. Looks at my legs. She's like, It's fine. You're fine. Go to bed. Oh, you're fine.

She wanted to get back. Okay. Round two.

So woke up the next morning, didn't end up getting it stitched. And not too bad. Now, I I got a four-inch scar on my leg, but it took time. Monica, I knew you would go to, Oh, my God, maybe a meet cute because she's bandaging you up 10 years ago. I went on a date with her probably 10 years later, and I was like, Great. This is going to be a perfect segue, bring up something funny that happened 10 years ago. We're both way more mature now. And she paused and she was like, Yeah, I'm pretty sure my brother still fucking hates you for that. And that was it.

Oh. Okay. She went on the date with you knowing it was you.

But I thought it would be a fun little story. I guess it holds some weight in her brother's eyes for not paying for the damage, but it's super nice.

Didn't work out. I'm going to try to skin this cat in yet another original way that's going to backfire, but I'm going to give it a shot.

Skin this shin.

Skin this shin. I'm going to shin this cat. So all I'm saying right now is if I were a single girl, I would try to date you in one second. I think you are so fucking cute and funny. You are cute.

That's hard to take in, honestly.

Are you No, I have a girlfriend.

Monica, I did write in to Monica and Jeff love boys.

You did? Season 2? Oh, I'm very flattered.

The show never happened. Huge fan, listen to all the pods, listen to your egg freezing pod. Why I need to listen to that? I don't know. Listen to it.

Oh, my God.

It probably makes you better for your girlfriend. She'll be like, Oh, you're so sensitive.

I'm feeling very upset right now. I saw. Oh, my gosh. I'm happy for her.

Very nice to meet you.

Yeah.

You, too. I'll give one quick shout out to my Cherry Chat because I have two friends who we listen to the show all the time, and we have a group chat that's a cherry. Every Sunday, we guess who the guest is going to be. Sometimes people get it right. I'll give a quick shout out to them. Cherry Mary Chet.

That's so cute.

Well, this was fun. Steven, you're a dream. I'm so smitten with you. It's nuts.

Anytime you want me back, I'll come on. Okay.

I hope we talk again soon. Take care, brother. Bye. Jessa. Jessa.

Jessa from Girls? That's the only other time I've heard that name.

I've never even heard Jessa. Hi. I was just saying to Monica, I'm completely unaware of the name Jessa, but she's familiar because of Girls.

I know. I was so upset when that came out. I was like, I'm not the only Jess set in the world. This is insane. But it worked out.

If I were you, I would have gotten magnamaniacal and thought, somebody knows me in the writer's room, and they stole my name.

That's the way I should have thought it.

You need a little more arrogance. Are you anywhere near New York City where this could have possibly happened?

I'm not. I'm originally from the Bay Area, but I live in Nashville now.

And how are you liking the move?

I love Nashville. I've been there for four years. It was a big adjustment at first, but I'm loving it now.

What were the hurdles at the beginning?

I'm from Northern California, where it's like farm town, wine country. It's not that busy. So I moved to Nashville, I moved to the actual city, and it was so busy. So I was shell shocked a little bit. And then I moved over to Franklin, and I've really enjoyed Franklin because it's nice and quiet, and I can drive into the city.

Small town. Okay, so you have a party gone wrong story. I realize now that we have photos, so I'm going to put them between Monica and I so that we'll be prepared when the opportunity presents itself.

This is a bachelorette trip gone wrong. Originally, we were going to road trip from Nashville, where a majority of the girls lived, down to Alice Beach, Florida. And if you're unfamiliar with Alice Beach, it's like quiet, quaint, charming little beach town.

Is it on A130? That's the zone everyone loves? Yep. I got to flag one ironic hysterical thing is that Nashville, of course, is the Bachelorette capital of the world, and you guys are leaving there.

Well, you have to. You can't do it in your... I mean, you can't.

You can do Broadway any night. And we did have a Broadway night before the wedding, but we had to go live our classy little life in Florida. Yeah, of all things. Yes.

This was all told to me when I spent the summer there. I had never heard of it, but this whole A130, do you know about this? But it's a little zone on the Gulf in Florida that's super bougey and expensive. I can't believe I've never heard of it. It's like the Hamptons of the South.

Everybody from Nashville vacations there. I had never heard of it either until I moved there. I'm like, I need to go here. Everyone loves it.

I feel poor because I grew up in the South and I've never heard of it.

But I think it took off in the last decade. Mostly new builds and stuff, no?

