Transcript of Armchair Anonymous: Twins New

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

Hello.

And today we have twins. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. We also have a twin coming up.

We do. I wish we had arranged this a little better.

There's a little unintentional—

Sims.

What was the other one we just had? Doppelgangers. Doppelgangers. We stumbled into a few weeks of doppelgangers.

So fun.

Yes. Well, twins. This is twins telling us crazy stories of being twins, and we just love them. We love twins.

We love them.

We love them.

Also, we have new prompts. Yes, new prompts.

Submit.

Please submit. Please, please, please. You submit at www.armchairexpertpod.com. Tell us a crazy story about a bad roommate.

We know you got them.

Yeah, come on. Tell us about a time you stole something. Tell us a crazy graduation story. Tell us a crazy camping story. And I'm going to throw this one in there. Am I allowed to do this, Rob?

Yeah, whatever you want.

Okay. Cause someone just suggested it in the comments and I thought it was, and it kind of pairs well. Crazy neighbor stories. Let's add crazy neighbors. So if you've got a crazy neighbor, crazy roommate, you stole something, you graduated and went haywire, or a crazy camping story, please submit and we will chat with you. Please enjoy twins.

Hard times come and go.

Good times take 'em slow. My life, I had 'em both. Remember one thing, you gotta know, I'ma keep on shining.

Hello.

Hello, is this Casey?

This is Casey, how are you?

Good.

Where are you, Casey? Oh my God. Yo, it looks very cute.

It does.

Repping the best.

Oh, it looks so chic.

You could be a model for the sweatshirt, I think.

Anytime you want to hit me up, I'm happy to do so.

So where are you at?

I am from Glen Ellyn, Illinois, so Rob should know that.

I know Glen Ellyn. Have you gotten into trouble there, Rob?

No, I played soccer there, though.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. Not from here. My husband lived here, but I grew up in Batavia. Not a far drive.

So you moved to this town for your husband?

Correct. My husband bought a house here.

Okay. How long have you guys been together?

8 years now.

Oh my goodness, you've made it past the 7-year scratchies.

I know, right? 8 years together, less than a year married.

Oh, okay, wonderful.

Did you make that up? 7-year scratchies? Because 7-inning stretch?

No, 7-year itch is the thing.

Yeah, okay, I have heard that.

And I changed it to scratchies real time.

I like it.

I did too.

And you made it through the scratchies.

Okay, so are you a I am a twin, so my story has to do with being a twin. Firsthand experience.

Oh, wonderful. Let us in on it.

I would say that we didn't grow up, my sister and I, as typical twins. I would partially blame my mom just because from kindergarten onwards she put us in different classes. She didn't dress us alike. She wanted us to have our own personalities, have our own friend groups, all of that.

Can I quickly ask, are you fraternal or identical?

Actually, we didn't know if we were identical or fraternal, to be quite fair. We were born in the '90s. When we were born, we came out, the doctor had essentially said there was one placenta, but then he also countered and said it was two placentas that might have fused into one. So he was confused.

Oh.

So essentially for 31 years, my sister and I were walking around either saying that story or just being like, we don't know. And then kind of avoiding all further questions.

Uh-huh.

And it wasn't until actually 2024, my husband was so sick of us telling the story that we didn't know that he bought a genetic test off of Amazon.

Oh.

So we did do the testing in 2024. And the exact verbiage, I had to look it up, was the probability of this match occurring between two random individuals is approximately 1 in 7.46 10^27.

Oh my God.

Okay, so pretty good odds it could happen to anyone.

So I would say our DNA, it's pretty similar at the end of the day.

Whoa.

Okay, now quickly to mom's desire for you both to have your own personalities. I understand it in some sense. Like, you're a parent, you're worried. You think your kid's gonna go out and need to create their own life and they can't be so dependent on another person. But then I also would imagine that's informed by someone's own disposition about how independent they want to be seen, you know what I'm saying? Do you know what her main driving reason was for wanting you guys to be separated and all that?

I think it really just at the end of the day was that she just wanted us to develop our own personalities and have our own friendships. I think when you're a twin, you rely so heavily on your other half. Sometimes even other twins start speaking for the other one. I feel like always these dynamics kind of come into play— Type A, Type B. And I just think from the get, she wanted us to be two separate people when we were out in the world.

Okay. And she herself wasn't a twin?

No. They say twins skip a generation, but I think when we looked back at genetics, it was like years and years and years ago that there were ever twins on any side. So we just weren't that typical. I was the more Type A, studious, riding horses, hanging out with my girlfriends on the weekend. And then my sister was more the rebellious type, gotten a lot of trouble when we were younger. She was out there breaking rules. So it was a warm summer night in 2011, and I had just gotten this really weird feeling that something was going on, that something was wrong. And I had gone over to my mom and I had asked her what was going on, if she had heard from my sister at all. And she had kind of brushed me off and said, no, she's in the city with a few friends. I haven't heard from her. She's fine. Carry on with your day.

How old would you and she have been at that time?

