Transcript of Armchair Anonymous: Spas

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Daniel Shepard and I'm joined by Lily Padman, and today we're going to hear crazy stories about spas.

Spas, these are fun.

Spa is a broad word. It could mean in a hot tub as well. We didn't get any of those.

We didn't, and I buck up against that.

People do refer to a hot tub sometimes as the spa, and I don't know why. I don't know, and it won't be revealed in this episode, but please enjoy crazy spa stories.

Hello, Kat.

You're in a sound dampening cubicle, it seems.

I am.

Are you at work?

I am.

In what part of the country are you in?

I am in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Oh, what a beautiful area. Are you from Charlotte?

I'm from Eastern North Carolina originally, moved up to New England for a little bit, but North Carolina is just so beautiful. The weather's great, the people are nice, so I've been back for about 20 years.

Wow. Oh wow. Have you been out to Emerald Island?

I grew up about an hour away. Yeah, we'd go there all the time for like Senior Skip Day. And yeah, that was our beach.

Okay, wonderful. Okay, so Kat, you have a spa story.

I do. So I'm going to set the scene a little bit. Got married in 2009, actually on Halloween 2009.

Spooky.

The schedule just happened that way. My husband— fiancé, now husband— had a 5-day weekend. So got married, have time to take a quick little honeymoon. I had also been laid off from my job about 3 months prior, and the Friday before we were getting married, I got a job offer. So I was scheduled to start on Wednesday. All the things.

Fortuitous time.

Yeah. And also like real crunch time.

A lot happening. Remember, this is also 2009. So the Great Recession and all that. Yeah.

Yeah.

We decided just to take a long weekend up to a really nice hotel spa place. I'm not going to say the name of it because I don't want to get anybody in trouble, and we really love it. So, and I want it to be able to go back.

Yeah, you got to protect it.

So they have a really nice spa. I had never been to a spa of this caliber before. We were celebrating, so I booked my husband and I both a 90-minute massage separately, not a couples massage. I had had massages before. I've had female and male masseuses before, didn't really care either way. So I gave my husband a female masseuse and I said, you know, I'll take whoever's available. Well, when the gentleman came to retrieve me, let's just say he was not bad looking. Oh my God, tall, blonde, swimmer's body, shoulders. Of course he was fully clothed, but you could just tell that The V was there.

The V was there.

And I want to back up to, I had had a mini little panic attack right before, maybe a month before the wedding. So my doctor prescribed me some very mild Xanax, and I wound up not taking any. But come our massage, I'm like, you know what, I want to fully relax. This is all over, you know, I have a job, we're married, all of the good things are happening. So I think I even took like half of one. I don't even know what dosage it was. So laying there, and I'm just fully into the massage, and I start to notice that the sheet is falling a little bit.

Are you on your back or your stomach at this point?

I don't remember how I started. I'm assuming I started on my back because I ended on my stomach. Okay.

Oh, interesting.

Which is different. Reverse.

Yeah, yeah, reverse back.

It's literally reverse back.

But there's some side boob graze.

Oh, okay.

And then when you say this sheet was falling, you mean like off the side or like falling down?

I felt like it was a little low when I turned over onto my stomach. I thought it was maybe showing the little top of my butt crack.

Okay, sure.

Wow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Didn't care. I was all for it. I don't know, like maybe this is the norm for a spa like this, you know. They're highly trained professionals. Things are going great, and I'm feeling it. I'm here for it. Right at the end, like I said, it was about a 90-minute massage, so I'd say probably about minute 87, a hand slips under my hip and I get a happy ending.

Stop me.

No, wait, are you serious?

Oh my heavens.

Oh wow.

Now, okay, there's so much here. This is incredible. And Monica's gonna need the name of the resort.

No, this is an assault.

Hold on, hold on, you can't say that.

Of course I can say that. You didn't pay for that, did you?

Well, I did tip him extra after.

Okay, well, that's nice.

Wow.

Wow.

So you were face down and he slid his hand under there. So that's exciting.

That's the only reason I remember that I ended on my stomach was because of that. So he leaves the room and lets me get dressed. I put my robe on, and when I opened the door, he's standing outside. And we start walking down the hall, and I remember coming from the other direction is my husband and his masseuse. And I remember him saying, oh, and here comes your husband to meet you. And I remember thinking, you dirty bird.

Oh my God, you dirty bird. Did you tell your husband?

Okay, this is the honeymoon, by the way. I know, this is a little—

this, I find, people are going to have a lot of mixed opinions Yes, I've had a lot of mixed opinions on that. My husband and I meet, it's like a dark room, there's a fireplace. By this time it's November 2nd in the mountains of North Carolina, so it's a beautiful fall day, but it is chilly. They have fireplaces burning. So we sit there sipping on our cucumber water and I'm like, "So how was your massage?" And he said, "Oh, it was great. How was yours?" I said, "It was good." I said, "Did she do anything different?" Right. I said, well, she gave me a scalp massage. That was really nice.