From what I am aware of, yes, we didn't end up there. Exactly. Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Okay. I still have not gone. Okay, great spoiler. The plan was that we were going to road trip from Nashville down to Alice Beach. So when it came time for the planning period, the maid of honor is sending a bunch of Airbnb listings to all of the girls so we can choose the house to rent. She comes across one and it looks perfect. It is huge, it's beautiful, and it is significantly cheaper than every other house. So that should have been a red flag. But for us, we were like, Book it. This is perfect.

Yeah, the oldest century. A bachelor miracle. It really was.

It felt like all the stars aligned. So we go and we go to book the Airbnb, and there's one tiny little caveat. They don't allow large groups, and they don't allow parties. So we're like, We're screwed. We can't book it. Except one of the girls happens to see the Airbnb host their profile and sees that they're from Utah. She gets this genius idea to tell a tiny little white lie, say that we are all from Utah and that we are a bunch of BIO students. One of the girls is getting married and that we are going to just have a tiny, quiet little beach trip. No party, no harm, no foul, I swear. Yeah. And it works.

They really value honesty.

I know. That's why it's just so bad.

That's why they were susceptible.

Honestly, I don't tell lies. So I felt so terrible.

And no one was worried you guys were going to get struck down by what's his name?

Joseph Smith.

Joseph Smith.

We should have thought about that, honestly. But now I won't do it again.

Okay. We book it.

We are so happy. Everything's good to go. We are on the road a couple of weeks later. Everything's going great. Until about 15 minutes out from the house, we realized we are not in Alice Beach. We are in the heart of Panama City.

Oh, shit. I've been there.

Okay.

And so again- That is a place I've been.

Whatever I said about A130, just do the opposite of that.

Listen, some of my best times- I went to. Those spring breaks were hot.

So now we are driving down the road, and on one side of the street, it is Dollar Jello Shots. The other side of the street, it is What T-Shirt Contest. And we are going, This is not the vibe. This is not what we for, nor what we packed for. We are packed for brunch and mamosas. We are not packed for Jello Shots and What T-Shirt Contest. But nonetheless, we continue on. We go, There's still another five minutes in this drive. Somehow it has to turn into Alice's speech. We turn into the neighborhood, and it is immediately, Lock your doors. This is sketchy.

Oh, no.

The neighborhood is wrong. I'm still going, We have to have the wrong address. Until we hear, Your destination is on the right. We look to our right, and there it is, the beautiful house that we booked. It looks exactly the same, except it is in the wrong city. So we go, Okay, this is on us. This is our fault. We're going to make the best out of it.

Okay, this is where I'm different. This is where I'm pulling up Airbnb immediately. Nope, we're going to Alice Beach right now.

We just talked about this, you and I. We did. It's people's nature.

It is. They're like, Look, it is what it is, or it's not what it is.

So It's one time you get to have this bachelorette party and you're going to do it right.

I wish you were on the bachelorette with us. It would have worked out way better.

Oh, no. Okay.

So we go in, we decorate, and we have our Forbidden party that night. Everything goes great. We were having a ton of fun.

How many are there of you?

I think it ended up being 12 girls.

Enough to have a party.

Our party, call it Church Party Gone Crazy. It's not that wild. The next day comes around. We spend the day at the beach. Everything's going great. We're having fun. And we go, Let's get ready for dinner. We Google the best restaurants in Panama City because, again, we're not prepared for Panama. It was supposed to be a fine dining steakhouse. Awesome. Let's book the reservation. We get in the Uber, we get over there, we open up the door, and what do we see? It is like a rundown aquarium with a random elderly man in his karaoke machine doing karaoke throughout the restaurant, going up to all the tables, singing to the tables. And at this point, we are so embracing Panama City. We are drinking the juice. We are just going with the vibe. Sure. Sure. That's good. We have our dinner in our show. We go, Okay, let's go back to the Airbnb. We're going to get into our comfy clothes, and we are going to pour some champagne, and it's time to shower the bride with all of the lingerie that we brought her. We go out to the firepit, and she's starting to unwrap all of her lingerie.

Now, when I say lingerie, I don't want you to think like dirty, sexy lingerie. That's not the bride. The bride is very beautiful, classy, silly, and that's the vibe we wanted to embrace. So all of the girls chose a different theme, all of her favorite things. So for example, Well, her favorite show is Outlander. So one of the girls bought a kilt and had her fiance dress up in the kilt and take a bunch of pictures. Oh, that's cute. I chose Harry Potter, where she had a sexy little top and the bottoms say, You can park your wand here. Oh, shit. Or, Why don't you slitherin on in.