We were probably 19. So the feeling hasn't sided. The best way I could describe it, it's like an elephant sitting on your chest. It's like your anxiety being at a 12 out of 10. You just know innately that something's not right. So I go back to my mom again and I say, again, I haven't heard from my sister Sarah. I've tried calling, I've tried texting. Have you heard from her? And again, she brushed me off. She's like, no, Casey, you're fine, she's fine. We haven't heard from her, everything's good. And I will preface this with saying I have gotten this feeling a lot. Again, she was a rebel rouser, she got in a lot of trouble. Mind you, a year Previous to this, she had been in a motorcycle, a moped accident, down the street from her house. She was causing trouble driving the moped. She had flipped off of it, shattered her femur.

Oh, femur.

And had ended up in the hospital, broke her leg, and one of her legs now, her left leg, is about half an inch shorter than her right leg.

Well, tell her Usain Bolt is also— don't let that slow her down.

Trust me, it did not slow her down. So I had had this feeling previously, there had been a lot of weird parallels in our life. Where this had come up and accidents had occurred. So we went to bed, a dreaded phone call came about 11 o'clock at night letting us know that my sister actually had gotten into an accident in the city. She was with a handful of friends. They were walking along the Chicago Lakefront Trail and being underage, drunk, imbalanced, left leg shorter than the right. She'd actually fallen.

Left leg shorter than the right.

That did it. Wow.

I guess it's a variable we gotta consider.

Yeah.

Yeah.

She's abnormally clumsy. Clumsy person, and then you throw in one leg being shorter than the left, and that just really adds to it. So she unfortunately had fallen from one pier on the Chicago Lakefront Trail to another.

Oh my goodness.

And had been rendered unconscious. And the phone call my mom had gotten was when she was already at the hospital. A friend had actually stayed with her and called my mom, and that was just kind of that feeling, that intuition of knowing, you know, that my other half— there was something going on. So I know there's been a lot of speculation that I've heard from you guys. Is the twin telepathy or connection real? And I can definitely say in my case that it is.

Whoa, this is horrible for you.

Yeah, because you didn't really warrant or earn any of this anxiety, but your identical doppelgangers out there—

and she causes trouble. And now you have to live in this world where you know that she's always at risk And it's upsetting.

It feels like a children's book. It's kind of also the id and the superego. What were her total injuries? How well did she recover? Is one side of her face a half inch shorter than the other now? What's going on with her?

She recovered great. She was in the hospital, and I called my mom to check in on the story to make sure all my details were lining up as well. And she had said that we had drove down there and she was at Rush Copley, which is right outside of Chicago, and she's actually sitting in the hallway because they didn't have enough rooms to put her in, and that she was unconscious, I think, for a brief amount of time. But as far as I know, the only screws are loose are a few, but I don't think that aided to anything.

Okay, okay. And where is she at now? How's she doing? She leveled off or is she still a daredevil?

I have her here.

Oh, this is so exciting!

Hi!

Oh wait, she's not in— yeah, you have that thing on. You gotta get closer.

Oh yeah, wow, this is so exciting!

Here's Troublemaker.

How dare you?

Have your troubles passed? Are you now a safe, law-abiding citizen? What?

I'm pregnant, so no more. I went through the rebellious phase up until probably I hit 21 and drinking wasn't fun anymore.

You wore it out quickly. Well, congratulations on the forthcoming baby.

Thank you. She broke the unspoken rule we had of getting pregnant at the same time, but she's the daredevil.

She's got to go first.

And the oldest.

By how much?

8 minutes.

Wow, you took your sweet-ass time, Casey. You were like, tell me how it is out there and then I'll decide if I'm coming. Oh, that kind of makes sense. She came first. She's like, I got it, I'll come up first. I'll see what's on the other side of this unknown.

I'll check it out for you.

Do both of you listen to the show or just one?

Both of us.

Oh, okay.

She got me into the show because we're like good boys and girls.

Yeah, you probably listen to Smartless.

She listens to Call Him Her Daddy.

I got her into it. And if I could do a shout out to my husband, huge shout out to Mike Well, but this was so exciting, so surreal to see you guys.

So nice to meet you. We love twins, it's so fun. I don't know which one to look at, which is exciting. I'm bouncing back and forth.

Okay, now being a twin, do you feel like everyone's just staring so hard at the two of you when you're together because they're trying to determine what's different? Like, I wouldn't want someone investigating my face like that.

Do you feel examined, I guess, is the question.

I think so. I think growing up we looked a lot more similar, but now I would say we do hang out with each other more, and our friend groups have kind of evolved into one.

Did you guys ever like the same boy?

No, very different taste in men.

Oh, I like that. Okay, okay.

Are your husbands like each other?

I would say my husband is like her, and my husband is like her.

Okay, yeah, yeah, I like that.

Missing halves.

Yeah.

Well, lovely meeting you sisters. This has been so fun. Take care, and congrats and good luck on everything.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

All right.

Hi, hello, is this Anna Marie?

It's Anna. Anna, we have an Anna.

We have a very close Anna. Do you hear us say Anna?

I do, and I rarely hear people say Anna. It's usually Anna, so I always appreciate that it's the right pronunciation of our name.

It's wreaked havoc in our friendship circle in a sense that once I finally got used to that, then Anna Kendrick. I always call Anna Kendrick now. And then our friend Hannah, when I'm first around her and I've been around Anna a lot, I'll call Hannah Hannah on accident. Monica doesn't relate to the anxiety problems, but I certainly have it.