And he's like, oh yeah, something did happen.

So we sit there a few more minutes and we're like, okay, let's go get our bathing suits on. They have a really nice grotto pool area outside. They have actually, if I recall, it's like a donut-shaped pool that's heated with a fireplace in the middle. So you're really just meant to lean on the side and drink a beverage. So by the time I get out there, he's sitting in a lounge chair and he has a bottle of champagne and some shots. So I get a glass and a shot and I'm holding them. And this whole time I've been debating how do I approach this? So I was like, I have something I need to tell you. And he looks at me, he's like, oh God, are you pregnant?

Maybe.

As I have my two alcohol beverages. I'm like, no, but I did just get a happy ending. Yeah.

Oh my God.

I just said it. He looks at me. And he sort of looks away and he looks at me again. He's like, well, why didn't I get one? I was like, I can't help you there.

You need to book Mark.

Yeah, exactly.

I don't know. I said, are you upset? And he said, well, was there penetration? I said, no, there wasn't. He said, then good for you.

Oh my God.

I said, so you're not mad? He said, absolutely not. I said, because I want to tell everybody the story. And he said, you should. And I knew right then, of the many reasons why I married him, this was one of the main reasons.

Wow. That is wild. I want a little more detail, only if you're comfortable.

Sure.

Absolutely.

Of what constitutes a happy ending.

He rubbed her until she orgasmed.

Until she climaxed.

Yes.

Oh my God. How does he have the confidence? Someone could definitely be like, This is so inappropriate. I'm getting you fired right now. Like, how does he know?

I don't know. I can't answer that.

I know, but this is like, I have so many questions.

I have told this story. I mean, I was at a party one time and like of some acquaintances and a random girl came up to me and we were talking about this facility and she said, oh, did you hear about the girl that got the happy ending? I said, that was me. Oh, but I have another friend I was telling the story to and she started talking to her friends because she used to live in that area. And apparently I was not the first. Rumor has it there had been a complaint, which does surprise me because of the caliber.

Let's attempt to weed into it a little bit. It's a dangerous thing.

This is dangerous.

Let's start with— if you don't want that, terrible. That's an assault.

Yeah.

I just want to be clear for anyone who finds this.

Yes.

If you don't want that, that's an assault.

That's right. But you wanted to, right?

Right.

So, but wouldn't you agree in this situation, this is wonderful.

I think it ended up wonderful because it all worked out, but there are so many ways this could have gone absolutely horribly if she didn't want it, if the husband— if this caused a huge issue with her brand new husband, an annulment. I know a lot of men that would not be okay with this.

Yeah, very high risk, but I think that's why I'm so excited about it because it's very high risk but it worked out perfectly.

I agree.

Did it occur to you like, hmm, I'd like to come back and see this massage therapist? Well, I guess in this case we could say masseuse, right? They don't like when you say masseuse because there's a sexual implication. But in this case, maybe we can say it. But at any rate, I feel like—

did you think like checked a box or something on it?

Yeah. Was there any— do you think you sent any—

like when they say, do you want eucalyptus?

Yeah, hot rocks.

And then it's like there was like an extra box that you checked. And I don't mean to victim blame.

Well, no one's a victim here.

No. And I do think I was giving the green light vibes. I was not shutting down. I was not tensing up. It was 80 minutes of solid foreplay.

Oh, okay. Post the experience, so minute 90, did you get self-conscious at the end or nervous to see him in the hallway, or were you fine?

No, that's why I brought up the Xanax, because I had taken that half. So I do remember most of it, but the inhibition was just non-existent.

Yeah.

Oh wow, wow, wow.

Chad, this is great. You're really nervous, Monica. I think understandably.

Understandably so, especially at this specific place. That is just shocking.

I wonder if it's happening with the female— no, probably not a massage therapist.

Well, it does happen places.

Oh sure, there's a lot of— but they're generally not nice spas.

Exactly.

Okay, back to you. Did you make a mental note like, oh, I'm gonna swing through here again and get him?

He's probably not there anymore, but I think a one-time experience and it doesn't need to be repeated.

That's why it happened to you. You can take a quarter of a Xanax. You're not abusing anything. You're not gonna now abuse this. That's why the universe gave it to you.

Well, if you go back, that's going to be an issue with the husband because then it's like, you know what you're doing every trip.

Yeah, like, where should we go for this summer? I was thinking that massage. Oh wow, wow, I really love that one. Yeah, it's very heartwarming.