A lot of wordplay, creative. You guys are good girls.

Good girls with just a little twist.

Slytherin right in doesn't sound that good girl to me.

Well, that's true.

Sounds hot. So she's holding up this little nighty, and all of a sudden, about 20 FBI agents and police officers come storming in our backyard.

No.

Down, down, down. Get on the fucking ground. What? And they are hopping the fence. No. It's a raid. Yes.

So they go into the neighbor's yard and flashbombs start going off like crazy. It's huge beings. What? Lots of smoke, canines running like crazy.

It is literally chaos. A war zone.

During the lingerie party. So we naturally go booking it inside. And this is where the group fully divides. Half the group is fetal position, crying hysterically. Get the keys, we're getting in the car and we're leaving. My side of the group, I like to call us the defenders. We are going to protect us. We are going to lock the doors, the windows. We're going to call the police. We are not going outside until we know what is going on. This is not normal. We call the police and the 911 operator goes, Yeah, so there is active police activity going on outside right now. You are to shelter in place. We will let you know when it's safe.

By the way, no, they won't. They're not calling back.

I know. They didn't.

Where is the safest place in this house? The stairwell. We think there's no windows, there's no doors. We go like total tornado prep. We are good to go.

Can I ask, is the fear a stray bullet might come through the house?

Oh, there's a fear of everything. It sounds like guns are going off. I think it's probably rubber bullets. And then all the flash bombs. You think that you're in the middle of a war zone. Yeah. We are arm and arm on the stairs, crying hysterically. Just as shit is going down next door, shit's going down in this house. Our little déserted aquarium karaoke dinner.

Oh, no.

Seven, at that point, girls are violently ill.

Oh, my God.

This is like the hangover. This is such a disaster.

Oh, no.

It's literally insane.

Jess, are you one of the victims?

Not until the next day, thankfully.

Okay, it took a minute.

How many bathrooms are there in this house?

I think there are four. We had a decent amount, but it was really bad. Both ends really sick.

Also, let's add, generally, when I have that, I'm the only one that has it, so I'm You're not entering a bathroom where that already have it. Exactly. I mean, that is savage.

Four bathrooms for seven people dealing with this is not a send up.

It was not pleasant to be in that house. This is going on for hours. At this point, it is like 2: 30 in the morning. It seems to end, and we're like, Okay, we're going to get in bed. We are going to go to sleep. We're going to wake up when the sun comes up, and we are getting out of dodge. We are going back home to Nashville. About an hour later, we're just in rem sleep. And all of a sudden, you hear, boom, it starts right back up again. You are in the thick of it.

It's like a stand-off next door.

We all hit the ground, and we are crawling back to the staircase, and we are going, What the hell is going on? Because this entire time, we're thinking it's a drug raid. How drugs can one have in a house? And at this point, we are stone cold sober. Between the sickness and the hours that have gone by, there is no liquid courage. It is fully 100% sober scaries. We are freaking out. It continues on till 5: 00 in the morning. Then at 5: 00 in the morning, it ends. We feel brave enough to leave the house, so we pack up the Airbnb and we get out. We go back to Nashville, and a couple of days later, the news articles start coming out. Panama City, sex trafficking rang, 21 men arrested.

Holy shit. 21 men?

So this all happened next door.

It's like a clown car of perverts next door.

Oh my God. What's even crazier, though, is that the whole reason that this even happened was that a girl was kidnapped out of Utah at a Utah jazz game. Remember, the Airbnb host is from Utah. Yes. So she's kidnapped there by a Panama City man who lives in the sex trafficking house. Wait, what? So then when we We got to the Airbnb. You go and you look around, you're looking everywhere, wherever you're staying. You're seeing all the nooks and crannies. There's an outdoor shower. We're like, Oh, that's cool. That might be convenient after the beach. And we look in there and there's a camera in the shower. And we're like, What in the world? This is so creepy. But upon our investigation, it wasn't aimed at the shower. It was aimed at the front door of the sex trafficking house. And it was the only camera on property. And that same day before or any of this happened, the Airbnb host emails us, and she's like, Hey, girls, hope you're having the best time. Feel free to stay an extra night for free on us.

What? Isn't that crazy?

Thank God we didn't do it.

Wait, so are we thinking that- The FBI put that up so they could record what was going on or the owner of the house? Or the sex traffickers owned the house.