It's hard, especially my husband's name is Dash. Oh, that never gets messed up. I have the type of personality that's really bad at correcting people, so I'm often Anna.

Bad in that you do correct them, or bad in that you don't correct them?

I'll correct the first time, and then after that it's kind of like, I'm not sure how to do this gracefully without you feeling weird. So if your friend Anna has any tips—

she doesn't because she does the same thing, and I always feel really awkward when I'm there too and someone we know well is calling her Anna. I'm like, at this point you should know.

You can make an argument for both. So one is like, oh yeah, you should advocate for yourself and insist on people calling you— so that's the one argument. The other argument that I think is just as valid is like, I don't really care. Every time I give my name at a Starbucks, I go, Dax. They go, Dax? I go, yeah. Every time it gets mangled, it's like, it's not worth me spending time correcting it.

If I was calling you Dex, you would care and you should care.

Well, first of all, you never call me by my name, nor do I really call you by yours. So it becomes moot pretty quickly in relationships, right? No, I'm never like, Monica.

It sounds so familiar. Oh, you do that all the time.

No, it's awkward if it's someone I know.

Yes, and it happens. I'm not gonna call anyone out on the pod right now, but I'm thinking about someone.

Do you see the argument I'm making though? Like, there is something also elevated about not giving a shit.

I'll take that. Happy to appear elevated.

No, you don't have to do that.

Yeah, like, do you know, would you rather be happy or right?

No, you'd rather people pay enough attention to know your name.

Yeah, this probably files into that insecure-secure attachment style.

You don't get to have an opinion on this. You have no idea.

Yes, that people mess up all the time.

Strangers?

No, people that I deal with a lot that still can't help but call me Dak. Your father fucked up my name when we were together the other day. It came out because it gives you anxiety, that X, and he said Dak, and it's like, I don't really— I don't care. I know what's going on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Whenever he talks about you, he says, you know, correctly. Yeah, so he knows your name, but maybe you made him really nervous.

Okay, let's get to your story. Really quickly, Monica, you've met my little sister.

What?

She works at Bucatini.

I love her.

Well, you know her?

Yes.

You're positive?

Get out.

Well, how many people work there?

Mainly one.

Yeah, it's mostly Leah.

She's so sweet and she's a huge armchair until now.

Why is that?

She's mad at Dad.

No, I just wanted to know how you knew. Like, is there only one employee? Like, if there's 4 women, she said my sister works there and you go, I love her. I'm just curious how you knew. She also looks a lot like you.

Both of you are very beautiful.

Thank you. We get confused for twins, even though I'm 7 years older than her.

That's a feather in your cap big time.

I know, right?

Is she as cool as she comes across?

She's so cool.

And Ana, where are you at?

I'm in Brooklyn, hence the no closet that I can fit into.

You're cool too.

But for an apartment in New York, I'm digging the vibe.

This is my little studio. My husband's studio is on the other side of that bookshelf that he built.

Cute. Okay, so you have a twin story, and it's not that you're confused for your sister that works at—

Bugattini.

Bugattini.

I have 3 siblings, and we're each 3 years apart, and we grew up moving around a fair amount, but most of our childhood was spent in London because of my dad's job.

Was he MI5? What did he do in England?

He worked in telecom, and this is the early '90s, so that was a different time for telecom. But because of the nature of his job, he was not around that often. And since we were all pretty little and in a new country, my mom was pretty overwhelmed taking care of us all solo. So we were fortunate enough to have a live-in nanny. The way the setup worked is we lived in a house that had what the British call an in-law apartment. Oh. So the bottom street level had a bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, like a whole separate entrance. So when we would have these nannies, they would live in the basement. It was private. We would never go there. And they would go in through the street level and we would go up the stairs to enter the house. We primarily worked with this one babysitting agency. And as you can imagine, it was kind of hit or miss. Like we had some freaks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But one babysitter that we had, I was obsessed with. She was young. Most of these nannies, it was their first time living independently, and oftentimes they'd just moved to the UK, and it was like, ooh, my own apartment, big deal.

And this one nanny, she was probably early 20s, and she just moved to London, and she had like long glossy brown hair. She was soft-spoken.

Where had she moved from?

From South Africa. So she had a South African accent.

Oh yeah, very fun.

She was just very cool. And as a lot of young girls girls do with their nannies. I idolized her and just wanted to be her and thought she was so cool.

How old were you at this time?

I was 7, brother was like 9, and then my other sister was 6, my other sister was 3. I loved her, but there were a few things that didn't really jive. Most of the time she had like a really nice florally smell, but sometimes she stunk of cigarettes.

Oh, cigarettes. Okay.

At that age you're like, oh my God, smoking, like, ugh. So it was very noticeable. My siblings are all like, I think she smokes. But it was weird cuz it wasn't consistent. And also she seemed to be very forgetful. She would not remember our nighttime routines or we'd tell her something the day before and she wouldn't know what we were referencing. We started to think like maybe she wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. This was maybe a little difficult for her to keep track of all the kids. And you know, my mom was very present, so she was also aware of this, but she was just so grateful for the help that she was like, oh, I'll let it slide. But yeah, she would forget where to pick us up at school or forget We were all vegetarian because of mad cow disease. My parents were like terrified of us getting mad cow disease.

Sure, sure.

So she'd forget that.