Good, thank you.

And I love your husband.

Me too, he's great.

Thanks for sharing that.

Yeah, yeah, big time.

Thank you for having me. This was so exciting. I listen to you guys every Friday on my way home work. This is how I relax from the week, and I look forward to it every Friday afternoon.

Oh, we're so delighted we got to meet you. All right, take care.

Thanks.

Bye-bye. Mary.

Hi. Nice to meet you guys.

How are you? Good. Do we have you in your living room? Where are you?

I am at my husband's office. Honestly, he has to help me do everything, so I couldn't do this, which is ironic that this is what the story is about, is a super supportive husband. So.

Oh, wow.

How long have you been married?

We just celebrated our 30th anniversary in September.

Oh my goodness.

That's so long. That's so exciting. Congratulations.

Did you meet in high school?

We did.

In what part of the country?

In Idaho.

Oh, I'm going there tomorrow morning.

Oh, that'll be fun.

Okay, so you have a spa story?

Yes, this story takes place in 2008. It is about a very supportive husband who will do anything to help me succeed at business. And so we owned a salon and spa together, and I also worked at a dermatologist's office or a medi-spa twice a week. So Mondays and Fridays I worked there, and I mostly did laser hair removal. And then I worked at my shop. Brad helped me run like most of the business, and I was like, I need to take more waxing classes because I do eyebrow waxes and stuff like that, but I thought I need to do more about body hair removal because I liked it so much at the dermatologist's office. And I thought if I ever move over and just want to do it at my shop, I really like unwanted hair. I want to provide that service. So we searched all over for a class and I found a 3-day class that was in Wisconsin. So the thing that made me want to take this class is that she seemed like, I will tell you what products to use, what machinery to buy. It was like her 20 years experience condensed down to these 3 days.

And so all the Cliff Notes, I guess, of everything you'd need to know. My husband and my little boy, he was about 1 year old at the time.

Well, you had your hands full. An outside job, a business, and a 1-year-old.

So we go to Wisconsin, and the very first day of class, we go over like which products to use and people are allergic to this.

Mary, can I quickly ask you, where were you taking classes? In this person's home?

Oh, at her studio. She was a doctor, like a clinic. So the first day of class, and there's about 20 people in the class, and it goes really well. But by the end of the class, she said, I have some bad news, but unfortunately our male model for the bikini wax is not going to be able to attend. And this was all going to be hands-on for the next 2 days. So I was like, oh, that's a bummer. And everyone just kind of shrugged their shoulders like, oh well, I feel like I already got my money's worth out of it. So I go to dinner that night with my husband and my son, and I'm, you know, telling him how great the class was. And then I was like, and unfortunately the male model's not going gonna come. And then I looked at him like, wait, do you want to be the model? And he was like, no. So we had this entire conversation about, I don't think that we'll even put the service on our menu when we get home. And I thought, oh, that's fair, I totally agree. Yeah. So I go to class the next day and I'm telling the girls, my new friends, about, I wish my husband would have said yes, that would have been fun, but unfortunately— and they're like, oh yeah, mine wouldn't either, there's no way.

But everyone was just super disappointed. They're like, well, keep working on him. I'm like, okay, yeah, I'll see what I can do, or whatever. That was all the second day, and we did like men's chests and legs and ears and nostrils and all kinds of body. But the last day was gonna be focused on just the bikini area.

Genitals.

Yes. So we did all morning females. We had to do each other.

Oh, wow.

Oh, it was an intimate experience.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I forgot to mention too that on the last day, I told Brad, I was like, if you wanna come, we're gonna start the males at 3:30.

Last chance.

To show all my new friends your penis.

Well, would there be like a sock over it or something?

That's why this class was so important to me, because it is an etiquette of like how to have people have their dignity and still get in there and get your work done. And that's what I was mostly curious about.

Of course.

How do you handle it? Literally.

And that's where the story goes. So anyway, 3:30 comes and Brad does walk in the door.

And Brad is a hero. Mary, did you notice Brad had taken a shower and combed his hair and stuff? Was he his best presenting self?

Well, when he walked in, he mostly just looked sheepish. And then my little boy, the receptionist, was so kind to just kind of watch him. And part of the training, too, is to say, this is what you need to do to get prepared. You're going to go in this room, unrobe from the waist down, and then be on your knees first, kind of facing the opposite way. And then I'll knock on the door and come in and the entire class gets to come back in.

Just to be clear, he's on all fours naked.

Yes.

Holy shit. Okay, this is extreme. We're going to start with the anus.

That's the easiest part, just FYI.

Yes.

For the practitioner.

No, for the receiver. The butt is the easiest and least painful part.