I still don't know for sure if they had anything to do with it, but all the roads led back to tiny little Utah. It made no sense. It was so crazy. Luckily, we survived. The girl was rescued. The evil 21 men were arrested, and the wedding went on to be beautiful. The marriage is great. They've been married for years, so everything has worked out, but oh my gosh, it was insane.

So we got some photos. Oh, this is the news article. Pcb police arrest 21 men for human trafficking, Internet crimes involving children. Oh, God. Oh, but look at The Gang looks so cute and happy.

Yeah, that's at our desserted aquarium dinner.

I'm glad your friend's not superstitious because I got to say it might start crossing my mind. Oh, this is an almond that I shouldn't-Not supposed to get married. Yeah, I'm not supposed to get married. How many more signs do I need?

They had been together for many, many years. She felt secure. But I've told her that she got all of her chaos out in marriage before the marriage even happened.

Do you think maybe the water you guys were drinking at the restaurant was from the aquarium?

Have you had that thought?

I didn't think about that until now, Monica. Maybe we got some crazy immune system boost after it, though.

Do you want a bottle of flat water or filtered water? And you say filtered, they just take a ladle out of the aquarium. That's right.

We thought it tasted a little funny.

Well, here's the thing. We're rambling on these restaurants a little bit, and then I'm feeling snobby, but then everyone gets fucking gastly ill, and you're like, No, I'm not being snobby.

These voices are disgusting. That was exactly our mentality. We're not going to be snobby. We're embracing Panama City. It's fine. In fact, it was not fine. All I have to say, children, do not tell little white lies. If we didn't lie about being Norman, none of this would have happened. We would have been safely in Alice Beach having a great all time.

I think maybe you did get struck down by Joseph Smith, if I'm being honest.

Also, there's a lot of- This is rough. Morals, too. There's also the old tried and true, you get what you pay for. It's very rare you actually a deal.

Yeah, but we did.

Yeah, you sure did. I only have a single follow-up question, and it does require some vulnerability. You did mention that it did hit you the next day, and you were on a road trip the next day. So how did we deal with that? Not well. Okay.

It was a lot of stops.

Gas station, bathroom.

Oh, yeah. It was truly, truly disgusting.

It was such a nightmare.

But we made it.

Well, Jess, this was a delight.

Great story.

Yeah. Yeah, phenomenal.

Thank you so much for having me. I just wanted to say a huge congratulations on the Golden Globes nomination. That is incredible and so well deserved.

Oh, thank you.

It's because of you guys, the Armcherries.

It is. Send her love to the bride. Thank her for that terrible experience.

She's a huge Armcherries, Savannah. She definitely wanted me to say hi to you guys.

Great names, Jess, Savannah. These are great.

All right, take care. Thanks. Bye-bye.

Bye.

Sex trafficking.

Diarrha, puke, sex trafficking, Roman lies. L'anjouret Party. L'anjoueré, Slytherin. Slytherin, me. Or whatever it was. I'm trying to think what I would say. Tell me the names of Dumbledorf. No.

Dumbledore. Dumbledore. We got Hufflepuff.

I would say back Dumbled door access.

Or back Gryffindor access. Yeah, both work nice.

Door is nice. Door and back door, we want to use somehow. You got Hufflepuff. Huff and puff on this with an arrow. God. What was the other one? Ravenclaw? Ravenclaw. Ravenclaw. These are.

You should go into Harry Potter merch.

Or Harry Potter. Harry. It ain't Harry, but it's a Potter. Hi, Maddie.

Hey, guys.

How are you? Good. We just heard a story about people putting Terrence Posner quotes on lingerie, and those were clever, but we wanted to be dirtier. So that's what you heard the tail end of. I see. Maddie, where are you?

I I am in New York City.

Oh, jealous.

What part? We have five boroughs to choose from.

I'm in Manhattan.

Now I'm really jealous. Is it so cozy there right now?

It's pretty frigid. I have not left my apartment today.

Congrats. Thank you. And are you a New York native or did you relocate to there?

No, I'm originally from Florida. I've been living here since August of 2023.

So you really reverse the flow because it's definitely New York to Florida is the move.

I did it opposite, and I don't regret it.

Fun.

You have a party gone wrong? I do. Oh, wonderful. Of course, Florida is a great place for it. In fact, the last party gone wrong we just heard was in Jackson or Panama City. No, Panama City.