Oh yeah, that's like a huge thing to forget.

Yeah. Or like one time she got us candy with gelatin, which we weren't allowed, and we were like, oh, like it was very exciting. Like we fully took advantage of these little things she would forget.

Quickly, did you ever notice— I'm sure she loved that you had such an affinity for her. Did you ever notice that sometimes she was connected to that and sometimes she was not? Or was it that across the board?

I was very shy and quiet, so I don't know how much she picked up my little crush.

Okay.

One night my mom was coming home and witnessed her like putting a key under the mat in front of her door, which my mom's like, young girl living alone for the first time, maybe boyfriend/girlfriend, she's having someone over, but still didn't jive the idea of the key to the house being out. And then she started throwing parties in the basement. Oh! Not ideal. And then the smoking was like one of the house rules, like, "Don't smoke in the house." So there were a few things working against her. But again, my mom was just so happy to have someone around to help that she was like, "We'll figure it out." But one night, my dad came home really late from a trip. He was exiting the taxi, and because it was night, and because her apartment was street level, if the curtains were up, you could see everything. And so as he was getting out and about to go up our stairs, he saw her in the kitchen and was like, "Oh, she's home." And then— And then, like, out of frame, into frame, another woman appears, and she's identical to you. Oh, yes.

The Prestige.

It is The Prestige.

Yes. The Prestige. She was living the act.

Stop it. And it's Parasite all at once.

Yeah.

Yeah. Hiding in the basement.

In the basement. Oh, my goodness.

So, yeah, the next morning, my mom confronted her and said, "Are you two people?" Yeah.

Oh.

And, yeah, she didn't deny it. It was a great way to get a two-for-one rent in London and two-for-one job. But, yeah, that was the reason. And she never knew what was going on because there's two women taking care of us.

Oh my God, one was a smoker, one was not.

You'd think they would, if they're going through all this trouble of really coming up with this scheme, which is a good scheme, they would talk and be like, so they're vegetarian, right?

But that's if you're the type of person that isn't pulling like a fun scam and in your 20s in London throwing parties in a house you know you should— like, they've kind of already demonstrated that's not their—

I should do a scam.

I know, but that's the paradox. You can't because you want it, but would be really good at making sure you guys have the same story. Dang. How did mom and dad handle this? For me, I might be like, cool, two for one.

But they've been lying and tricking and betraying you. You can't.

Yeah, I think just the idea of a stranger having taken care of your kids and lived with you for 5 months, I think that was enough to say maybe this isn't the right fit. So they told the agency. So I'm not sure what happened. I don't know. Know what their next scheme was.

I think they met identical twin boys and they lived happily ever after.

I hope that for them. They were very cute girls.

Of course they were. You don't get away with this for that long without being cute.

I wish you had their info. I do want to ask them if they saw The Prestige. Did you see The Prestige?

I did.

What year did that come out? Because this was like '96.

Oh, oh wow, not terribly long after. It was like 2007, I think.

Christopher Nolan. Those— them.

Maybe based on them.

Yeah, yeah, that's why.

Oh no, that was tasty. You guys had a real-life Prestige happening.

Parasite.

I wish they would have had a little fun with it, like play hide and seek with you.

They could have, who knows?

Yeah, and then they pop out from somewhere that would be impossible. Then these people would never trust anyone ever again, or they would think they had a version of Mary Poppins, like she's magic, she could be in any room of the house.

Two places at once.

Actually, I hope they graduated to more complex crimes with bigger payouts.

I hope so too. Maybe it'll end up being another story on here.

What age did you guys then leave England?

We moved to New York when I was in middle school, so 12.

Did you happen to listen to Amanda Peet's episode? Yeah, this is kind of her story. She was over there in England.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're right.

Came back to New York.

God, you guys are so cool.

I know. Did you have an English accent when you came back to New York? New York?

I did, because I learned how to speak in London, but I got made fun of pretty bad, so I tried to fit in. The most embarrassing thing is that, at least in our school, because I went to a British school, when you raise your hand in class, you don't do this, you do this.

Oh, you put a finger up for the listener. It's not a whole hand.

When I first started school in New York, I did that and got made fun of.

Yeah, it doesn't look good.

It looks uppity. It's almost like, and another thing, and another thing I want to say.

Yeah, there are a lot of moments like that.

Well, Anna, it's delightful to meet you. For someone who's shy, you did a great job. You must have outgrown your shyness.

Sometimes. I'm definitely the least likely of the siblings to have done this.

Oh, good for you.

Thank you. My sisters listen as well, Leah and my other sister Sonia, so they were like hyping me up.

Oh, how cute.

I'm probably gonna go to Bucatini today, give her a feedback. Yeah, and I'm gonna say you did great.

All right, well, have a great rest of your day. Take care in Brooklyn.

Yeah, now I do think you're a twin, like Lincoln thought, and now I think it.

Ew.

Oh, I love it. No, what's the other part of me doing right now? Riding a motorcycle?

No, that guy is like sick.

He's looking in windows. Yeah, exactly.

Oh wow.

Yeah, while you're doing work, while I make the money, he's out peeping in windows. Yeah, we would probably work out an attic schedule. It's like you can make a mess of your life in 6-month increments and then you gotta tag back.

What if your twin wasn't an addict?

That would be really interesting.