I believe that. I'm just talking more the emotional ride of presenting your anus when you're first— that to me sounds really hard.

And honestly, one thing we always tell people is the anxiety you have before the treatment starts is when you're the most anxious. I think once the technician comes into the room and you start working, It feels so much better. Not to compare it to this experience that I'm having right now, but it's like I was more anxious before. Now when to start, it's better. So the very first position is on your hands and knees. And then the instructor teaches us that when someone's nervous, they're a little bit more like a cat, like nervous, and their butt cheeks are closed, which is fine, especially on a male where we want to do the buttocks first, which women, it's not as big of a deal. We just kind of started off with doing the strip wax on the buttocks, which is like when you use the muslin paper and then you have to pull it off that way. And then when you go to more delicate areas, then you'd use hard wax.

Okay.

So the next position, and she shows the difference between when the client wants to kind of leave the table and like move forward, but you have to push their hips back and like keep them at the end of the table for you so you can have the closest access and you need to get in there. So you just really kind of pull their hips towards you.

Oh wow.

But then you push on their back, their lower back, to really make their butt cheeks splay out.

Yeah.

There's all these girls all the way around the whole table watching him, and she'd push on the back and his bum cheeks would open up and then close and open and close, and his head was just down. And I kept having this like experience of like, I'm just a student, and then I'd be like, wait, that's my husband.

Yeah.

I mean, had you even seen it that close? Like, yeah, exactly, examined it.

Had you ever gotten Brad up on a table and just positioned his hips and lower back straight into his asshole, open and closing his butt cheeks like shutters?

Dax, I thought you'd appreciate that because I think when you're in the movie or something, when you're like, oh, I'm so worried about my anus.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they all saw it for sure because they covered it with a sheet afterwards.

Then the very next thing is to do the scrotum. And I didn't know this, but you really want a flat surface and the skin has to be really tight. So you just push up with the balls with like a piece, like, you know, and pull down. Oh my God, you can't let go. So then you have to reach over with one hand and grab this wax that's swirling like taffy and just lay it like buttering toast.

And he's still on all fours for this?

Yes.

Okay, quick question, and I'm gonna try to do it as appropriately as possible as I can imagine, but I feel like there's a high degree of risk with him becoming aroused. I mean, strangers tugging and pulling on your testicles could definitely activate things.

Right. I think that's a major question that everyone asks, but they're like, for some reason— and Brad said this too, he goes, I was so worried that that happened, but it is like the furthest thing from your mind. And then she did say, the instructor was like, I've never experienced this ever in my career, because if you touch people correctly and you're doing it so professionally, I guess, then it's a different experience. But if some weird quirky guys do happen to come in, then you could just say This is not the service that we're rendering and just be done. But then everybody in the class was the most curious about this part because up to this point it's really similar to doing a female. So everyone just had to come up and push on the testicles and pull down on the scrotum.

Oh my God.

Everyone's getting in there.

Is he laughing? What's his demeanor?

Disassociating. He's just being a good student. Like whatever they told him to do, he'd just adjust and do. Then after we get everything kind of cleaned up from the back, because the more you clean up from the back, then the easier it will be to do the front. So then it is like, okay, Brad, go ahead and roll roll over. From Brad's perspective now, this is when he got the most nervous. 'Cause I think before he'd had his head down, you just kind of don't think much about it. You don't even realize how many people are there. It wasn't until I rolled over that I saw all these faces. And he was like, I just kept staring at the ceiling and didn't know what to do with his hands. But then this is where it really comes into keeping the dignity or the privacy. So you could cover with a towel. And I found it was really helpful just to have them help you hold everything over to the right and put your leg up like a Tinkerbell so you could do the inner thigh first and work over. But the way she taught you, and this was important to learn, but you just would grab the penis head and pull it and then grab the scrotum like a—

go opposite direction.

That's hard. That's two hands. And then how are you putting the wax on?

So you guys, did you really do a number on them? Did you take it all away?

Yeah, all gone. Yeah.

Wow.

And how old was Brad?

About 30, 31.

Oh, that's a great age for this.

I feel like that is wild.

Yeah, good for him.

He really is a supportive husband. No wonder you made it 30 years.

Yes.

What was the post-game chat between Brad and I?

Yeah, yeah, it was just wild. I just was like, thank you so much, like, you are just awesome. And he was like, if men knew how clean it feels and it's so easier to wipe. But he is clean-shaven. He shaves his legs. At the time, we did a lot of bicycling as cycling, and he still keeps his legs shaved and his arm shaved and his chest trimmed. So I think he prefers no hair anyway.

He's a little dolphin.

Yeah.

So has he kept up this wax?

We did wax for a long time, but now he just shaves.