Maybe so, but this does take place in New York. Oh, fantastic. This is a story about my housewarming, the first housewarming party that I've ever hosted. When I moved, I was subletting, just hopping around from different apartments. But I knew that I wanted to move with my two Katie and Marcus. Those are my roommates. We met doing a show, but we were all spread out. Marcus was already living in New York at the time, and then Katie was moving from the south. We all got together in October of 2023, moved in. We found this gorgeous this huge hidden gem apartment in Manhattan. So we were very excited to decorate and find furniture and finally host a party. December was our house warming. It actually happened two years ago, yesterday.

Oh, Happy anniversary.

So we had a huge group of people that we invited. I invited people that I knew that had moved from high school, a lot of theater people. And then I made the bold decision of inviting my coworkers who I had just met. I work for a major fitness company in New York, and my roommate Marcus had worked for them for the past five years. So it was a lot of people that I had never really spoken to but seen around the office.

Marcus had vetted them. Yes.

So everyone comes. It's going well. The drinks are flowing very quickly. And a few people keep coming up to me and asking, who is this guy that just walked in? He's saying really weird stuff. My roommate went up to him and said, who are you here for? Who do you know? And he said, McKenzie. And I feel like he was just thinking of the first white girl name. Yeah.

Madison.

He would have not been far off. But we were like, there's no Mackenzie here. So I walked up to him and I said, what's your name? And he was like, my name is Julio. I was like, Okay, Julio, you need to either leave or you can come back, but you need to bring more alcohol because you've drunk in all the alcohol. So he makes a swift exit. We do another alcohol run. Everything's fine until my friend comes over and tells me that there is a major leak happening in my kitchen. It was a huge crack in the ceiling, and it was very close to a light fixture. So we were nervous about the building potentially catching on fire. So my roommate Marcus and my friend go upstairs and talk to our upstairs neighbors. We had seen them before, but never really spoken to them. It was an older woman and her two adult children, probably in their mid-forties. My roommate goes up there, knocks on the door, and when they open the door, there is water everywhere. Oh, boy. There are quilts, sheets, blankets, anything that they could find. And so they were like, Yes, we're aware there's an issue.

We're handling it, and slams the door. Everyone comes back down, keeps drinking, having fun. It's getting worse. So they go back upstairs, and the neighbors are progressively more irritated and rude and start yelling at us and slamming the door once again. At that point, we decided to call the fire department because it was that bad. The fire department comes in. They bring this huge pole with a little tiny tip, and they put it in the crack. They say nothing else except, Okay, we're going to go upstairs and talk to the neighbors.

Did they route that pole to your sink or something so that it was draining?

All they did was touch the crack. They didn't explain what that was doing.

Okay.

Everything's fine for a moment. Someone gave me Zin, and I had never done that before, and I had drank a lot of alcohol. I'm sorry to my family listening to this, but immediately I get really sick, and so I'm throwing up in my bathroom. Oh, no. I'm just doing my business, and I hear a huge commotion at the door. I hear my roommate, who is the sweetest, kindest little guy, say, Hit me then. Hit me. I finish throwing up, and I walk out, and I see All the men are sitting on the couch, very quiet, nervous. I look over and it's Marcus, Katie, my roommates, and all the women just ready to go to battle. I managed to get my way to the front, and the upstairs neighbors have come down and they're screaming at us, getting in our face, asking why we would call the fire department, and we've ruined everything, and why would we move here? They were also definitely under the influence of something.

Well, when you say mom and two 40-year-old children, there's a story there for sure.

All of my coworkers are native New Yorkers. They're not afraid to get in the fight, defend us. And next thing you know, the daughter comes forward and punches my friend's coworker square in the face. Oh, wow.

Oh, my God.

Okay, now we're cracking.

We're cooking.

I think they were cooking something up there.

My coworker, who is 411, she's so tiny, she starts defending her friend. And so then the brother comes over and starts choking my coworker. What? What? She is pinned up against the wall being choked. So now everyone's screaming, pulling each other. And my sweet, sweet roommate Katie, who is from the south, is like, I've got this on video. And so he turns and takes her phone and walks outside and throws it so far that it hits the other building across the street. And the streets are wide in New York. So we were out looking for that. She's in shambles. The cops eventually come.

By the way, they were mad you called the fire department, and then they forced you to call the police.

I know.

We still, to this day, don't know what made them so angry unless there was something they were hiding.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that these people were already on the last straw with the landlord. Some hijinks happened which caused this big flood, and then this was going to be them going, You know what? Get the fuck out. Now we have enough ammo to get you out of here.

Well, it didn't. They're still there. Oh my God.