It wouldn't be my twin. I'd be like, you're not my twin.

I know. And then he's like, I'm your twin, dude. I look exactly like you.

No, smoke this cigarette. Okay, now don't you need another one? He's like, no. Yeah, you're not my blood. You killed your twin because he wasn't an addict. Hi, cute shirt, Scott.

Oh my God, the cutest sweatshirt around.

Yeah, why'd they say shirt? I'm so embarrassed. That's clearly a sweatshirt. Scott, I'm sorry.

It's okay, I'll let it slide.

Where are you, Scott?

I am Portland, Oregon.

Okay, Portland, or Beaverton, or Wilson?

Downtown Portland, up by the zoo.

Oh, okay, great. And how long have you lived there?

Since 2011.

And where'd you come from?

So I came from California by way of Colorado, which we'll get to in the story.

Oh, wonderful. All right, Scott, tell us your twin So, I'm an identical twin.

My brother is my identical twin, and his name is David. He will feature prominently in this story. So, we look very similar, especially when we were younger. People would often confuse us. Friends and family could tell us apart if we were standing next to each other. If we were on the street or something like that, people would struggle, right? They'd confuse us. If you're in a class and they knew Scott was supposed to be there, it was pretty clear who was who. But, you know, we would routinely confuse people.

Scott, when the people that knew you were looking at you and they could tell, were they observing personality differences, or were there a few key subtle differences not all physical things they saw.

This is a really good point, Dax. Just as a public service announcement on behalf of all twins, regularly people get super excited when they could tell twins apart. So excited, in fact, they want to tell you how they could tell you apart. I know how everyone who tells apart, they say, my face is fatter, you know, my brother's the sad twin.

Oh, always pejoratives.

Yeah, rude.

Someone always came out negatively.

Oh yeah, I mean, I was more looking for like, oh, 'Oh yeah, you have a small scar in your eyebrow. That's not bad.

That's cool.' Inherently though, so like maybe they didn't say that. Maybe they said, 'Well, David has a—' They might have said 'skinny face.' No, just like, 'That's a thin face.' And then you heard it.

They definitely said 'fatter face.' Okay, well, this is a bygone era, I guess.

The service announcement is, 'I don't need to know how you tell apart me and my brother. Keep it to yourself. Super happy for you.' But always there's something different.

This is a good PSA. I like it.

That is good. I look at my watch or something else, you know, but that's fine. People found lots of different ways to apart. I think we look very different, we have different personalities, but I have proof that people confuse us often, as I'll get to in the story. So as a twin, you know, I have lots of little crazy twin stories, and they kind of accumulate over time, and it's kind of your norm. I have a couple I wanted to share that kind of show some of the stuff that you deal with as a twin. So even as adults, we live on different coasts. So I live in Portland, Oregon. My brother, he lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. We still manage to confuse people unintentionally. My brother's a chemistry professor at Wake Forest. Oh shit, he has lots of students, and one of his students was was visiting Portland with her family, and they were on a walk in our neighborhood. I was also walking in our neighborhood. Oh wow, that is sim.

That's weird. Yeah.

And so she looked and she's like, that's my chemistry professor. And her parents were like, no, that's not— the person clearly lives here. And their parents convinced her, no, she was crazy. And then months later, my brother had casually mentioned that he has a twin brother living in Portland, and she was like, I knew it. Wow, good for her.

That's fun for her.

Yeah, small world mystery. So we have lots of things like that. Even as adults, we just find out that we, you know, have confused people. But growing up, we were very similar. We had a very shared childhood. We did very similar things. We had the same friends. We were very close. We were each other's best friends. Then we went to UC Davis in California, and we both were majors in chemistry. You know, we lived together, but then we decided that we both wanted to go to grad school, and we're trying to figure out what we're going to do. And we're kind of like, all right, we're going to have to like separate at some point. My girlfriend and I at the time, we were trying to figure out which grad schools we were going to go to, and David was doing his own thing. And we had one school in common, which was the University of Colorado in Boulder. My wife Rochelle and I decided we're going to go to Boulder. And then a month later, my brother independently decided like, all right, this is the best school for me. So we ended up going to the same grad school.

The programs we were in were different though. His was biochemistry, I was physical chemistry. So we had different classes. We really didn't overlap much and we didn't see each other that often cuz I was living with my girlfriend.

Was that part hard? You had been so inseparable. Did you feel any kind of missing feelings or was it fine cuz you were in love?

Yeah, I think it was like a new experience. We were still physically in the same school, so I knew that he was close by. We could still go do stuff. And so I think it was really comforting to have him by, but we were kind of doing our own things. There was some tension there. It was like, We're going to do something.

Did he have a girlfriend or it was just you with the girlfriend?

At the time it was just me and I got married before he did and then ended up buying a house, getting a dog, like doing all this stuff. And so we really were differentiating. But even then we'd still manage to get confused because we TA these large gen chem classes, right, with hundreds of people. And so I'd be walking on campus and someone would be like, hey Dave, do you wave and just hope they go away? Or do you have to have the conversation, which is always awkward.

This is a version of being famous, Scott. Like you're getting to experience a little bit like they're yelling Dave, which might be your character name from TV. TV, you're like, I'm not Dave in real life, I'm Scott in real life. And then you're obliged to have a conversation explaining what you're doing there.