Wow, Mary, I love it. There's a lot of counterintuitive stuff, like a cute couple from Idaho going to a cute town in Wisconsin to do this.

I know. Someone's got to do it.

Oh, Mary, this is delightful.

Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. I've been a fan for a long time. Love it. So thank you for making it so easy.

Thanks for listening.

All right, take care.

Bye. You know, when they do the butt—

hi, when they do the butt—

hello.

Let's start with what fake name we want.

I'm gonna go by Julia. I have to say off the bat, I am not ashamed of this story, but I have 3 daughters and they are very embarrassed that I'd be telling them.

Oh, okay, great. Well, we love that someone's embarrassed.

As the father of a couple daughters, I know anytime we go to the school, there's like a full— they go through me inch by inch to make sure I'm not going to embarrass them.

Oh yeah.

Can you tell us vaguely where in the country you are?

Yeah, I'm outside Boston.

Oh, okay, wonderful. Julia, you have a spa story.

So this story took place summer of 2007. My boyfriend, we'll call him John, and I were in our late 20s, and he had a cousin who was getting married in California. So the story takes place on the West Coast. Since we are coming from Boston, we decided to take a couple days, drive up the coast before heading out to wine country. So we got into San Francisco pretty early in the day, so our hotel room wasn't ready and we decided to spend a couple hours just exploring the city. Eventually we got hungry and we found a little Italian restaurant with outdoor seating. So we sat down, the sun was shining, ordered some wine, got some pasta, really just full-blown vacation mode. So after lunch, I realized this was probably gonna be my last chance to get my nails done before the wedding. And there were a couple days of events. So we find a little nail salon. I walk in and the place is totally empty. It's the middle of the day. Only the people who are working there were there. I sit down to get my nails done and John leaves. He's gonna go explore the neighborhood and everything's going great.

I have a little buzz on from the wine. I'm really enjoying myself. And then the polish comes out.

Mm.

Okay.

And I notice, feel a little bit off. My fingers are feeling tingly. My vision is kind of starting to close in.

Oh, fuck.

Yeah.

And everything's feeling just a little bit hazy. So I've fainted a couple of times before, and I knew the drill. I felt this feeling before, but if I could just take a couple of deep breaths, I was going to get through it. Everything would be back to normal. I'd go back to my manicure.

Do you have low blood pressure?

I think that's probably the case. So I'm taking deep breaths, but it's not working. This feeling is not passing. And the woman who's doing my nails, she's getting worried. I'm not looking good. Someone comes over and starts massaging my shoulders. This isn't going well.

Okay, everyone, it's visible that you're losing your faculties.

Yeah. And at this point, another feeling hits, and that's that I'm gonna throw up.

Oh no, no.

And I'm not thinking clearly, but I did clock that there was a bathroom about 10 steps behind me. And all I could think was, I really I didn't wanna throw up all over this nice woman's workstation. So I was gonna try to make it to the bathroom. So I turned to make a run for it and I made it about 8 steps.

Oh no.

You're the only guest in there or were there more?

I'm the only guest.

Oh, thank goodness.

That's good at least. Okay, that helps.

I remember reaching for the door handle and then the next vision I have, I'm staring at the ceiling and there are 4 women staring down at me.

Oh no.

Oh, so you have booted and then kind of passed out?

Oh God.

Fuck.

I'm on the phone.

What the heck happened?

Oh man, everything was going so good.

The wine at lunch—

Italian— you never get food poisoning from Italian. That's rare. Knock knock.

I'm just confused. I have no idea what's just happened. Why am I looking at the ceiling? So I sit up and I start scanning for clues. And the first thing I notice is it looks like someone took a plate of pasta and just threw it at me.

Oh no.

Oh, you're covered.

It's all over my dress. It's on the side of my face.

Oh.

It's in my hair. It's all the way through my nasal cavity, which I found out later.

Sure.

I've had that a bunch. Yeah.

Yeah.

You almost have to learn how to throw up so that doesn't happen.

Yeah.

It was inside my ear. It was everywhere.

Oh, fuck.

But the next thing I noticed is that I'm also soaking wet. And this was very confusing until I realized that when I passed out, I not only throw up, I also emptied my bladder and I was lying in a puddle.

Oh my God.

Were they screaming? Was it hectic?

At that moment, I was mortified. And so I jumped up and the first thing I did, I looked to the back of the salon and there was a woman on the phone, I'm guessing with 911. And she looked terrified.

Yeah, that's so scary for them. They're just trying to paint nails.

What's going on in your body?

I know.

You peed.

The next thing I did is I turned to the front of the salon, and I noticed that John is standing in the doorway.

Oh.

And he is just baffled by this crime scene he walked into.