Wait, wait, wait. When the police came, a lot of questions. Did you find the phone? Was the video intact? What did the police do when got there. What happened?

We could not recover anything on her phone, but we did find her phone. We came back and the cops weren't super helpful because everyone was so intoxicated that they were like, I don't want to deal with this. But they split us all up. They were holding the mother back from us, and they pointed at me and my roommates, and they said, You guys are going to jail. The police did?

Or the mom? No, the police. What the hell is happening?

What is happening? I had to ask a lot of people because, again, there were different levels of being drunk and sober, but they pointed at us and we all responded. We were like, For what? They eventually asked the girls who were assaulted at the party if they wanted to press charges, and they were like, No, we just want to leave. So we turned to everybody and said, Okay, the party's over. Please leave. Thank you so much for coming. And as everyone was leaving, the neighbors were upstairs in their window screaming at everyone. And the next morning, I called my mom, expecting her to be like, Okay, you're moving. She was like, That's crazy. And my uncle actually attended the party. He's lived here for He dipped out before everything happened, but his response was like, Welcome to New York.

New York, baby.

You wanted it? You got it.

I was so petrified to go to work. I was mortified that this girl came to my party and was choked. But I walked into work and everyone who didn't come was like, Oh, my God, I heard you through the best part. Oh, great. I gained a lot of friends from that. My coworker that was choked, you could see bruises on her neck. I asked the other neighbors about Gillio if they knew anything about him.

Forgot about Gillio.

He was a red herring.

They were like, I can't believe you let that guy in your apartment. You should have never done that. And we haven't seen him since. So don't know what happened to Gillio.

Some lessons learned.

Yeah, but that was my first housewarming party in New York City.

Wow. It was this your apartment still?

No, we have since moved.

Well, Maddie, that was tasty. That was great. I really wish I was at that party, although I would, of course, been in a real dust up with the whole family.

I mean, also a little girl getting choked.

In my mind, I would have prevented that. That's why I want to be there. I would have probably been thrown up in the bathroom. Then I would have come out and said what I would have done.

If I have a second, if I could give some shoutouts.

Let's hear some shoutouts.

First of all, I just want to thank both of you. I'm in New York and I'm acting and pursuing all the things. It's so reaffirming to hear everyone that you talk to and hear about their journeys and hear about the really good parts and the really bad parts. It keeps me going. And I want to shout out my sister, Caroline. She is who got me into this podcast. She just had her second baby, so she's killing it. But we call every week about Armchair Anonymous. I also want to shout out my roommates because without them, this would not have occurred. We have plenty of stories, I'm sure, as you can imagine. And lastly, I want to shout out Anna and Juan Chos.

Oh, Oh my God!

She texted me today and she said, One of Juancho's best friends is going to be on Armchair Anonymous.

So you're from Orlando?

Yes, sir. Juan and I did theater together. He's truly the best. His family is the best.

We love Juanjo.

Choundhow Juanjo and Anna.

Two of the cutest human beings on planet Earth.

I love that you're best friends with them. It makes sense because you're so cool, and he's so cool.

I call him all the time. I'm like, Did you hear about what they said this week? He's like, I don't listen to it as much as you do.

Mandy, delightful meeting you. And we will give Juancho your love. Yes.

Thank you so much. All right.

Take care.

Bye. God, I love when worlds collide.

Me too. So fun. Parties are fun. They are. Even when they go wrong, you're like, I would have been glad to have been in any one of those.

Most parties, at least something goes a teeny tiny bit wrong. Even when you're old, I went to a party this weekend, a very adult, nice small gathering. A couple of friends of the pod were there. There was a whole entire wine spill incident that was hilarious but was scary.

Because it ran the risk of ruining a very expensive large rug?

Yes. The hosts were gone. Then we looked on chat about how to fix it, and it said, Pour baking soda. Then we did that. Then also we put sparkling water on it. Then later we read, You're not supposed to saturate. Then We were all like, You know what? It's going to be okay by morning. Then I did check in in the morning. She said it looked exactly the same. Sure.

You forgot the salt. Remember what I was telling you? I learned from Curb your enthusiasm, you're supposed to dump salt on it. Hope it's not too late. It's the only thing I hope.

Yeah, so parties are great.

Yeah.

Love you. Love you.

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

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 our Jerry's, we'll get some suggestions. On the fly, I rindish, on the fly, I rindish. Enjoy. Follow Armchair Expert on the WNDRI app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining WNDRI Plus in the WNDRI app or on Apple podcast. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wndri. Com/survey.