It's always the same. It's like, oh, you're trying to talk to my brother? Okay, yeah, I'm a twin. That's crazy, I know. What's your name? Where do you come from?

I would tell him you said hi. Yes.

God, what if you hated your twin? Your life would be miserable.

You'd probably not be at the same school as them, luckily. You know, you had to distance yourself.

Even as we're trying to separate, like, we'd still have crazy stuff. Like, I ended up breaking my wrist playing soccer, my left wrist. A week later, my brother broke his same left wrist. Scheme. Scheme. Wow, wow, wow. So then we had matching casts walking around. Like, we're trying to do our own thing, but we're still having the same shared experience. Okay, so those are smaller examples, but there's like one incident that kind of stood out that I wanted to share today, even though I don't remember all of it. So soon after I moved to Boulder, I wanted to start like a soccer team, and they had this co-ed soccer league. You know, I decided to sign me and some friends up. The team was mostly made up of grad students, undergrads. It was kind of like a ragtag group of people. We're all fit, not super competitive, and so we decided to set up a team. Boulder in in general is a hyper-competitive place that permeates all aspects of life. Have you guys been to Boulder?

Do you know what I'm talking about? No, this is shocking. I think of Colorado as being very laid back and smoking weed and rock climbing and snowboarding.

But like a lot of outdoor sports though, right?

Yeah. What you find is generally there's people that are world-class at anything they're doing, and then there's lots of people trying to keep up. If you spend any time there, it's very clear. You figure this out. And so it's a large league, has 36 teams in it, which is like a lot for a co-ed soccer league for adult league. And they were broken up into 6 divisions, but then they used a promotion relegation system, kind of like you'd have in Premier League, the structure of it's competitive. Yeah. And then on top of that, they had teenage referees that were generally apathetic and underpaid, right? So you're setting up the situation where there's gonna be tension in the system. There's a coed league, so we're like equal men and women on the field. That generally lowers testosterone level a bit. So you think like, this is gonna be fine. Yeah. Buffers it. Let me take you now to a warm spring Wednesday evening in 2009. The game was at this like large field complex. So lots of games going on. Everyone's rushing to make the 5:45 game start time. It's midweek, so it's hard to get players there.

So I asked my brother David, who's not regularly playing on the soccer teams, like, hey, can you help cover? Come play for the team. We need some players. We had worked our way up, so we're like mid-tier in this league. So we're not in the most competitive league, but we're not at the bottom anymore. We've done enough to like get right in the middle of the divisions. So most of the games are pretty chill. However, it was clear once the game started, this was not going to be a chill game. Tensions were already high, fouls happening, but refs aren't calling things. They're disinterested in controlling the game. As things happen, people are getting more and more excited. And there was one person in particular, one big dude who was being extra aggressive, and he was pushing, fouling, doing stuff that was really ramping everything up. And for the sake of the story, let's call him Beef Stick.

Okay, great, great, great, great.

Yeah, fake name. David was playing defense throughout the game, and oftentimes he was interacting with Beef Stick, right? They were really going at it and getting into it. And my brother and I are rule followers, right? We follow the rules. Monica? Yes, I appreciate it. I get so angry when people don't follow the rules, as does my my brother. And so in this instance, my brother was going to be the fair police. He's going to be a bit more assertive playing defense, and he committed a strong but not malicious foul. The ref called it, but this did nothing to help with the tensions, right?

It didn't de-escalate anything. It escalated, in fact.

And I was doing my best to stay out of the drama. And at one point, after he had fouled Beefstick, he checked out of the game. He subbed out, and I was still on the field. I was dribbling the ball, kind of off balance, trying to get around a player. All of a sudden, bam, hit a brick wall. I was tackled. I didn't see it coming, and I was laid out on the ground, and like the back of my head hit the grass. Ah! And at this point, I don't remember much of the story, so it gets a little blurry, and I had to fill in details from other people. What I heard is I played another 5 or 10 minutes. Like, there was a commotion. People were angry. Tensions were still very, very high. This did not help. I kept playing, and then I eventually checked out of the game, laid down, and was immediately disoriented and confused. Ah. This is 2009, so concussions are not top of mind. People are not so worried as they are now.

It's a skin knee still. That's right.

And luckily, there was someone there who had some medical training. Who was recognizing symptoms, though it was pretty obvious. I was trying to text my wife to figure out how we were going to meet up. I didn't know how my phone worked. I couldn't understand it. I didn't know what day of the week it was. It was weird for everyone. And people on the team started realizing how serious this injury was, including the other team and our friend Beefstick. Finished the game. Everyone was like frustrated. But you know, afterwards you're shaking hands, you're saying good game to everyone. And I didn't. I was still just sitting down figuring out where I was. And Beefstick came up to my brother. He's like, uh, sorry, I confused you for your brother out there, implying that he actually meant to take out my brother. Can cuss your brother. The takeaway I have from this is like, in life as a twin, normally it's fun. People confuse you, you get a good story out of it, everyone has a good time. However, if you're playing in an ultra-competitive co-ed soccer league in Boulder, Colorado, that is not the case.

You do not want to be confused with your brother. I had to go to the ER, had to get x-rays, a CT scan.

Twindom can cause CTE.