He dropped you off and you were happy and excited to do your nails. He took a trolley ride. He comes back, you're on the ground covered in your filth. He must have thought you were jumped or something.

It was chaos, but I did not want to get in the ambulance. All I wanted to do was leave. I was apologizing to these nice women for destroying their salon, and we took off.

You took off.

Okay.

So you didn't get any nail polish?

Oh no. But now I'm on the streets of San Francisco, just covered in urine and throw up.

Oh God.

Oh my God.

This is horrible. Did you figure out what happened? Yeah, what the fuck happened?

I have no idea. It's never happened since. I went to the doctor and they did all sorts of tests on me. They told me I have low blood sugar and that's about it.

Which is nuts because you had a belly full of pasta and wine. Your blood sugar should have been through the roof. You should have been an insulin issue. They want to get you out of there.

Yeah.

Maybe you were allergic to the polish.

Oh, I would have thought, you know, had you not been with your boyfriend that you got roofied. It sounds like a roofie. Like, you're in there, you got a buzz, now you're like really intoxicated.

You still could have— maybe whoever served you the wine.

Well, what would their plan have been? Now I got to get rid of John.

Yeah, they didn't think it through. Oh, that's horrible.

Well, I have to say, the cherry on top was that our hotel room wasn't ready, but John's parents were at a hotel close by, so we went there. And I took a shower in their hotel room, which I'm somewhat grateful for, but it was also the most humbling part of the whole thing.

Yeah, I would not want to do that.

John called his parents, he's like, "I gotta get Julie off the streets. Is your room open?" How was the wedding? Was it fun?

It was lovely.

Did you have anxiety that it was gonna happen again? I would have anxiety for the rest of my life that that would happen again.

I just laughed about it. I thought it was hilarious. I think I was talking about it at the wedding.

All right.

Oh, that's great. That's the perfect attitude. It does remind me, sometimes your body just fucking betrays you. I was on the beach one time with Aaron in Santa Barbara. We didn't yet live there. I think we were on a road trip, and I went out swimming, and then I came in and I laid on my towel and I put my shirt on, and then I was starting to get really kind of— my vision was closing and I was feeling very wobbly. And then I tried to take my shirt off because I was getting kind of sweaty And midway through taking my shirt off, I completely ran out of any energy. Weird. And I was like trapped in my shirt. And then I just kind of fell back and Aaron was talking to me. My vision went away. And then I just was in this like paralytic state for like 5 minutes. In my head, I'm getting really afraid I'm dying. And then it passed.

Yeah.

And I'm like, I don't know. I had a bunch of oil on my heels from like being out in the ocean there. There's a bunch of oil rigs.

Maybe you got a sea monster.

Did somebody get enough oil in me? Yeah.

Did I get bit?

Yeah.

And then, yeah. And then I was freaked out every time I went to the beach for like a year. Like, am I just gonna die? Like, what's going on?

It's so scary.

Yeah.

Yikes. Well, I'm sorry that happened, and I'm sorry you didn't get your manicure.

I know.

Dax, can I share one final gratitude with you?

Yes, of course.

I was very much looking forward to sharing with you how grateful I am for you talking about your dyslexia so openly. Oh, I am now married to John, and we have 3 beautiful girls together. 2 of them are dyslexic, and And even though I know how incredibly smart and hardworking they are, it's just so hard to watch their confidence get shaken because of the stigma attached to it. So I'm incredibly grateful. You are such a model of someone who is so smart, has such a beautiful perspective on the world, and is so creative. And you also had a really hard time learning how to read.

Well, thank you. How old are they?

They are 13, 11, and just turned 10.

And is the 13-year-old have it?

Nope.

It's the two younger ones.

Okay.

I'll just say my own experience and then my experience with one of my daughters is it weirdly passes, like it clicks. You finally absorb all writing in totality as opposed to syllable by syllable. So I would just be optimistic for me around 13, it clicked.

Yeah, they get there. My middle daughter, she is a lover of books now.

Oh, great. Great.

Well, it's lovely meeting you. Give our love to them. And thanks for saying that. That was very nice.

Thank you so much. It was so nice meeting you both.

All right. Have a wonderful time. Get out to the Cape.

All right. Thanks so much.

Bye.

Is that nerdy to say get out to the Cape?

Probably.

I didn't even understand that.

Well, she's in Boston.

I know.

I mean, I—

Cape Cod.

Okay. Yeah. Cape Cod. It wasn't nerdy.

It was nice. It was earnest.

It was earnest.

Sometimes earnest is nerdy. The Venn diagram there does have a big overlap, but that's all right.

Yeah.

Hello, Sarah.

Look at that shirt.

Oh, oh my God, it's so, it's so cute.

Thank you.

And do we have the exact same sleeve? When you went backwards, it looked very similar.