Yeah, you might pay for the crimes of Yeah, yeah, right.

That's my crazy twin story.

How often do you see David now? Just like on holidays? Yeah, holidays is hard, man.

We each got 2 kids. Airfare's not cheap, right? And flying across the country, it's an ordeal. We try to see each other, you know, once a year.

Yeah, I don't know why I feel— yeah, I feel sadness more than, say, my brother and I being separated, because I feel like if you have an identical twin, you're so close.

Something different. Have you had telepathy?

Our joke is we have telepathetic powers, which means we don't have any ability. Pathetic.

Oh, that's funny. And are you a teacher?

I work at Intel. As my brother say, I sold out. He's fighting the good fight.

Well, when there's two of you, one can afford to get a little cage and the other can, uh, pass it forward. Oh, well, Scott, lovely meeting you. Please send our love to David. He's a part of the story.

Are you actually David? Is that going to be the big reveal?

There was a suggestion to have my fake name be David, but I spent enough of my time trying to people to get to know my real name. So, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. A couple shoutouts. So I just wanted to say that I look forward to all the new episodes like you, Dax, look forward to F1 weekend. And Dax, I really appreciate the role model you put out there for men with the parenting, vulnerability, how you carry yourself in the world. It's important to have role models out there, and I really appreciate you put yourself out there. Thank you. My wife often references you about things that I could do better, you know, differently. Tell her the grass is always greener.

Can I bring her in? Yes, yes, yes. Hello, what What's their name? Oh, and there's little people!

Rochelle, and then this is Avery and Ryland back here.

Oh my God, hi guys, they're so cute.

My daughter and I listen to Armchair Anonymous all the time in the car on the way to kids' activities. We love it.

Oh, good. How sweet.

I think she can listen to this one.

All right, well, our love to everyone there. So nice meeting you guys.

Yeah, nice to meet you too.

Okay, take care. Take care.

Pair of twins is like pair of jeans. It's like you shouldn't say that. Is that what we say?

Pair of twins?

Yeah, I said it. It just came out.

You can't say a set of twins because the set is 3.

You can't say anything. You can't say anything these days. You can't say—

we had another thing you can't say these days. Hello, is this Amy? This is. Has there been an avalanche of pillows? It's a beach blanket.

I'm in a closet.

Oh, okay, with a blank. Wow, you really doubled up in a very soft chair.

Is that a soft chair? Yeah, it is a very soft chair.

And what's your shirt say? I'm very nosy. Black Label. That's a coffee, right?

It's a skateboard company. Oh, it's related to my story.

Oh, that's a great name for a skateboard company.

You feel a little—

but there is Black Label beer.

I know, but you should know skateboarding.

I should, I should. But in my defense, I stopped skateboarding in probably '92.

I mean, they were big in the '90s. Oh, fuck.

Okay, what if it turned out I never skateboarded? We found that out. It was all revealed. Okay, Amy, where are you?

I'm in Benton Harbor, Michigan.

Get out of here! Okay, so Amy, you have a twin story? I do have a twin story.

Well, quick twin fun fact is that me and my sister were born on April Fool's Day, and my parents did not know they were having twins until 7 days before we were born.

Oh wow, a real April Fool's!

Real April Fool's! We had the same heartbeat the whole pregnancy, and then at the very end we moved and then they heard two. I mean, this was 40-something years ago, so like technology wasn't there yet. Wow. Anyway, so this story takes place in Indiana. My sister does not want me to tell you the town or the college that it happened at, but her name's Amber, by the way. So it was about 2003-ish. She was like in her senior year of college, and she was going to be married and moving out to California. She lives in San Diego.

Can I ask if you're identical or fraternal, or is that part of the story?

We are identical, and I did send pictures of us.

Oh, oh my God, yes! Oh, you guys are so cute. I want a twin. Oh, tie-dye phase coming. Very identical. You nailed the stereotype.

Okay, I had broken my foot dropping in, like I was learning how to skateboard at that time, so I was dropping in, rolled my foot. I just moved to the college town that she lived in because she was gonna leave the state after graduation, so like I moved down there. I was just working at this local hardware store and I was learning how to skateboard, broke my foot. I like walked around on it for a solid 2 days because I'm poor, I don't have insurance because I just to this job. And at some point I'm like, I gotta go get this checked out, but how am I gonna pay for it? And then my sister was like, well, just take my school IDs to the student center. Yes! And it'll all be free. And everybody's like, yeah, that's like such a great idea, let's do this. Nobody thought that this would be a bad idea.

I'm signing off on it right now. I think it sounds great.

Why pay for it if we don't have to? And then also, because it's Indiana, the 2 days before I was skateboarding, the 2 days later I was brushing snow off my car to go to the doctor's office. So, well, the student center. So I'm oblivious to this being a bad idea until I walk into the student center. And my sister's a senior at this point, so she's lived on campus for 4 years. She knows everybody. As soon as I walk in, it's like, hey Amber, hey Amber, what did you do? I don't know if she has known these people for 5 minutes. I don't know if they're her neighbors. I have no idea who they are. So I go up to the desk. The person person at the desk is like, oh my God, Amber, what did you do? And I'm like, I broke my foot.

This is really fun to think about. You're moving through the world and you're like a fraud. Yeah, you're playing a character.