Yeah, very similar. I've got lots of tattoos.

We're going by the fake name Sarah, but can you tell us where in the world you are roughly?

I am in my closet right now. In Vancouver Island in Canada, Western Canada.

Oh, we get a lot of Vancouver Island listeners.

Yeah, we love that. You guys should all get together and throw a party.

Yeah, a regatta would be my pick.

Would love that if you agreed to come to the party. I would love to throw a party.

Okay, great. We are dying to see Vancouver in all its glory.

Arguably the best place in Canada.

It's hard, man. You guys have some real gems. You've got that whole Ontario Muskoka Lake thing, you've got Montreal, you've got Prince Edwards Island. You got a lot. You got Banff. You got a lot to choose from.

I agree.

Okay, so you have a spa story.

This took place about 15 years ago. I was in my early 20s and I had just started my aesthetics career, and I was working in my first job.

Can you tell us what the curriculum is if someone wants to become an esthetician? I'm always curious about this, like, what is the training?

So there's a program that you do, which actually is less and less becoming popular, but there's a program. I think it was about 11 months. You learn all about the skin, how it works, your biology, basic body stuff, and then you go into how to perform services on people. So like facials, body waxing, massage, like all sorts of things like that.

Okay, okay, great.

I'm a trained esthetician. I was working in a day spa, so there was a room in the back of a hair salon and is I had just given my 2-week notice to move on to a different salon. So it's very common in the industry that someone who is going to take over your position would come in and do a working interview. So they would perform a service, someone would overlook it, they would decide if you were competent for the job.

So it's like a little trial of the person replacing you.

Totally. And looking back, I don't know why, like, the new girl girl who wasn't going to be in the company anymore was signing off on me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was like, sure, whatever. So we had this woman, she was about the same age as I was. She comes in, we get an introduction, we go into the back room. I'm getting a Brazilian wax, I should say that.

Oh, she's gonna do it on you?

Oh, I thought you were watching.

There's a lot of— we already talked to an anesthetist and she went to a workshop, and yeah, all the students wax each other. Well, because they probably can't wax like regular, but it is interesting to do it with your coworkers?

She's going to perform a Brazilian wax on me. So for those of you who don't know, Brazilian wax is commonly— you take all of your hair off front to back, like vulva, butthole, everything. So I go into the room with her. She's a stranger to me. I take off all of my clothing from my waist down, off, and get on a like massage-type table bed. I lay back, I spread my legs out, out in a frog position. So at this point I have like labia to the wind.

Really quick, do you attempt at all to assess whether she is full of shit or knows before you lay down? Like, do you ask her any questions or no?

That wasn't really my job. And also most people wouldn't lie about being able to do something and then immediately show that they can't do it. I wouldn't.

Yeah, yeah.

She waxes the top part of the Brazilian, so like the pubic bone, to Does a great job on that. I have no qualms. We're having a conversation. She applies the wax in between my labia majora, labia minora, puts the strip on, pulls it off. And when you get waxed, obviously it doesn't feel great, but I don't feel any excessive pain. It's just annoying for like 20 minutes and then you're done. Pulls the strip off and all of a sudden she kind of cowers in the corner.

No.

Bends over. And she's like, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. I'm like, oh, what's going on? I look down, blood.

Okay, Sarah, really quick, really quick. How is it done wrong and right? You put it all on, you put the paper down, you give it a yank.

You put the wax on with the hair, so you're going with the direction of the hair. Then you put a fabric strip down, press it on there, and then you're going to hold the skin very tight and pull against the hair. And you're not going to, like, rip it off. You want to gently kind of pull it off enough force that the hair is going to come out without breaking. Well, she didn't do that. So she, I think, put the wax on too thick. So there's a lot of grip on it. Oh, and then she didn't hold the skin taut enough and she just pulled straight up.

Ah, this is my biggest fear. I'm always worried they're going to just, like, show me a strip of vagina.

Vaginas on it.

Yeah.

She's having a moment. I'm like, babe, you gotta go get my coworker right now. Like, I need to talk to somebody who's in charge. So she goes and gets my coworker slash friend at the time. She comes in and she takes one look at me and she's like, you need to seek medical attention. Like, something's up. Oh, so I'm like, great, awesome, love this for me. So I grab a handful of cotton rounds, throw them in my meandees. Put my pants on, penguin walk out of this day spa.

What's the pain level?