Yep, it's exactly that.

You're in a really big scheme and everyone that's coming up to you is gonna induce panic. Yeah. And then you start thinking, how would my sister act right now?

This is a lot of stress. Yeah, it's like Twilight Zone-y.

It was like immediate stress. So I get through the front desk, I'm like, I've made it, that's got to be the hardest part. I get into the room and they're like checking out my but, and like, my heart is racing. And they're like, Amber, how are you doing with your thyroid medication? Are you keeping up on your thyroid medication? I'm like, uh, I don't actually know what milligram of that medication I'm on. I have no idea what it's called. I have no idea. And they're like, who's your primary care doctor? I'm like, I just switched doctors. I'm not sure what their name is.

Were you also thinking, oh shit, I should be on thyroid medication? My identical twin needs it.

No, actually, our health journeys are so opposite. That's a whole nother story. I even did a DNA test to make sure we were identical cause we're so different. But spoiler alert, we are. So they're like, well, you should really get that checked out. That's concerning. Your heart should not be racing like this. Well, of course, obviously I'm lying my ass off. So I did make it through that, but then from there I have to go to a specialist. I'm having to do it all over, fill out the forms. They say Amber's name on it. I have to go to several different doctors and pretend that I'm Amber and listen for the name Amber. And it's like, all right Amber, are you ready? And I'm like looking for Amber and I'm like, oh yeah, that's me.

Real life Parent Trapped.

Yeah, yeah, or body switch comedy too.

Yeah, Parent Trap.

So then I get through that, but then work is requiring me to have like all these doctor's notes for missed things that they all say my sister's name on it. So then I'm like altering doctor's notes to say my own name because I'm like, this says Amber, this does not say Amy. But also again, 20-something years ago, they're like, eh. My prescriptions all had my sister's name on it, all my follow-ups. But I mean, at the end of the day, I did not receive a single bill.

Oh wow, it worked!

Yeah, 10 out of 10, do not recommend. It was very short-lived, the stress, but it was very, very stressful.

You didn't have surgery or anything? Would they throw you in a cast at some point?

I was on crutches for about 12 weeks, so there was like physical therapy. And once I was off of campus, they had no idea who I was. And then my sister has this broken foot on her permanent health record, but I redeemed myself because I started skateboarding again last summer and I broke that same foot. Oh no, that's ridiculous.

Time to go to Amber's town. Do you guys live close?

No, she lives in San Diego. Is that hard? It's very hard. Yeah, we talk like 500 times a day. We probably see each other like once a year, and she has texted me like 50,000 times. She's like, I've never been so jealous in my life. She's like, I want to be on Armchair Anonymous. I'm like, well, that's the only crazy twin story we have though. That's great.

Well, this is noisy. So it's— she went to college and you didn't. How do you explain that?

I always tell people that I feel like we were raised by like two different sets of parents because we could not be any more different. Our voices are exactly the same and our mannerisms are exactly the same, but our personalities are very different. Like, I was like really stressed out about this. I'm like, oh my God, I'm gonna puke. And she's like, no, just be excited, you know? But like, our health journeys are different.

Dax has an idea that twins live the exact same life.

I mean, you really do. I want that to be the case. Of course, it's more exciting. I just think it's fascinating how much nurture gets in there.

Yeah, I say nature versus nurture all the time because our real dad did not raise us. Like, he was not in the picture until we were adults, and my sister's personality is identical to his. I'm more like my mom, but I don't think that has anything to do with her being there. But it was like my dad raised her solely and my mom raised me solely. She's very artistic, like, she's musical. I can't draw. So opposite. I actually like it.

As much as it's fun to think you're identical, I'm always a little disappointed that it's so much nature as a parent, because you want to have some sense that all this energy you put into it has an impact.

An entire year will go by and like we won't see each other, and then she'll come to my house or I'll come to her house and we'll be in the bedroom getting dressed and we'll have the exact same polar bear underwear on. Oh wow. We'll have the exact same mascara or little things like that are very random, but so different in every other way.

How about your taste in men or women?

Well, we both have been married and divorced and married again, and we both only had one kid. So like, she has a daughter and I have a son. We both had C-sections. That's very similar. But like, she married somebody a lot like my biological dad, and I married somebody more like my stepdad.

Oh, it's all wild. So interesting. Well, Amy, lovely meeting you, and give our love to Amber. Sorry she couldn't join in.

I will shout out to my husband for being so supportive. Of me being nervous. And then one of my very good friends, Ladonna, is number one arm cherry, so she's like, I would absolutely die if you say my name.

Oh, shout out! Yeah, shout out to everyone. Well, lovely meeting you. Good to meet you. All right, take care. Bye! Oh, Michiganders.

I want to get tricked by a twin. I mean, I am by you. Well, as I just figured out. It's a good trick though. Really good trick. You won't even finally admit it.

I will on my deathbed, because you'll be visiting me dying, and then I'll tap you on the shoulder and go, don't worry, only one of us is dying. One of us is healthy. But you're not sure which one. Ew. The one you went to Michigan with, or the one you went to Minnesota with?

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

Oh. Okay, great. We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go. We're gonna ask some random questions, and with the help of our cherries, we'll get some suggestions. On the Fly Rhyme Dish, On the Fly Rhyme Dish. Enjoy!