More shock. Like, I was in pain, but I think I was like making the pain up. Like, I was like, oh yeah, this is bad. But really I was like, oh my gosh, I just need to go over. So I'm in a mall, so I had to then penguin walk through this—

oh geez—

across the parking lot, across 4 lanes of traffic to a walk-in doctor clinic. And I walk in, it's a young male doctor. He's like, what's the nature of your visit? I'm like, I have a vulva wound at this point. So this is when I start to get panicked. Same thing, take my clothes off, lay me down on the table. Because there was a male doctor working on me, they had to have a female in the room, so they had a female nurse come in. And I'm deathly scared of needles. He lays me down, he's like, I have to freeze the area. And I don't really know at this point how bad it is, so I'm holding on to this nurse's hand so tight. I'm like, oh my God, freaking out. He's like, you have to get stitches. In my head, I'm like, I'm never having sex again. Like, I'm ruined, my body. Yeah, like, I don't know anyone that's giving birth.

Yeah.

So the nurse just squeezes my hand a couple times and she's like, this is what they're made for, you're 'Everything's gonna be fine.' And I was like, 'Okay, thank you for that.' After he's done, he's like, 'Okay, I have to let you know, I gave you 7 stitches, and the wound was 2 centimeters wide.' So like 3/4 of an inch. He almost ripped my lip off of me, essentially.

Oh my God.

Oh, it's like a C-section, but postpartum.

Yeah, exactly.

Oh my God.

Oh, so I obviously didn't go back to work, didn't ever go back to that job. I go home that night with a Peri bottle. I just moved in with my boyfriend at the time, my ex-boyfriend at the time, and I'm like, hey, how's it going? Like, Frankenstein over here, I need your help with this. I was just so embarrassed. So then I call my mom and my mom just bursts out laughing. She's like, ha, like laughing at me. I hear my dad in the background like, what's going on? My mom immediately tells my dad, like, I don't want my dad to know, right?

Sure.

The next day my brother had a baseball game And I show up to the baseball game, my dad is holding one of those little donuts, like cushions for people with hemorrhoids.

Yeah, very sweet.

It's such a dad thing to do.

Yeah, go buy some. Oh, I'll buy something.

I'll go to the hardware store.

Yeah. Hi, uh, he's asking customer service, my daughter recently lost her menorah and/or menorah. I'm not sure which one is which. Do you have like a Cabbie's Best Friend or a Hemorrhoids seat. Wait, what was the moment like when he handed it to you?

It was so awkward. It's like my aunt and my uncle there.

You're also calling attention at a baseball game. You have something going on anally or vaginally if you're sitting on a little cushion.

You could just say like, oh, it's just because it's an uncomfortable seat.

I'm really sensitive to wooden benches.

Oh God, did you like sue her?

No, and I just wanted to forget it. I honestly thought I was like ruined for life. And now, you know, I've been in the business for a long time, I have my own shop and stuff, and I'm like, oh yeah, they are made for that. You can't tell. Everyone looks the same, everyone looks different. It just is what it is.

Did you inquire as to whether they did hire her?

I think they did hire her.

Stop it.

And you know what, I wonder if she thinks about me.

I bet she does every time she's doing that on somebody. I hope she does.

Well, you know, she was mortified. I mean, as an anesthetist, that has to be the very top nightmare. Anesthetist? What'd I say? Anesthetist? What you needed?

Yeah, yeah, you did need that. I'm really sorry that happened.

You know what the comp is? Like, every time you hear one of these stories, I know what's going on in your brain. Every time I hear that a guy put something in his urethra, I think those are— that's the comp.

I know. I think that's so interesting because we also have urethras.

You just think yours is so much tinier Well, ours is hanging out of our body by inches.

I know, but it's like still so tight.

You never hear stories of women getting anything in their urethra, but we're constantly interviewing these nurses and the guys are putting like test tubes in their urethras and all kinds of—

that's their issue. Yeah, well, we know some women who put— well, not in their urethra.

You're right, right, right. Well, you really have taken it in stride. Yeah, yeah, I think it's made you even more likable.

Yeah.

I'm so happy to meet you guys. My friend Sarah and I call it our podcast. Oh, so that was my little shout out.

Shout out, Sarah.

My real name.

Well, it's so nice meeting you, and give our love to real Sarah. All right, take care.

Bye. Take care, guys. Bye.

I wanted to say something earlier, I forgot. Okay, so it's interesting that when the men have to do the butt wax, that they have to get on all fours, because they don't do that for women.

Or, well, because the cheeks. You're just getting your anus, your perineum. Yeah, they're not doing your butt cheeks at large, correct?

That's true. Huh.

Should I show up at one of these places and just be like, take it all off?

You should try it.

All right, I love you. Love you.

Do you want to sing a tune or something?

We don't have a theme song. Oh, okay, great. We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I Go, go, go! We're gonna ask some random questions, and with the help of Armchairies, we'll get some suggestions. On the Flyer Rhyme Dish, on the Flyer Rhyme Dish, enjoy!